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) Archibald Knox. His jewelry designs in materials and forms broke away entirely from the historical traditions of jewelry design.
For Art Nouveau architecture and furniture design, the most important center in Britain was Glasgow, with the creations of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School, whose work was inspired by the French Art Nouveau, Japanese art, symbolism and Gothic revival. Beginning in 1895, Mackintosh displayed his designs at international expositions in London, Vienna, and Turin; his designs particularly influenced the Secession Style in Vienna. His architectural creations included the Glasgow Herald Building (1894) and the library of the Glasgow School of Art (1897). He also established a major reputation as a furniture designer and decorator, working closely with his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, a prominent painter and designer. Together they created striking designs which combined geometric straight lines with gently curving floral decoration, particularly a famous symbol of the style, the Glasgow Rose".
Léon-Victor Solon, made an important contribution to Art Nouveau ceramics as art director at Mintons. He specialised in plaques and in tube-lined vases marketed as "secessionist ware" (usually described as named after the Viennese art movement).[25] Apart from ceramics, he designed textiles for the Leek silk industry[26] and doublures for a bookbinder (G.T.Bagguley of Newcastle under Lyme), who patented the Sutherland binding in 1895.
The Edward Everard building in Bristol, built during 1900–01 to house the printing works of Edward Everard, features an Art Nouveau façade. The figures depicted are of Johannes Gutenberg and William Morris, both eminent in the field of printing. A winged figure symbolises the "Spirit of Light", while a figure holding a lamp and mirror symbolises light and truth.
Jugendstil in Germany [ edit ]
German Art Nouveau is commonly known by its German name, Jugendstil. The name is taken from the artistic journal, Die Jugend, which was published in Munich and which espoused the new artistic movement. It was founded in 1896 by Georg Hirth (Hirth remained editor until his death in 1916, and the magazine continued to be published until 1940). The magazine was instrumental in promoting the style in Germany. As a result, its name was adopted as the most common German-language term for the style: Jugendstil ("youth style"). Although, during the early 20th century, the word was applied to only two-dimensional examples of the graphic arts,[27] especially the forms of organic typography and graphic design found in and influenced by German magazines like Jugend, Pan, and Simplicissimus, it is now applied to more general manifestations of Art Nouveau visual arts in Germany, the Netherlands, the Baltic states, and Nordic countries.[3][28] The two main centres for Jugendstil art in Germany were Munich and Darmstadt (Mathildenhöhe).
Two other journals, Simplicissimus, published in Munich, and Pan, published in Berlin, proved to be important proponents of the Jugendstil. The magazines were important for spreading the visual idiom of Jugendstil, especially the graphical qualities. Jugendstil art includes a variety of different methods, applied by the various individual artists and features the use of hard lines as well as sinuous curves. Methods range from classic to romantic. One feature of Jugendstil is the typography used, the letter and image combination of which is unmistakable. The combination was used for covers of novels, advertisements, and exhibition posters. Designers often used unique display typefaces that worked harmoniously with the image.
One of the most famous German artists associated with both Die Jugend and Pan was Otto Eckmann. His favourite animal was the swan, and such was his influence in the German movement that the swan came to serve as the leitmotif for the Jugendstil.
One of the most prominent German designers in the style was Richard Riemerschmid, who made furniture, pottery, and other decorative objects in a sober, geometric style that pointed forward toward Art Deco.
Vienna Secession in Austria [ edit ]
Vienna became the center of a distinct variant of Art Nouveau, which became known as the Vienna Secession, an art movement that was founded in April 1897 by a group of artists which included Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, and Otto Wagner. The painter Klimt became the president of the group. They objected to the conservative orientation toward historicism expressed by Vienna Künstlerhaus, the official union of artists. The Secession founded a magazine, Ver Sacrum, to promote their works in all media. The Secession style was notably more feminine, less heavy and less nationalist than the Jugendstil in neighboring Germany. The architect Joseph Olbrich designed the domed Secession building in the new style, which became a showcase for the paintings of Gustav Klimt and other Secession artists. The architectural style of the Vienna Secession had an influence well beyond the city. Buildings in the style appeared in the other major cities of the Empire and beyond; one of the most famous examples is the Stoclet Palace built by Josef Hoffmann in Brussels in 1905–11. The interior is entirely decorated in Secession style, including notable paintings by Gustav Klimt.
Klimt became the best-known of the Secession painters, often erasing the border between fine art painting and decorative painting. Koloman Moser was an extremely versatile artist in the style; his work including magazine illustrations, architecture, silverware, ceramics, porcelain, textiles, stained glass windows, furniture, and more. He often worked in collaboration with Hoffmann and Klimt; the three together created the interiors, furnishing and even clothing to be worn in the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. In 1903, he and Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte, a training school and workshop for designers and craftsmen of furniture, carpets, textiles and decorative objects.
Secession in Central Europe [ edit ]
In the capitals of Central Europe, then ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Vienna, national forms of Art Nouveau are quick to appear, and often took on historical or folkloric elements. The furniture designs of Ödön Faragó in Budapest (Hungary) combined traditional popular architecture, oriental architecture and international Art Nouveau in a highly picturesque style. Pál Horti, another Hungarian designer, had a much more sober and functional style, made of oak with delicate traceries of ebony and brass.
Prague, in the Czech Republic, has a notable collection of Art Nouveau architecture, including the Hotel Central and the Jubilee Synagogue, built in 1908.
The style of combining Art Nouveau and national architectural elements was typical also for a Slovak architect Dušan Jurkovič who was under the influence of Hungarian Art Nouveau. His most original works are the Cultural House in Skalica in Slovakia (1905), buildings of spa in Luhačovice in the Czech Republic (1901–1903) and 35 war cemeteries near Nowy Żmigród in Galicia (now Poland), most of them heavily influenced by local Lemko (Rusyn) folk art and carpentry (1915–1917). Another example of Secession architecture in Slovakia is the Church of St. Elisabeth (The Little Blue Church) in Bratislava.
Stile Liberty in Italy [ edit ]
Italy's Stile Liberty took its name from the British department store Liberty, the colorful textiles of which were particularly popular in Italy. Notable Italian designers included Galileo Chini, whose ceramics were inspired both by majolica patterns and by Art Nouveau. He was later known as a painter and a scenic designer; he designed the sets for two Puccini operas Gianni Schicchi and Turandot.
The Teatro Massimo in Palermo, by the architect Ernesto Basile, is an example of the Italian variant of the style, architectural style, which combined Art Nouveau and classical elements.
The most important figure in Italian Art Nouveau furniture design was Carlo Bugatti, the son of an architect and sculptor, and brother of the famous automobile designer. He studied at the Milanese Academy of Brera, and later the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His work was distinguished by its exoticism and eccentricity, included silverware, textiles, ceramics, and musical instruments, but he is best remembered for his innovative furniture designs, shown first in the 1888 Milan Fine Arts Fair. His furniture often featured a keyhole design, and had unusual coverings, including parchment and silk, and inlays of bone and ivory. It also sometimes had surprising organic shapes, copied after snails and cobras.
Modernisme in Spain, Arte Nova in Portugal [ edit ]
In Spain, a highly original variant of the style, Catalan Modernisme, appeared in Barcelona. Its most famous creator was Antoni Gaudí, who used Art Nouveau's floral and organic forms in a very novel way in Palau Güell (1886).[34] His designs from about 1903, the Casa Batlló (1904–1906) and Casa Milà (1906–1908), are most closely related to the stylistic elements of Art Nouveau.[35] However, famous structures such as the Sagrada Família characteristically contrast the modernising Art Nouveau tendencies with revivalist Neo-Gothic.[35] Besides the dominating presence of Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner also used Art Nouveau in Barcelona in buildings such as the Castell dels Tres Dragons (1888), Palau de la Música Catalana and Casa Lleó Morera (1905).[35] Another major modernista was Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who designed the Casa Martí and its Quatre Gats café, the Casimir Casaramona textile factory (now the CaixaFòrum art museum), Casa Macaya, Casa Amatller, the Palau del Baró de Quadras (housing Casa Àsia for 10 years until 2013) and the Casa de les Punxes ("House of Spikes"). Also well-known is Josep Maria Jujol, with houses in Sant Joan Despí (1913–1926), several churches near Tarragona (1918 and 1926) and the sinuous Casa Planells (1924) in Barcelona. A few other major architects working outside of Barcelona were Lluís Muncunill i Parellada, with a magnificent textile factory in Terrassa (Vapor Aymerich, Amat i Jover, now the Science and Technology Museum of Catalonia – Museu de la Ciència i de la Tècnica de Catalunya) and a "farmhouse"/small manor house called Masia Freixa in the same city; and Cèsar Martinell i Brunet, with his spectacular "wine cathedrals", housing town cooperative wineries throughout southern and central Catalonia. A Valencian architect who worked in Catalonia before emigrating to the States was Rafael Guastavino. Attributed to him is the Asland Cement Factory in Castellar de n'Hug, among other buildings.
The Catalan furniture designer Gaspar Homar (1870–1953), influenced by Antoni Gaudí, often combining marquetry and mosaics with his furnishings. Examples of Art Nouveau (Arte nova), based largely on the French model, appeared in Portugal in Porto and Aveiro. A notable example is the 'Livraria Lello' bookstore in Porto, designed by Xavier Esteves (1906).
Jugendstil in the Nordic Countries [ edit ]
Art Nouveau was popular in the Nordic countries, where it was usually known as Jugendstil, and was often combined with the National Romantic Style of each country. In Norway the Art Nouveau was connected with a revival inspired by Viking folk art and crafts. Notable designers included Lars Kisarvik, who designed chairs with traditional Viking and Celtic patterns, and Gerhard Munthe, who designed a chair with a stylized dragon-head emblem from ancient Viking ships, as well as a wide variety of posters, paintings and graphics. Other examples include the Skien Church (1887–1894) and Fagerborg Church in Kristiania (Oslo) (1900–1903).
In Finland, good examples are the Helsinki Central railway station, designed by Eliel Saarinen, father of the famous American modernist architect Eero Saarinen. Examples of the style include the Finnish National Theatre, Kallio Church, the Finnish National Museum, and Tampere Cathedral. In contrast to the very elaborate furniture of the Norwegian Art Nouveau, Finnish Art Deco was extremely simple and functional, as in the chairs designed by Eliel Saarinen (1907-1908).[38][39]
World of Art in Russia [ edit ]
A very colorful Russian variation of Art Nouveau appeared in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in 1898 with the publication of a new art journal, "Мир искусства" (transliteration: Mir Iskusstva) ("The World of Art"), by Russian artists Alexandre Benois and Léon Bakst, and chief editor Sergei Diaghilev. The magazine organized exhibitions of leading Russian artists, including Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Somov, Isaac Levitan, and the book illustrator Ivan Bilibin. The World of Art style made less use of the vegetal and floral forms of French Art Nouveau; it drew heavily upon the bright colors and exotic designs of Russian folklore and fairy tales. The most influential contribution of the "World of Art" was the creation by Diaghilev of a new ballet company, the Ballets Russes, headed by Diaghilev, with costumes and sets designed by Bakst and Benois. The new ballet company premiered in Paris in 1909, and performed there every year through 1913. The exotic and colorful sets designed by Benois and Bakst had a major impact on French art and design. The costume and set designs were reproduced in the leading Paris magazines, L'Illustration, La Vie parisienne and Gazette du bon ton, and the Russian style became known in Paris as à la Bakst. The company was stranded in Paris first by the outbreak of World War I, and then by the Russian Revolution in 1917, and ironically never performed in Russia.[40]
Moscow and Saint Petersburg have several prominent Art Nouveau buildings constructed in the last years before the Revolution; notably the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, which features a ceramic mural on the façade, The Princess of Dreams, by scenic designer Mikhail Vrubel; and the Vitebsk Railway Station in Saint Petersburg (1904)
Tiffany Style in the United States [ edit ]
In the United States, the firm of Louis Comfort Tiffany played a central role in American Art Nouveau. Born in 1848, he studied at the National Academy of Design in New York, began working with glass at the age of 24, entered the family business started by his father, and 1885 set up his own enterprise devoted to fine glass, and developed new techniques for its coloring. In 1893, he began making glass vases and bowls, again developing new techniques that allowed more original shapes and coloring, and began experimenting with decorative window glass. Layers of glass were printed, marbled and superimposed, giving an exceptional richness and variety of color In 1895 his new works were featured in the Art Nouveau gallery of Siegfried Bing, giving him a new European clientele. After the death of his father in 1902, he took over the entire Tiffany enterprise, but still devoted much of his time to designing and manufacturing glass art objects. At the urging of Thomas Edison, he began to manufacture electric lamps with multicolored glass shades in structures of bronze and iron, or decorated with mosaics, produced in numerous series and editions, each made with the care of a piece of jewelry. A team of designers and craftsmen worked on each product. The Tiffany lamp in particular became one of the icons of the Art Nouveau, but Tiffany's craftsmen (and craftswomen) designed and made extraordinary windows, vases, and other glass art. Tiffany's glass also had great success at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris; his stained glass window called the Flight of Souls won a gold medal.
Another important figure in American Art Nouveau was the architect Louis Sullivan, best known as the architect of some of the first American iron-framed skyscrapers. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, most famous for the neoclassical architecture of its renowned White City, he designed a spectacular Art Nouveau entrance to the Transportation Building. The Columbian Exposition was also an important venue for Tiffany; a chapel he designed was shown at the Pavilion of Art and Industry. The Tiffany Chapel, along with one of the windows of Tiffany's home in New York, are now on display at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida.
Form and character [ edit ]
La tournée du Chat noir de Rodolphe Salis (1896) by (1896) by Théophile Steinlen
Although Art Nouveau acquired distinctly localised tendencies as its geographic spread increased, some general characteristics are indicative of the form. A description published in Pan magazine of Hermann Obrist's wall hanging Cyclamen (1894) described it as "sudden violent curves generated by the crack of a whip", which became well known during the early spread of Art Nouveau.[42] Subsequently, not only did the work itself become better known as The Whiplash but the term "whiplash" is frequently applied to the characteristic curves employed by Art Nouveau artists.[42] Such decorative "whiplash" motifs, formed by dynamic, undulating, and flowing lines in a syncopated rhythm and asymmetrical shape, are found throughout the architecture, painting, sculpture, and other forms of Art Nouveau design.
The origins of Art Nouveau are sometimes attributed in the resistance of the artist William Morris to the cluttered compositions and the revival tendencies of the 19th century and his theories that helped initiate the Arts and crafts movement.[43] Arthur Mackmurdo's book-cover for Wren's City Churches (1883), with its rhythmic floral patterns, is also sometimes described as the first realisation of Art Nouveau.[43] About the same time, the flat perspective and strong colors of Japanese wood block prints, especially those of Katsushika Hokusai, had a strong effect on the formulation of Art Nouveau.[44] The Japonisme that was popular in Europe during the 1880s and 1890s was particularly influential on many artists with its organic forms and references to the natural world.[44] Besides being adopted by artists like Emile Gallé and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Japanese-inspired art and design was championed by the businessmen Siegfried Bing and Arthur Lasenby Liberty at their stores[45] in Paris and London, respectively.[44]
Doorway at 24 place Etienne Pernet, ( Paris 15e ), 1905 Alfred Wagon, architect.
In architecture, hyperbolas and parabolas in windows, arches, and doors are common, and decorative mouldings 'grow' into plant-derived forms. Like most design styles, Art Nouveau sought to harmonise its forms. The text above the Paris Metro entrance uses the qualities of the rest of the iron work in the structure.[46]
Art Nouveau in architecture and interior design eschewed the eclectic revival styles of the 19th century. Though Art Nouveau, designers selected and'modernised' some of the more abstract elements of Rococo style, such as flame and shell textures, they also advocated the use of very stylised organic forms as a source of inspiration, expanding the 'natural' repertoire to use seaweed, grasses, and insects. The softly-melding forms of 17th-century auricular style, best exemplified in Dutch silverware, was another influence.
Relationship with contemporary styles and movements [ edit ]
As an art style, Art Nouveau has affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolist styles, and artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha, Edward Burne-Jones, Gustav Klimt and Jan Toorop could be classed in more than one of these styles. Unlike Symbolist painting, however, Art Nouveau has a distinctive appearance; and, unlike the artisan-oriented Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau artists readily used new materials, machined surfaces, and abstraction in the service of pure design.
Art Nouveau did not eschew the use of machines, as the Arts and Crafts Movement did. For sculpture, the principal materials employed were glass and wrought iron, resulting in sculptural qualities even in architecture. Ceramics were also employed in creating editions of sculptures by artists such as Auguste Rodin.[47]
Art Nouveau architecture made use of many technological innovations of the late 19th century, especially the use of exposed iron and large, irregularly shaped pieces of glass for architecture.
Art Nouveau tendencies were also absorbed into local styles. In Denmark, for example, it was one aspect of Skønvirke ("aesthetic work"), which itself more closely relates to the Arts and Crafts style.[48][49] Likewise, artists adopted many of the floral and organic motifs of Art Nouveau into the Młoda Polska ("Young Poland") style in Poland.[50] Młoda Polska, however, was also inclusive of other artistic styles and encompassed a broader approach to art, literature, and lifestyle.[51]
Graphics [ edit ]
The graphic arts flourished in the Art Nouveau period, thanks to new technologies of printing, particularly color lithography which allowed the mass production of color posters. Art was no longer confined to galleries, museums and salons; it could be found on Paris walls, and in illustrated art magazines, which circulated throughout Europe and to the United States. The most popular theme of Art Nouveau posters was women; women symbolizing glamour, modernity and beauty, often surrounded by flowers.
In Britain, the leading graphic artist in the Art Nouveau style was Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). He began with engraved book illustrations for Le Morte d'Arthur, then black and white illustrations for Salome by Oscar Wilde (1893), which brought him fame. In the same year, he began engraving illustrations and posters for the art magazine The Studio, which helped publicize European artists such as Fernand Khnopff in Britain. The curving lines and intricate floral patterns attracted as much attention as the text.
The Swiss-French artist Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) was one of the first creators of French Art Nouveau posters. He helped decorate the famous cabaret Le Chat noir in 1885 and made his first posters for the Fêtes de Paris. He made a celebrated poster of Sarah Bernhardt in 1890, and a wide variety of book illustrations. The artist-designers Jules Chéret, Georges de Feure and the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all made posters for Paris theaters, cafés, dance halls cabarets. The Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) arrived in Paris in 1888, and in 1895 made a poster for actress Sarah Bernhardt in the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou. The success of this poster led to a contract to produce posters for six more plays by Bernhardt. Over the next four years, he also designed sets, costumes, and even jewelry for the actress.[53][54] Based on the success of his theater posters, Mucha made posters for a variety of products, ranging from cigarettes and soap to beer biscuits, all featuring an idealized female figure with an hourglass figure. He went on to design products, from jewelry to biscuit boxes, in his distinctive style.
In Vienna, the most prolific designer of graphics and posters was Koloman Moser (1868-1918), who actively participated in the Secession movement with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, and made illustrations and covers for the magazine of the movement, Ver Sacrum, as well as paintings, furniture and decoration.
Painting [ edit ]
Painting was another domain of Art Nouveau, though most painters associated with Art Nouveau are primarily described as members of other movements, particularly post-impressionism and symbolism. Alphonse Mucha was famous for his Art Nouveau posters, which frustrated him. According to his son and biographer, Jiří Mucha, he did not think much of Art Nouveau. "What is it, Art Nouveau? he asked. "...Art can never be new." He took the greatest pride in his work as a history painter. His one Art-Nouveau inspired painting, "Slava", is a portrait of the daughter of his patron in Slavic costume, which was modeled after his theatrical posters.
In 1892, Siegfried Bing organized an exhibition in Paris featuring seven painters, including Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, and Maurice Denis; and his Maison de l'Art Nouveau exhibited paintings by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Eugène Grasset, Koloman Moser and Gustav Klimt also did some decorative work. However, all of these artists were primarily known for paintings in movements outside Art Nouveau. Seurat and Signac were known for Post-impressionism well before before the appearance of Art Nouveau. Bonnard, Vuillard and Vallaton were members of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters Les Nabis.[58] Maurice Denis did some interior design work in the Art Nouveau style, but his easel paintings were firmly in the style of the Nabis. In Belgium, Fernand Khnopff worked in both painting and graphic design. Wall murals by Gustav Klimt were integrated into decorative scheme of Josef Hoffmann for the Palais Stoclet, but the paintings of Klimt and Khnopff are usually considered examples of symbolism rather than Art Nouveau.
One common theme of both symbolist and Art Nouveau painters of the period was the stylized depiction of women. One popular subject was the American dancer Loie Fuller, portrayed by French and Austrian painters and poster artists.[59]
Glass art [ edit ]
Glass art was a medium in which Art Nouveau found new and varied ways of expression. Intense amount of experimentation went on, particularly in France, to find new effects of transparency and opacity: in engraving win cameo, double layers, and acid engraving, a technique which permitted production in series. The city of Nancy became an important center for the French glass industry, and the workshops of Emile Gallé and the Daum studio, led by Auguste and Antonin Daum, were located there. They worked with many notable designers, including Ernest Bussière [fr], Henri Bergé (illustrateur) [fr], and Amalric Walter. They developed a new method of incrusting glass by pressing fragments of different color glass into the unfinished piece. They often collaborated with the furniture designer Louis Majorelle, whose home and workshops were in Nancy. Another feature of Art Nouveau was the use of stained glass windows with that style of floral themes in residential salons, particularly in the Art Nouveau houses in Nancy. Many were the work of Jacques Gruber, who made windows for the Villa Majorelle and other houses.
In Belgium, the leading firm was the glass factory of Val Saint Lambert, which created vases in organic and floral forms, many of them designed by Philippe Wolfers. Wolfers was noted particularly for creating works of symbolist glass, often with metal decoration attached. In Bohemia, then a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire noted for crystal manufacture, the companies J. & L. Lobmeyr and Joh. Loetz Witwe [de] also experimented with new coloring techniques, producing more vivid and richer colors. In Germany, experimentation was led by Karl Köpping, who used blown glass to create extremely delicate glasses in the form of flowers; so delicate that few survive today.
In Vienna, the glass designs of the Secession movement were much more geometrical than those of France or Belgium; Otto Prutscher was the most rigorous glass designer of the movement.
In Britain, a number of floral stained glass designs were created by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh for the architectural display called "The House of an Art Lover."
In the United States, Louis Comfort Tiffany and his designers became particularly famous for their lamps, whose glass shades used common floral themes intricately pieced together. Tiffany lamps gained popularity after the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, where Tiffany displayed his lamps in a Byzantine-like chapel. Tiffany experimented extensively with the processes of coloring glass, patenting in 1894 the process Favrile glass, which used metallic oxides to color the interior of the molten glass, giving it an iridescent effect. His workshops produced several different series of the Tiffany lamp in different floral designs, along with stained glass windows, screens, vases and a range of decorative objects. His works were first imported to Germany, then to France by Siegfried Bing, and then became one of the decorative sensations of the 1900 Exposition. An American rival to Tiffany, Steuben Glass, was founded in 1903 in Corning, NY, by Frederick Carder, who, like Tiffany, used the Fevrile process to create surfaces with iridescent colors. Another notable American glass artist was John La Farge, who created intricate and colorful stained glass windows on both religious and purely decorative themes.
Metal art [ edit ]
The 19th-century architectural theorist Viollet-le-Duc had advocated showing, rather than concealing the iron frameworks of modern buildings, but Art Nouveau architects Victor Horta and Hector Guimard went a step further: they added iron decoration in curves inspired by floral and vegetal forms both in the interiors and exteriors of their buildings. They took the form of stairway railings in the interior, light fixtures, and other details in the interior, and balconies and other ornaments on the exterior. These became some of the most distinctive features of Art Nouveau architecture. The use of metal decoration in vegetal forms soon also appeared in silverware, lamps, and other decorative items.
In the United States, the designer George Grant Elmslie made extremely intricate cast iron designs for the balustrades and other interior decoration of the buildings of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan.
While French and American designers used floral and vegetal forms, Joseph Maria Olbrich and the other Secession artists designed teapots and other metal objects in a more geometric and sober style.
Jewelry [ edit ]
Art Nouveau is characterized done by soft, curved shapes and lines, and usually features natural designs such as flowers, birds and other animals. The female body is a popular theme and is featured on a variety of jewelry pieces, especially cameos. It frequently included long necklaces made of pearls or sterling-silver chains punctuated by glass beads or ending in a silver or gold pendant, itself often designed as an ornament to hold a single, faceted jewel of amethyst, peridot, or citrine.[64]
The Art Nouveau period brought a notable stylistic revolution to the jewelry industry, led largely by the major firms in Paris. For the previous two centuries, the emphasis in fine jewelry had been creating dramatic settings for diamonds. During the reign of Art Nouveau, diamonds usually played a supporting role. Jewelers experimented with a wide variety of other stones, including agate, garnet opal, moonstone, aquamarine and other semi-precious stones, and with a wide variety of new techniques, among others enameling, and new materials, including horn, molded glass, and ivory.
Early notable Paris jewelers in the Art Nouveau style included Louis Aucoc, whose family jewelry firm dated to 1821. The most famous designer of the Art Nouveau period, René Lalique, served his apprenticeship in the Aucoc studio from 1874 to 1876. Lalique became a central figure of Art Nouveau jewelry and glass, using nature, from dragonflies to grasses, as his model. Artists from outside of the traditional world of jewellery, such as Paul Follot, best known as a furniture designer, experimented with jewellery designs. Other notable French Art Nouveau jewellery designers included Jules Brateau and Georges Henry. In the United States, the most famous designer was Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose work was shown at the shop of Siegfried Bing and also at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
In Britain, the most prominent figure was the Liberty & Co. designer Archibald Knox, who made a variety of Art Nouveau pieces, including silver belt buckles. C. R. Ashbee designed pendants in the shapes of peacocks. The versatile Glasgow designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh also made jewellery, using traditional Celtic symbols. In Germany, the center for Jugendstil jewelry was the city of Pforzheim, where most of the German firms, including Theodor Fahrner, were located. They quickly produced works to meet the demand for the new style. [64]
Architecture [ edit ]
Art Nouveau architecture was a reaction against the eclectic styles which dominated European architecture in the second half of the 19th century. It was expressed through decoration. The buildings were covered with ornament in curving forms, based on flowers, plants or animals: butterflies, peacocks, swans, irises, cyclamens, orchids and water lilies. Façades were asymmetrical, and often decorated with polychrome ceramic tiles. The decoration usually suggested movement; there was no distinction between the structure and the ornament.[66]
The style first appeared in Brussels' Hôtel Tassel (1894) and Hôtel Solvay (1900) of Victor Horta. The Hôtel Tassel was visited by Hector Guimard, who used the same style in his first major work, the Castel Béranger (1897–98). In all of these houses, the architects also designed the furniture and the interior decoration, down to the doorknobs and carpeting. In 1899, based on the fame of the Castel Béranger, Guimard received a commission to design the entrances of the stations of the new Paris Métro, which opened in 1900. Though few of the originals survived, These became the symbol of the Art Nouveau movement in Paris.
In Paris, the architectural style was also a reaction to the strict regulations imposed on building facades by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect of Paris under Napoleon III. Bow windows were finally allowed in 1903, and Art Nouveau architects went to the opposite extreme, most notably in the houses of Jules Lavirotte, which were essentially large works of sculpture, completely covered with decoration. An important neighborhood of Art Nouveau houses appeared in the French city of Nancy, around the Villa Majorelle (1901–02), the residence of furniture designer Louis Majorelle. It was designed by Henri Sauvage as a showcase for Majorelle's furniture designs.[67]
Furniture [ edit ]
Furniture design in the Art Nouveau period was closely associated with the architecture of the buildings; the architects often designed the furniture, carpets, light fixtures, doorknobs, and other decorative details. The furniture was often complex and expensive; a fine finish, usually polished or varnished, was regarded as essential, and continental designs were usually very complex, with curving shapes that were expensive to make. It also had the drawback that the owner of the home could not change the furniture or add pieces in a different style without disrupting the entire effect of the room. For this reason, when Art Nouveau architecture went out of style, the style of furniture also largely disappeared.
In France, the center for furniture design and manufacture was in Nancy, where two major designers, Émile Gallé and Louis Majorelle had their studios and workshops, and where the Alliance des industries d'art (later called the School of Nancy) had been founded in 1901. Both designers based on their structure and ornamentation on forms taken from nature, including flowers and insects, such as the dragonfly, a popular motif in Art Nouveau design. Gallé was particularly known for his use of marquetry in relief, in the form of landscapes or poetic themes. Majorelle was known for his use of exotic and expensive woods, and for attaching bronze sculpted in vegetal themes to his pieces of furniture. Both designers used machines for the first phases of manufacture, but all the pieces were finished by hand. Other notable furniture designers of the Nancy School included Eugène Vallin and Émile André; both were architects by training, and both designed furniture that resembled the furniture from Belgian designers such as Horta and Van de Velde, which had less decoration and followed more closely the curving plants and flowers. Other notable French designers included Henri Bellery-Desfontaines, who took his inspiration from the neo-Gothic styles of Viollet-le-Duc; and Georges de Feure, Eugène Gaillard, and Édouard Colonna, who worked together with art dealer Siegfried Bing to revitalize the French furniture industry with new themes. Their work was known for "abstract naturalism", its unity of straight and curved lines, and its rococo influence. The furniture of de Feure at the Bing pavilion won a gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The most unusual and picturesque French designer was François-Rupert Carabin, a sculptor by training, whose furniture featured sculpted nude female forms and symbolic animals, particularly cats, who combined Art Nouveau elements with Symbolism. Other influential Paris furniture designers were Charles Plumet, and Alexandre Charpentier. In many ways the old vocabulary and techniques of classic French 18th-century Rococo furniture were re-interpreted in a new style.[5]
In Belgium, the pioneer architects of the Art Nouveau movement, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, designed furniture for their houses, using vigorous curving lines and a minimum of decoration. The Belgian designer Gustave Serrurier-Bovy added more decoration, applying brass strips in curving forms. In the Netherlands, where the style was called Nieuwe Kunst or New Art, H.P. Berlag, Lion Cachet and Theodor Nieuwenhuis followed a different course, that of the English Arts and Crafts movement, with more geometric rational forms.
In Britain, the furniture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh was purely Arts and Crafts, austere and geometrical, with long straight lines and right angles and a minimum of decoration.[69] Continental designs were much more elaborate, often using curved shapes both in the basic shapes of the piece, and in applied decorative motifs. In Germany, the furniture of Peter Behrens and the Jugendstil was largely rationalist, with geometric straight lines |
on his Facebook page. The detective was later suspended and transferred out of the department's gang unit to field services.
The probe was announced by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, head of civil rights division.
"Our goal is to search for the truth," he told the Journal earlier. "We're looking to see if there are systemic problems embedded in the culture of the department."
Last year, the mayor vetoed a City Council resolution that invited the Justice Department to investigate the police.
The Journal has background on the fatal shootings and a timeline.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/10QHz1eIt’s been just over a week since Vestaria Saga I was released. So far, a good number of fans have been enjoying the game, over on our forums, reddit, NeoGAF and other places.
For those of you brave enough to play the game despite the language barrier, but who are finding it difficult to decipher the menus, we made this for you!
Hint: You can click the images to enlarge them.
Title Screen
This is what you see upon booting up the game. The menus options are self-explanatory.
The “Reference” option loads up a manual of sorts, but right now, all the information within can be found in the game’s official site.
Battle Preparations
After a couple of missions, you’ll gain access to the battle preparations menu before a mission. Here, you can choose which units to deploy by going to “Select Units”.
Units highlighted in yellow must be deployed. The maximum number of units that can be deployed is shown along the bottom of the screen. You can toggle units to deploy by selecting them.
This menu appears when you choose “Manage Items”. Here, you can withdraw and deposit items by going to “Trade with Stock”. The options from left to right are Withdraw, Deposit and Deposit All.
Map Menu
This menu appears when you select an empty space on the map. At the beginning of the first turn and every 5th turn–and before you’ve moved any units–you can opt to save your game using the first option (otherwise it’s missing).
“Conditions” displays the victory (on the left) and defeat (on the right) conditions for the current mission. These conditions can vary a lot according to the specific mission, so a separate guide is required.
“Config” brings up a variety of game settings that can be adjusted:
Option Explanation Background Music Volume 100% by default; can be changed in increments of 25%. Sound Effect Volume 75% by default; can be changed in increments of 25%. Voice Volume This game doesn’t include Voice, so changing this does nothing. Real Battle Style On by default. “On” shows battle scenes, while “Off” shows map battles. Auto Turn End On by default. After moving every playable character, the player’s turn automatically ends. Enemy Turn Skip Off by default. Skips the entire enemy phase. Map Grid Off by default. Displays a grid on the map. Unit Speed Slow by default. Affects the speed that units move on the map. Message Speed Slow by default. Affects the speed that text is displayed during messages. Unit Status On by default. Displays a unit’s status in the Unit Menu. Load Command On by default. Enables the “Load” command from the Map Menu. Auto Cursor On by default. At the start of each turn, the cursor moves straight to the Leader Unit. Mouse Controls Off by default. Enables mouse controls (not supported by this game). Mouse Cursor Tracking Off by default. Automatically tracks the mouse cursor (not supported by this game).
Unit Menu
You can view a character’s stats by pressing Cancel when highlighting them or from the “Check Status” option during battle preparations.
The stats should be familiar to Fire Emblem fans, but just in case…
Attribute Explanation Lv (Level) A measure of the the unit’s ability. Maximum value is 20. Ex (Experience) Can be gained by defeating units or using staves, etc. After acquiring 100, the character gains a Level. Str (Strength) Affects the character’s physical damage output. Mag (Magic) Affects the character’s magical damage output. Skl (Skill) Affects the character’s Hit Rate and ability to land Fatal Attacks. Spd (Speed) Affects the character’s Avoid and ability to perform a follow up attack. Lck (Luck) Reduces the enemy’s ability to land Fatal Attacks. Prf (Proficiency) The character can wield weapons that have an equal or lower Proficiency (and if they are capable of wielding that weapon type). Def (Defence) Reduces the enemy’s physical damage output. Res (Resistance) Reduces the enemy’s magical damage output. Mov (Movement) The maximum number of squares a character can traverse.
On the right hand side:
Attribute Explanation Might Weapon’s Might + Strength or Magic Hit Rate The chance of striking the enemy Fatal The chance of inflicting a fatal attack on the enemy.
Fatal Attack: Skill = Fatal rate chance of a critical attack that deals double damage
Only triggers with the “Fatal Attack” skill or via certain weapons or support effects Avoid The chance of avoiding an enemy attack Fatal Avoid Reduces the odds of receiving an enemy Fatal Attack Defence Reduces the enemy’s physical damage output Resistance Reduces the enemy’s magical damage output Range The possible range of attack; depends on the weapon.
If 1, can attack adjacent enemies
If 2~3, can attack from 2~3 squares away, but not adjacent enemies Attack Speed If a unit has 3 or more Attack Speed, they will perform a follow up attack after the enemy’s attack Support A list of available support partners
While on the same screen, pressing Confirm will allow you to check a weapon or item’s stats.
Attribute Explanation Might The weapon’s damage rating. Hit (Hit Rate) Affects the chance of successfully striking an enemy. Fatal Affects the chance of landing a Fatal Attack. Range The weapon’s attack range. Prf (Proficiency) Can be wielded if the character’s Proficiency stat is equal or higher (and if they are capable of wielding that weapon type). Uses The maximum number of uses. Once it reaches 0, the weapon or item vanishes. Weight Reduces the character’s Attack Speed. 2x Attack If a weapon has this attribute, the character strikes twice for each normal attack. If the character can perform a follow up attack, this allows for up to 4 attacks (more if skills like Adept trigger). Effective The weapon deals increased damage against the listed class types. Skills Special skills granted by the weapon. Only Which character can wield this weapon.
Commands
Finally, when selecting a character on the map, there are a variety of commands available to them, depending on the situation. Below are some common ones you may find:
Image Command Explanation Attack Engage a selected enemy (if an enemy is in attack range). Chest Open a treasure chest (if unit is a Thief or has a Chest Key). Door Open a locked door (if unit is a Thief or has a Door Key). Investigate Hmm, what could be here…? (Try going to suspicious areas of the map.) Item Manage items (if the unit has items). Seize Take control of a designated location. Shop Visit a shop. Staff Use a staff (if unit has a staff and another unit is in range). Stock Access the supply (if the unit is Zeid or is adjacent to Zeid). Talk Speak with a unit (if in range). You can select “View Units” to show a list of units that can talk. Trade Trade items (if a friendly unit is adjacent and at least one of the units has items). Visit Visit a house or village. Wait Immediately ends the unit’s turn.
If we’re missing anything or you need more help, let us know in the comments!Kaitlan Collins responded to the backlash she’d received over the past week in an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday broadcast of “Media Buzz.”
Host Howie Kurtz first posed to The Daily Caller’s White House correspondent that the establishment media “said the President is trying to avoid tough questions by not calling on a major national newspaper or broadcast group.”
WATCH:
“That was another question I got after my question,” Collins responded. “Did the White House tell you what to ask?”
“I can’t decide if it’s offensive or laughable because they are probably talking to the White House more than I am.”
“No, I don’t think he should only call on conservative outlets — I think he should call on the whole room — but I don’t think there was this hand-wringing over who the president was calling on when Barack Obama refused to call on Fox News and only called on left-leaning outlets,” she continued. “No one was going on TV saying the fix was in then. It’s just because it’s a conservative outlet, and they’re not used to The Daily Caller getting a question.”
“They’re offended because the question they wanted answered didn’t get asked,” the Alabama native stated. “I wasn’t aware that we were all supposed to go in there and ask the same question.”
“What’s the point of me being here if I’m going to ask the same question as Jim Acosta or Hallie Jackson?”
Follow Datoc on Twitter and FacebookWhether it be the Boston Bruins going off the board to take Zachary Senyshyn, the rapid rise or fall of a Swedish blueliner’s stock, or Nikita Korostelev free-falling to the seventh round, a mock draft can go off the rails quicker than Auston Matthews can execute a dynamic, game-changing play. This draft class, though maybe not as heralded as the 2015 McEichel special one, possesses great depth.
Why even bother go through the futile task of mock draft creation? Given there is a complete season yet to be played, eligible players’ stocks will rise and fall, as will NHL teams placement in the standings. It is admittedly intriguing this far out to where teams may slot in for the 2016 draft and which prospects are potentially available when they are on the clock to select.
2015 NHL Mock Draft Performance
I published a series of mock drafts this past season, capped off by a mega three round final version. Well, all was swell for precisely five picks. And then the Devils got all caught up in the tantalizing combination of size and skill that is Pavel Zacha instead of opting for Mathew Barzal, who I add cleverly penciled them in for. Seven other GMs also passed over The Cerebral Catalyst, Barzal, as well – the Bruins’ Don Sweeney and crew inexplicably three times. I did get eight of the top ten bang on.
All 91 selections guesstimated ultimately got drafted and many of them not far off where they actually were picked. The lone wolf – second year eligible diminutive, but uber-talented, defenseman Sebastian Aho. The Swedish one. Yes, the Finnish forward Sebastian Aho did get selected. Actually, only 5 other prospects from The Next Ones Final Top 120 Rankings failed to get selected – the others:
Tyler Soy – attended Edmonton Oilers summer development camp
Pius Suter – scored the most even-strength goals in the OHL this past season
Nathan Noel – attended Anaheim Ducks summer development camp
Veini Vehviläinen – WJC U18s all-star goalie
Frederick Forsberg – Filip’s younger brother
The Mock Draft Order
Perhaps surprisingly, the source of this mock draft order stems from power rankings published earlier this month by ESPN’s Scott Burnside. Teams who have traded their first round picks are noted in brackets by the respective pick. Interestingly, the Bruins end up with back-to-back picks in this mock, having attained the Sharks first rounder in the Martin Jones trade. Part of a Bruins wild 2015 draft weekend were three picks in a row in the first round.
As always, this is not my personal draft rankings (The Next Ones Preliminary Rankings published separately – here) – rather, this is a guesstimate (at this point a slapshot in the dark) at what might go down on June 24–25, 2016 at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York.
The Picks
Scottsdale, Arizona native Auston Matthews is the frontrunner to go first overall in the 2016 NHL Draft. Could he save hockey in the desert?
# Team Last Name First Name YR/MTH/D LEAGUE POS S HT WT 1 Coyotes MATTHEWS AUSTON 97-09-17 USHL C L 6’1.5″ 194 2 Leafs CHYCHRUN JAKOB 98-03-31 OHL D L 6’2.0″ 195 3 Canes PULJUJARVI JESSE 98-05-07 FINLAND RW R 6’3.0″ 198 4 Flyers JONES MAX 98-02-17 USHL LW L 6’1.75″ 189 5 Canucks TKACHUK MATTHEW 97-12-11 USHL LW L 6’0.5″ 188 6 Sabres BEAN JAKE 98-06-09 WHL D L 5’11.5″ 165 7 Devils SOKOLOV DMITRI 98-04-14 RUS-JR RW L 6’0.0″ 203 8 Stars FABBRO DANTE 98-06-20 BCHL D R 6’0.0″ 188 9 Avs JUOLEVI OLLI 98-05-05 FIN-JR D L 6’2.0″ 185 10 Oilers BROWN LOGAN 98-03-05 OHL C L 6’5.0″ 215 11 Bruins (Sharks) LAINE PATRIK 98-04-19 FINLAND RW R 6’4.0″ 209 12 Bruins SERGACHYOV MIKHAIL 98-06-25 RUS-JR D L 6’2.5″ 198 13 Panthers BENSON TYLER 98-03-15 WHL LW L 5’11.5″ 198 14 Sens NYLANDER ALEXANDER 98-03-02 SWE-JR RW R 5’11.0″ 156 15 Canes (Kings) BELLOWS KIEFFER 98-06-10 USHL C L 6’0.0″ 189 16 Jets STEEL SAM 98-02-03 WHL C L 5’10.25″ 167 17 NYI CLAGUE KALE 98-06-05 WHL D L 5’11.0″ 185 18 Leafs (Pens) JOST TYSON 98-03-14 BCHL C L 5’10.5″ 185 19 Red Wings GAUTHIER JULIEN 97-10-15 QMJHL RW R 6’3.5″ 217 20 Coytotes (NYR) DAY SEAN 98-01-09 OHL D L 6’2.5″ 222 21 Canadiens HOWDEN BRETT 98-03-29 WHL C L 6’1.25″ 190 22 CBJ DUBOIS PIERRE-LUC 98-06-24 QMJHL LW L 6’2.0″ 183 23 Flames LAJOIE MAXIME 97-11-05 WHL D L 6’0.5″ 169 24 Capitals PASTUJOV NICK 98-01-21 USHL LW L 5’11.5″ 195 25 Preds KRYS CHAD 98-04-10 USHL D L 5’10.75″ 182 26 Wild ASPLUND RASMUS 97-12-03 SWEDEN C L 5’10.5″ 176 27 Blues GRUNDSTROM CARL 97-12-01 SWE-JR RW L 5’11.25″ 187 28 Lightning CEDERHOLM JACOB 98-01-30 SWE-JR D R 6’3.0″ 176 29 Blackhawks MCAVOY CHARLES 97-12-21 USHL D R 5’11.5″ 206 30 Ducks KELLER CLAYTON 98-07-29 USHL C L 5’9.25″ 165
online surveys
_________________________________________With MWC taking up a lot of my waking (and supposed to be sleeping) time last week, I didn’t get much chance to keep updated with T-Mobile’s network upgrades. While I was away I had a few exciting LTE network sightings that I have to share with you. Two of which are new Band 12 700MHz sites.
Band 12 – Tampa
First up is a Tampa sighting of 700MHz LTE, spotted by our reader, Edward on his Galaxy Note 4. As with virtually every other sighting, it’s running on a 5+5MHz network.
It matches up pretty nicely with DanRant’s open 700MHz map which also shows that a site has recently gone live there.
Band 12 – Atlantic City
Further North, another reader, Jesse, got in touch with his sighting. Again on the Galaxy Note 4.
If anything, these updates show how busy the company has been upgrading its network. We’ve heard of a number of Band 12 areas now live, and virtually none of them are in a repeat location. We’ve seen updates in Long Island, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and a couple of other states.
If you live in an area where band 12 is now active, be sure to get in touch and let us know your experience. Has your indoor signal noticeably improved? Email me at cam@tmonews.com or grab me on Twitter: @PhoneDog_CamDean Joseph Norris (born April 8, 1963)[citation needed] is an American actor. He portrayed DEA agent Hank Schrader on the AMC series Breaking Bad (2008–2013) and town councilman James "Big Jim" Rennie on the CBS series Under the Dome (2013–2015).[3] He currently plays mob boss Clay "Uncle Daddy" Husser in the TNT series Claws.
Norris has appeared in films such as Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Hard To Kill (1990), Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Starship Troopers (1997), The Cell (2000), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Evan Almighty (2007), Sons of Liberty (2015), and The Book of Henry (2017).
Early life [ edit ]
Norris was born in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Rosemarie "Rosie" (née Lacay; 1934–2012) and Jack B. Norris (1930–2008), a furniture store owner.[4] His mother was born in South Bend, to a Hungarian immigrant couple,[5] while his father was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he lived for one year until moving to South Bend. Norris has two sisters, Connie and Nikie. He graduated from Clay High School in 1981, where he says he was a straight-A student and one of the class valedictorians.[6][7] While in high school, he was a member of an award-winning student-produced comedy show, Beyond Our Control which ran on the local NBC affiliate, WNDU-TV, at that time owned and operated by the University of Notre Dame.[8][9] He is a 1985 graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in social studies.[10][11] He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for one year.[11][12]
Career [ edit ]
Norris starred in Tremors: The Series and the film Without Limits. He has had guest spots in other television series including NYPD Blue, The X-Files, The West Wing, and Lost, and has appeared in films including Gattaca and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He is best known for his role as DEA agent Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad, which he played from the show's premiere in 2008 to its final season in 2013. Norris' performance on Breaking Bad has received critical acclaim.
Norris also starred in the CBS series Under the Dome, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. He plays selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie, the only town council member in the area which is cut off from the rest of the United States; Rennie initially seems to do the right thing in getting the town accustomed to the separation, but he soon starts to abuse his power.
Personal life [ edit ]
Norris lives with his wife Bridget and their five children in Temecula, California.[12] In 2018, the couple opened the Norris Performing Arts Center in Temecula.[13]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Awards and nominations [ edit ](This is my first post on Steemit -- I'm happy to be a part of this great platform!)
I'm not a nerd, okay? Well, let me be specific: I'm not a computer nerd. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I want to get that out of the way, because while I'm proud of these machines, I'm still very much "in training," here.
I'm a Financial Analyst by trade and a web entrepreneur/passive income enthusiast by hobby. I'll tell you more about those things on a different day. Today I want to talk about my purpose-built BOINC machines.
Back in high school, I had a Physics teacher whose first name was literally Ron Jon. Not kidding. He was brilliant, and he had a way of always keeping me captivated. I wasn't really the science-y type in high school, but he had a way of captivating his students and I found myself particularly taken by his teaching style. One day, he told me about a project called SETI@Home where I could actually donate my computer's spare computing capability to help the SETI project out. Instantly, I was intrigued.
That was circa 2002...
Computesaurus Rex
Fast-forward to January of 2017 and I finally decided it was time to build my second computer. The first one had served its purpose (which was to allow me to play SimCity, in case you were curious) and it was time to put my old AMD FX-6300 and HD-7970 out to pasture. Well... I sold it to a guy on CraigsList, actually for $200.
I wanted to build something powerful. I wanted to join SETI@Home and quickly be one of the top computers in the project. After a bit of research, I built this guy, which I lovingly refer to as Computesaurus Rex...
Key Specs:
Ryzen 1800x CPU (8-core, 16-thread)
Asus Crosshair VI Motherboard
32 GB RAM @3000mhz
(2) GTX 1070 GPUs @1910mhz boost (One ROG and one EVGA)
128 GB Samsung M.2 SSD
750-watt EVGA Platinum PSU
True to my intentions, I joined SETI@Home and through working with their amazing community I had my rig in the top 100 machines within about a month. I even founded a team for other Ryzen CPU-based builds and had it in the top 40 teams.
I kept hearing about GridCoin but I was doing so well running my Ryzen SETI team that the requirement to join the GridCoin team was a temporary deal-breaker. I figured I would see what the potential was of my team first, and then once the team started to slide (happens to every new team) I would take a look at this GridCoin stuff.
A few months later, I had reached a crossroads in my BOINCing: with $50/month being spent on electricity, I was either going to have to cut my BOINC contributions in half or less, or I needed to see if I could at least earn the cost of electricity through GridCoin.
So, off to GridCoin I went.
Time to Set Up GridCoin
Being a Finance professional, my investments have strictly been on Wall Street. I had heard of CryptoCurrencies like BitCoin and Ethereum and I had heard of this thing called "mining" but I didn't really understand it and I generally don't put my money in investments I don't understand. With that said, this was very much out of my comfort zone.
I got the GridCoin wallet set up in about 5 minutes. Being as I was already BOINCing anyway, all I had to do was leave my beloved Ryzen team and join the GridCoin team. Just like that, I'm all set up.
I had to go through the process of acquiring some GridCoins, since I read the more you have, the more often you stake and the more often you get paid. I figured I could just take $1,000 I was going to put into stocks that month and instead buy GridCoins. After a couple hours of painful research, I figured out the way "AltCoins" work is you've got to purchase BitCoin or Ethereum with FIAT money through a service like CoinBase, and then send the BitCoin to a different exchange where you could sell it to acquire the AltCoin you desire.
I was floored at how quickly money travels between exchanges. I was even more floored that it was about 9:00pm and the exchanges were open. That's weird, right? (I would later learn that CryptoCurrency exchanges just never close... huh)
Then I got Paid!
Fast-forward a few days of crunching and more than a few helpful tips from the kind folks over at the GridCoin subreddit and I received my first payment. I had a Magnitude of 120 and I had earned 1.06 GRC.
I was hooked. I earned 19 GRC the next day, and then 20 the day after, and then 38, and then 40.
You get it.
At this point I was dedicated fully to SETI@Home and I knew that was one of the more competitive projects that earns each individual the fewest amount of GridCoin. I questioned the GridCoin subreddit to find out what I was giving up by not optimizing projects. If I wanted to earn at least the cost of electricity, I would at least need to double my daily GRC earnings.
User Vortac (a prominent GridCoin miner/investor) was kind enough to give me some ideas on how to earn more GridCoin, and he estimated I could essentially quadruple my earnings by simply selecting different projects.
Through his advice, I was able to take my 145 Magnitude and jump to a 500 Magnitude in a matter of days. All the while, the value of GridCoin was surging from the $0.04 I originally purchased at to upwards of $0.06. I started to do the math and figured out that not only could I exceed the cost of my electricity, but I could exceed it by potentially a couple hundred dollars per month.
Then I had an idea...
The Computable Hulk
Why don't I just go all-in on this thing? I love the concept of putting my computing resources to good use and making a little money on the side for my efforts, and I had so much fun building Computesaurus Rex... let's just take this party up another gear! How about I build I similar computer with a little more GPU horsepower?
First, I had to think of a good name for the computer, and how am I supposed to beat Computesaurus Rex? What could beat up a T-Rex, right?
THE INCREDIBLE HULK COULD BEAT UP A T-REX, THAT'S WHO.
So "The Computable Hulk" was born in concept. I took what I had learned about power usage and computing, accepted the fact that the Crypto-Miners have all the AMD RX-480 graphics cards, and I ordered all my equipment.
After I double-checked with the wife, of course. Believe me, that was a weird conversation after I had just spent over $3,000 building a computer a few months ago.
So let me walk you through the painful (but fun) process of building The Computable Hulk (and yes, I'm going to keep calling it that. That's his name).
(This is my messy "office" area in the basement. There's C-Rex down there in the corner on the right, and all my parts randomly scattered all over the desk behind it)
(Here's the obligatory "glamour shot," where I've got the CPU seated, the RAM installed, and it's still in the fancy ASUS motherboard box)
(If two GTX 1070's was good for C-Rex, then how about three GTX 1080's for The C-Hulk?)
(The naked insides of the beautiful Corsair 760T case. Same as C-Rex. I am a creature of habit)
(Got the front all opened up. Getting ready to install the BD-RW Drive)
(Got the 1,200 watt Corsair Platinum PSU seated. It was surprisingly difficult to get ahold of a 1,200 watt PSU. My guess is the miners have been eating up the stock of these as well)
(My ADD got the best of me. Back to the BD-RW.)
(The CPU cooler radiator went in without a hitch. This is why I chose the same parts as my previous build. It's amazing how much quicker the second build in three months goes.)
(Motherboard seated -- no problem!)
(Fast forward a week, and I've finally got all three of the GPUs umm... "seated" where I want them. More narrative on that below)
So, it turns out while the Asus Crosshair VI does have three PCIE 16x slots, the third slot is too close to the second to allow a third GPU to go there. I initially used a PCIE riser to seat the second GPU lower and space it out, but then it was sitting directly on the PSU and heat was instantly a problem.
Solution? I went to the hardware store and picked up a few things. A few metal brackets and some zip ties and I've got a third GPU in my case where the hard drives would go if I wasn't using an M.2 SSD. I'm still waiting on a riser cable (being shipped from China since those, too, are all out of stock) so I can actually hook it up and get that third GPU running.
Key Specs of The Computable Hulk:
Ryzen 1800x CPU (8-core, 16-thread)
Asus Crosshair VI Motherboard
32 GB RAM @3000mhz
(3) GTX 1080 GPUs @1998mhz boost
500GB Samsung EVO 850 M.2 SSD
1,200-watt Corsair Platinum PSU
This second machine --even though I've only been running the two GTX 1080 GPUs so far-- is a BOINCing beast... or Hulk, as it were. My Magnitude on GridCoin has exploded to 960 and I suspect it will continue growing for another couple weeks at least, particularly when I get that third GPU running early this week. I crossed the 200 GRC/day barrier earlier this week. Things are going well!
My Affinity for BOINCing, and Why It's Not Mining
First off, I have nothing against Crypto-miners. Everybody in the gaming/PC world is angry at them right now because they're hoarding all the high-end parts, but I think that's silly. The sustainability of Crypto-mining has the potential to add millions to the R&D of PC part manufacturers. They will catch up with demand eventually, and all will be good in the world again.
With that said, I rarely refer to what my computers are doing as "mining." I am contributing computing resources to scientific projects through BOINC, and the fact that I'm able to earn GridCoin on the side is simply what allows me to amp up my efforts with multiple, powerful machines. It is my hope that when GridCoin removes the team requirement on BOINC, hundreds of thousands of my fellow BOINCers will see it that way and will join me.
What's Next?
I've got some ideas. There's a good chance The Computable Hulk gets parted out sometime within the next six months and rebuilt on the AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU and the X399 platform. There's a 16-core, 32-thread version that I think could be fun to play with.
Steemit Friends: Thanks for reading my first Steemit post. I will update this soon once I get the third GPU hooked up and I start seeing some results. If you've got questions or comments, let me know!
~XaqFields‘Why Do Chinese Lack Creativity?’
On June 19, the University of Washington and elite Tsinghua University in Beijing announced a new, richly funded cooperative program to be based in Seattle and focused on a topic that has become a sore point in China: innovation. Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina’s comment in late May that Chinese “are not terribly imaginative” has been criticized as a sweeping judgment, but it highlighted a common perception both in the United States and in China itself — that the world’s second-largest economy is short on home-grown innovation, and on the business and academic cultures necessary to nurture it.
It’s not for lack of trying. The Chinese government now pours billions of dollars annually into research and development — by one estimate, its research and development budget may surpass U.S. spending by 2019 — and Chinese President Xi Jinping has emphasized innovation in his speeches. For the past four years, China has filed more patent applications than any other country, although state news agency Xinhua has described the quality of those patents as “poor.”
Despite these efforts, the idea that Chinese don’t innovate continues to inspire soul-searching among Chinese web users. The following is taken from a popular post on question and answer forum Zhihu, originally posted in 2013 and titled “Why do Chinese lack creativity?” While the essay is anonymous, its popularity on the website and the hundreds of comments it garnered indicate that it resonated widely. Foreign Policy translates, with edits for brevity and clarity.
***
As an innovator myself, I’ve thought about this question for a long time.
What is creativity? A much-cited April 2003 article published in the [academic] Creativity Research Journal states that “creativity involves the production of novel, useful products.” These can be both tangible objects as well as intellectual products such as an idea, an essay, or a process.
Chinese people do not lack creativity. Chinese-made novelty items, such as the combination cigarette case and cell phone [pictured here], are without a doubt one proof of our imagination. But if we do not lack ingenuity, then what keeps it from being widely recognized?
First, our innovations lack depth. Products such as the cigarette case/cell phone are what we can call combination-type innovation, simply merging the functions of two different products. It’s using someone else’s advanced technology in different circumstances. This kind of innovation has no technological barriers and is easily recreated or even surpassed by others. It relies on novelty to occupy a market; as soon as someone else does the same thing but with better execution, the market will quickly shrivel and price wars ensue.
In addition, our creativity has not reached industrial scale. An industry must reach a certain size before it can mobilize large-scale participation by outside enterprises such as chip, software, and interface design and algorithm research. Again using the cigarette case mobile phone as an example, we see that such an invention does not have any lasting influence on the further development of either cell phones or cigarette cases. With only this kind of superficial innovation, it’s impossible to construct an expansive industrial system, take the mobile phone industry to the next level, or draw more diverse companies into the cigarette case cell phone market (if this market actually exists).
We lack an environment conducive to creativity. Innovation is not something that a single person can accomplish by just closing the door and thinking hard. But Chinese are not good at using lively debate to turn a spark of originality into a developed idea, and Chinese companies aren’t skilled at using cooperation and competition, or “coopetition,” to innovate. Through cultural and political influence, we have developed the habit of forming alliances with each other, rather than engaging in coopetition driven by profit.
We also lack a rigorous scientific process. The road from an idea to a successful product requires countless runs through the scientific method. There are no shortcuts. But domestically, practitioners of popular science have been bad models. They’ve believed that they can create a so-called new scientific system, using various shortcuts to overturn laws of science and thus make great scientific discoveries. The Hanxin incident at Shanghai Jiaotong University — when a much-hailed computer chip unveiled by a Chinese academic in 2003 was later discovered to be fraudulent — was an “innovation” which clearly violated the laws of development. Innovation must constantly undergo the improvements that only come through ceaseless testing and feedback from the market.
According to one innovation index, China ranks 21 among the world’s 28 largest economies. So while China does possess a certain degree of originality, it clearly falls behind quite a number of countries. This is in keeping with the impression I’ve gotten from the large number of domestic and foreign patents I’ve examined. Most Chinese business and individual patents are either the combination type or simply a new external design. This demonstrates that our inventions remain at a relatively basic level.
Finally, I disagree very strongly with the idea that Chinese education kills creativity. An individual person’s creative ability cannot be killed. The most obvious counter example is the Chinese people who receive their education in mainland China and then go abroad, and are still able to make first-class contributions to innovation or academia. I am more willing to use the word “inhibit.” Education can indeed have an inhibiting effect upon creativity. Our culture and education is more suitable for cultivating engineers [rather than scientists]. Perhaps our country’s most top-notch individuals had the lucky opportunity to find a suitable environment to give their creativity full play, but for the creative development of most of the people in the country, educational and cultural factors have indeed harmed them. In this, we must not turn a blind eye, and we must not sell ourselves short.
Photo credit: AFP/Getty ImagesCelebrity
The 'Fine China' singer admits to violating his probation by getting involved in an altercation with a man in Washington D.C. in October, but he may be released soon.
May 10, 2014
AceShowbiz - Chris Brown is ordered to stay in jail for a bit more after he admitted to violating his probation by getting into an altercation with a man outside the W hotel in Washington D.C. in October. The R&B singer appeared in a hearing on Friday, May 9 in Los Angeles where he made the admission wearing his orange uniform.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Brandlin then sentenced the singer to 365 days in jail. Brown, however, was given |
Greer is the victim’s former fiancé. He allegedly wanted custody of both the 2-year-old and the gestating baby. However, Jillianne Mencel is described in prosecutors’ documents as the “central ringleader” in the abduction and imprisonment.
Jillianne Mencel has been charged with first degree kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and felony strangulation. Her bail was set at $100,000.
Joshua Mencel was charged with second degree kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment with bail set at $75,000.
Greer was also charged with second degree kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. His bail was set at $35,000.
The victim, said the DA’s office, is living at a shelter and still pregnant with her second child.
Watch video about this story, embedded below:Pro-Erdogan supporters hold up an effigy of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen during a demonstration at Taksim Square in Istanbul on July 18, 2016. Photo by Ozan Kose / AFP
Last Friday at 8 p.m., rogue elements within the Turkish army launched a violent bid to remove the AKP government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from power.
The first signs that something was amiss came after an hour and a half. Reports began to circulate of soldiers in tanks blocking the two bridges over the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Shortly thereafter, around a dozen F16 fighter jets were seen flying low in the skies above the capital, Ankara.
At 10 p.m. the country’s Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, announced what many feared: The country was undergoing unlawful “military activity.” A coup d’état was in progress. Soon bombs began falling on government buildings in the capital, and soldiers exchanged gunfire with police in both Ankara and Istanbul.
Despite the might of the Turkish armed forces – ninth largest in the world – the government needed only a few hours to subdue the attack. By the morning, it was clear why that was: The failed coup lacked full military support. Footage of young soldiers abandoning their tanks on the Bosphorus Bridge, arms raised to surrender, marked the end of a dark night in Turkey.
According to official sources, 1,535 people were injured and another 250 killed: 173 civilians, 62 police officers, and five soldiers. The exact number of coupists killed is unknown – the government didn’t include them in its official death toll.
But who was behind it? Turkish authorities have already begun cracking down on those it claimed were responsible: members of an alleged secret, parallel state headed by Erdoğan nemesis and exiled-preacher, Fethullah Gülen.
Why the coup took place earlier than expected
But before we go into that, there’s another matter: Intelligence officials told journalists that at around 4 p.m. Friday, senior MIT officers learned that elements within the army were preparing a military coup set for 3 a.m. the next morning. The intelligence service immediately informed the government.
At 5:30 p.m. that same evening, the Head of MIT, Hakan Fidan – an Erdoğan stalwart – met with army and other state officials at the military’s headquarters in Istanbul.
The announcement inevitably made its way to the putschists, who then decided to commence the operation earlier than planned
During the 30-minute meeting, Fidan, Army Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar, his second-in-command Yasar Güler, and Head of Turkish Land Forces Salih Zeki Çolak, formulated a plan to stop the anticipated attack.
At 6 p.m. orders were sent to every member of the armed forces across Turkey, banning all military flights and movement of personnel and tanks. The directive also stated that generals would be inspecting army training schools.
The announcement inevitably made its way to the putschists, who then decided to commence the operation earlier than planned, on Friday evening instead of the early hours of Saturday.
So who were these coup plotters?
Were Gülen supporters behind the coup? There was certainly growing hostility between Erdoğan and Gülenists within the army.
Pro-Erdogan supporters hold up an effigy of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen during a demonstration at Taksim Square in Istanbul on July 18, 2016. Photo by Ozan Kose / AFP
One reason for this was the president’s plans to use the Supreme Military Council meeting on August 1 to cleanse it of the influence of Cemaat – another name for Gülen’s movement. The Council convenes twice a year to determine the army’s priorities and promote or demote officers, and Gülenists were to be the main target.
The other reason that hostility between both camps was on the rise lately has its roots in an espionage case in the western city of Izmir. In February this year, the Izmir court acquitted over 350 military officials accused of accessing classified national security documents. The government claimed that the espionage trial, which began in 2012, was orchestrated by pro-Gülen forces determined to weaken the AKP.
Then on July 9, İzmir Deputy Chief Prosecutor Okan Bato, head of the Terror and Organized Crimes Investigation Bureau, brought charges against several military personnel accused of forging legal evidence during the trial and being members of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure – the same organization said to be behind last Friday’s coup. They would, he said, be the first of many upcoming arrests.
The Cemaat cadre in the military then got wind of security service plans to conduct 4 a.m. raids against hundreds of soldiers on Saturday. Facing the possibility of life in prison either way, the decision was made to launch the coup before arrests could be carried out.
How the state responded to the coup attempt
What happened after the coup attempt? The state’s crackdown on those it claims are responsible has been fierce. Even before the sun rose in Turkey, members of the security services were rounding up thousands of the country’s military officials, soldiers, and judges – followers, they say, of Gülen.
In the days since the failed coup, some 52,000 civil servants have been arrested, suspended, or detained, as well as at least 3,000 soldiers, including 118 high ranking military officials, and more than 3,000 judges and prosecutors.
Erdoğan also called for Gülen’s extradition from the U.S. even as the cleric denies accusations he was behind the coup.
In the days since the failed coup, some 52,000 civil servants have been arrested, suspended, or detained
The man accused of orchestrating the plot, General Akin Ozturk, former commander of the air force, was arrested for treason on Monday, along with 100 other senior personnel. Ozturk denies any involvement.
Already, between 8,000 and 9,000 have been dismissed from the state security institutions, including the police, gendarmerie, and MIT. The Higher Education Council has requested the resignation of 15,200 staff from the education ministry, including 1,577 university deans, and 21,000 private school teachers have had their licenses revoked. A further 492 from the finance ministry and 257 workers in the Prime Minister’s office have been fired, and nearly 500 clerics and religious teachers have been dismissed.
Erdoğan has faced criticism from politicians and diplomats concerned he is exploiting the coup to rid Turkey’s institutions of not only the Gülen elements, but of all opposition.
On Monday, EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn told the European Council that he believed the state had lists of those it wished to arrest “available already after the event, this indicates that this was prepared to be used at a certain stage”.
How the AKP and the Gülen movement are interconnected
To understand these recent events, a brief history of the ties between Erdoğan and Gülen is in order.
Erdoğan and fellow politician Abdullah Gül founded the Justice and Development Party, or the AKP, in 2001 in order to contest the general election the following year. By then, Gülen had been in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for two years, fleeing charges of conspiring to overthrow Turkey’s secular state brought against him by the military.
From a compound in Pennsylvania, Gülen was operating hundreds of religious schools in Turkey and across the world. His private education institutions provided him with billions of dollars and millions of loyal followers, from ordinary citizens to academics, prominent businessmen, law enforcement agents, and journalists.
Pro-Erdogan supporters wave flags during a demonstration at Taksim Square on July 20, 2016 in Istanbul. Photo by Ammar Awad / Reuters
During the AKP’s first national election campaign, Gülen allowed his followers to freely vote as they saw fit. He was aware of the AKP’s popularity, and was reluctant to oppose them.
The AKP did indeed win the election, and in 2003 Erdoğan became prime minister. He was hailed by leaders in the West as being a Muslim for the 21st century: Islamic, but pro-democracy.
Since many of the AKP’s officials had defected from the explicitly religious Welfare Party, Erdoğan was forced to reassure Turkey’s military chiefs that the new government was genuinely secular.
For his first years in power, Erdoğan both remained the darling of the West by enacting several democratic reforms and maintained good relations with the military. But by 2007, his attitude had changed. Fatigued by the delays over Turkey’s accession to the EU – largely viewed by Turks as being motivated by European racism – Erdoğan had started adopting a more authoritarian attitude.
Despite the presidency being at the time a mostly ceremonial position, the Turkish military released a statement on its website expressing concerns about the pro-religious positions of Abdullah Gül, the AKP’s candidate in the 2007 election. The threat of a coup was not subtle.
Erdoğan saw this “e-coup” as confirmation that an alliance with the army was not possible, and he began to turn towards Fethullah Gülen and his followers to help cleanse the army and Turkey’s democratic institutions of secular Kemalists.
Gülen’s movement became an unofficial government partner. They were a significant power source for the AKP. As a gift to Gülen, the AKP eventually overturned his 2001 conspiracy conviction.
Over the next few years, Erdoğan helped Gülen strengthen his grip on Turkey’s institutions, engineering the appointment of his followers to prominent roles within the army, security services, and judiciary.
In return, Gülenists used their increasing power support Erdoğan’s anti-Ergenekon campaign, which involved the illegal jailing of hundreds of military officials, members of the judiciary, and opposition journalists.
Gülen’s cadre of police and judges help arrest and charge the alleged Ergenekon members, and journalists at the Zaman newspaper – the country’s largest daily, which was recently taken over by the AKP – wrote stories supporting the accusations.
Although Ergenekon’s existence would later be largely discredited, Erdoğan and Gülen were successfully taking over Turkey’s democratic institutions.
An effigy of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen gets dragged along the ground at Atatürk National Airport in Istanbul on July 17, 2016. Photo by Berk Ozkan / Anadou
And how the AKP and the Gülen movement became rivals
Their partnership would not last long, however. And events in late 2013 made it clear in a very public way that the fallout would not be pretty.
On December 17, 2013, the Turkish government was rocked by a corruption scandal involving several prominent businessmen and senior AKP ministers and their families, including Erdoğan.
Police and prosecutors detained nearly 100 people on suspicion of bribery, fraud, and money laundering. Simultaneously, recordings of the alleged malfeasance began appearing on YouTube, including incriminating conversations between Erdoğan and members of his family.
Conversations between Hakan Fidan, Yasar Güler, and former prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu – foreign minister at the time – were also leaked, where they discussed staging a false flag operation in Syria to provide the casus belli Erdogan needed to go to war with Bashar al-Assad.
The source of the leaks? The Cemaat. The hidden presence of Cemaat in Turkey’s political system, allowed them to bug officials and decrypt phone calls. It had almost destroyed the AKP.
The government’s response was fierce. Laws were enacted to protect politicians, and thousands of the police and prosecutors involved in the corruption probe were arrested or demoted.
The AKP also thought up a new name for their rivals, the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY), and then designated it an official enemy of the state.
The fallout from the corruption scandal was the first real evidence of a political war which had been raging in secret for nearly two years
The fallout from the corruption scandal was the first real evidence of a political war which had been raging in secret for nearly two years. Already in 2011, the AKP was considering closing many of Gülen’s “Hizmet” schools in Turkey. The 300 or so institutions provide the cleric with an important source of both cash and human capital, and he knew their closure would pose a significant threat to his influence.
Gülen responded aggressively. On February 7, 2012, the Cemaat released a tape online of secret discussions between MIT and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. For months, MIT had denied that talks were underway. But the recording proved the existence of the negotiations, showing Hakan Fidan, who was not yet officially appointed as the head of MIT, claiming that he represented Erdoğan in the meetings.
MIT immediately launched an ongoing investigation into the Cemaat. Things turned ugly very quickly.
A few days after the tapes leaked, prosecutors close to Gülen accused the five MIT members involved in the peace talks of terrorism, demanding they turn themselves in to the police.
When the men refused, police officers arrived at their homes at midnight to take them into custody. The government was forced to step in, instructing the agents to refuse to cooperate. The police and prosecutor, Sadrettin Sarikaya, were forced to back down.
Soon after, Sarikaya was dismissed from his post and the AKP enacted a law providing immunity to all MIT personnel.
It’s not clear why Gülen thought his 2012 attack on the government was a good idea, but the alliance was broken. A battle was in motion that would eventually result in bombs hitting the parliamentary building in Ankara some four-and-a-half years later.
Protesters burn an effigy of the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen during a demonstration at Taksim Square in Istanbul on 18 July 2016. Photo: Ozan Kose / AFP
What now?
We already mentioned the numerous civil servants that were rounded up by Turkish police following Friday’s failed coup. This group included thousands of the country’s prosecutors and judges. That’s striking, as members of the courts had little if any practical role in the operation, and many are questioning how it’s possible for Erdoğan to so quickly identify his Gülen enemies.
But, of course, as EU Commissioner Hahn posited, they already had their lists.
In 2014, following the corruption scandal, Erdoğan intended to cleanse the judiciary of the thousands of Gülenists that had joined its ranks. Four years earlier, the AKP had gifted a large portion of control to the Cemaat following a referendum to change the country’s constitution. The law expanded the number of seats on the HSYK, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, and was designed to stack the judicial system with Cemaat and others loyal to Erdoğan.
The HSYK has significant powers to determine the politics of Turkey’s legal branch because its 22 members decide which prosecutors and judges are appointed. A majority of 12 effectively determines who runs Turkey’s courts system. In October 2014, the HSYK was to elect ten of its 22 members. And both Erdoğan and the Gülenists wanted control.
The two sides formed separate voting blocs. In total, over 12,000 judges and prosecutors voted, but in the end Erdoğan got his way.
It was this vote that provided the first statistical information about Cemaat presence within the justice system. Around 5,000 had supported Gülen’s cause by voting against the government candidates.
The state now had its list of political enemies to target.
On June 30, 2016, the Turkish parliament adopted a new law restructuring much of Turkey’s judicial system. Coming just one month after HSYK reassigned nearly 4,000 judges from other courts, the legislation provided the framework for the government to fire the 711 judges of the Council of State and the Supreme Court of Appeals – two of Turkey’s highest courts. President Erdoğan will now personally appoint one-third of the new judges, with the rest being named by HSYK.
The bill was criticised by some members of parliament, who accused the government of providing Erdoğan with power to remove all elements of opposition from the judiciary. But since the coup attempt last Friday, the government is now able to attack even those not directly involved in the coup with little opposition, capitalizing on the now rampant anti-Gülen sentiment in the country, and consolidating the president’s own grip on power in the process.
Protesters set alight an effigy of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen during a demonstration at Taksim Square in Istanbul on 18 July 2016. Photo: Ozan Kose / AFP
—This production was brokered by International Editor Maaike Goslinga. Journalist Zeynep Sentek also contributed to the story.
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Attitudes to a variety of issues changed, sometimes radically, throughout the decade. The urge to 'find oneself', the activism of the 1960s, and the quest for autonomy were characterized by changes towards sexual attitudes at the time.[1] These changes to sexual attitudes and behavior during the period are often today referred to generally under the blanket metaphor of'sexual revolution'.[2]
Most of the empirical data pertinent to the area only dates back to 1962, somewhat muddying the waters.[3] Despite this, there were changes in sexual attitudes and practices, particularly among the young. Like much of the radicalism from the 1960s, the sexual revolution was often seen to have been centered on the university campus and students.
With its roots in the first perceived sexual revolution in the 1920s, this'revolution' in 1960s America encompassed many groups who are now synonymous with the era. Feminists, gay rights campaigners, hippies and many other political movements were all important components and facilitators of change.
Changes in social norms [ edit ]
The modern consensus is that the sexual revolution in 1960s America was typified by a dramatic shift in traditional values related to sex, and sexuality. Sex became more socially acceptable outside the strict boundaries of heterosexual marriage. In 1969, Blue Movie, directed by Andy Warhol, was the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States.[4][5][6] The film was a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and helped inaugurate the "porno chic",[7][8] phenomenon in modern American culture. During this time, porn was being publicly discussed by celebrities, and taken seriously by critics. According to Warhol, Blue Movie was a major influence in the making of Last Tango in Paris, an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after Blue Movie was made.[5] In 1970, Mona, the second adult erotic film, after Blue Movie, depicting explicit sex that received a wide theatrical release in the United States, was shown. Following mentions by Johnny Carson on his popular TV show, and Bob Hope on TV as well,[8] the adult film Deep Throat achieved major box office success, despite being rudimentary by mainstream standards. In 1973, the far-more-accomplished, but still low budget adult film, The Devil in Miss Jones, was the seventh most successful film of the year, and was well received by major media, including a favorable review by film critic Roger Ebert.[9] Shortly thereafter, other adult films followed, continuing the Golden Age of Porn begun with Blue Movie. Later, in 1976, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady), and directed by Radley Metzger, was released theatrically and is considered, by award-winning author Toni Bentley, the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age of Porn.[10][11]
Studies have shown that, between 1965 and 1974, the number of women that had sexual intercourse prior to marriage showed a marked increase.[12] The social and political climate of the 1960s was unique; one in which traditional values were often challenged loudly by a vocal minority.
The various areas of society clamoring for change included the Civil Rights Movement, (see SCLC and SNCC) the 'New Left', and women, with various women's rights organizations appearing in the latter years of the decade in particular. This climate of change led many, particularly the young, to challenge social norms.
With the success that the Civil Rights Movement was having, others who wanted change knew that the time was ripe for them to bring it about. The combination of liberal government, general economic prosperity, and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation marked the 1960s apart from any decade that had come before it, and while conservatism was by no means dead, liberalism enjoyed a widespread revival, which helped to facilitate the climate in which the'sexual revolution' took place. Indeed, Lyndon B. Johnson was the first acting president to endorse birth control, a hugely important factor in the change of American sexual attitudes in the 1960s.
The Pill [ edit ]
"The pill" provided many women a more affordable way to avoid pregnancy. Before the pill was introduced many women did not look for long term jobs. Previously, the typical woman would jump out of the job market when she got impregnated and would reenter it when her child was of school attending age.[13] Abortion was illegal and there were too many health risks involved in most illegal abortions. There was a visible trend in the increasing age of women at first marriage in the decades between 1930 and 1970 after contraception was provided to non-married females.[13] As part of the woman's quiet sexual revolution, pills gave women control over their future.[14] In a way, the ability to pursue higher education without the thought of pregnancy, gave women more equality in educational attainment. Since women could have a choice to use birth control to finish their education, a higher percentage graduated from school and college ultimately gaining professional careers.[13]
This was due in part to fears over illegitimate pregnancy and childbirth, and social (particularly religious) qualms about contraception, which was often seen to be'messy' and unchristian. Modernization and secularization helped to change these attitudes, and the first oral contraception was developed in 1951 partly due to Women's Rights campaigner Margaret Sanger who raised $150,000 to fund its development.[15]
While the Pill eventually came to be seen as a symbol of the Sexual revolution, its origins stem less from issues of women's sexual liberation and more from 1960s political agendas. In the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson instituted his social reform policy, The Great Society, which aimed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice.
During this time, the Pill was endorsed and distributed by doctors as a form of population control to counter the fear of over population which coincided with President Johnson's goal to eliminate poverty.[16] By 1960, the Food and Drug Administration had licensed the drug. 'The Pill', as it came to be known, was extraordinarily popular, and despite worries over possible side effects, by 1962, an estimated 1,187,000 women were using it.[17]
The pill divorced contraception from the act of intercourse itself, making it more socially acceptable, and easier to tolerate for many detractors than other types of contraception (which had been around for years).
Heralded as a technological marvel, the pill was a trusted product of science in an increasingly technological age, and was heralded as one of man's 'triumphs' over nature. It was often said that with the invention of the pill, the women who took it had immediately been given a new freedom—the freedom to use their bodies as they saw fit, without having to worry about the burden of unwanted pregnancy.
It was also not the case that the pill went completely unopposed. The Pill became an extremely controversial subject as Americans struggled with their thoughts on sexual morality, controlling population growth and women's control of their reproductive rights. Even by 1965, birth control was illegal in some US states, including Connecticut and New York.
Campaigns by people like Estelle Griswold went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where on June 7, 1965, it was ruled that under the First Amendment, it was not the business of the government to dictate the usage of contraception by married couples. Unmarried women who requested gynecological exams and oral contraceptives were often denied or lectured on sexual morality. Those women who were denied access to the Pill often had to visit several doctors before one would prescribe it to them.[18] In 1972, a further ruling in Baird extended that right to unmarried couples.
Some women's rights movements also heralded the pill as a method of granting women sexual liberation, and saw the popularity of the drug as just one signifier of the increasing desire for equality (sexual or otherwise) among American women. The pill and the sexual revolution was therefore an important part of the drive for sexual equality in the 1960s.
As a consequence, the pill and the sexual freedom it provided to women are frequently blamed for what many believe are regressions in quality of life. Since the sexual revolution, out-of-wedlock births, sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, and divorce have all risen considerably. Since the 60s, marriage has declined by a third and divorce has doubled. During the 1960s there were only four big STDs, now there are twenty-four. Since the sexual revolution, children living in single-parent families has tripled.[19]
Feminist criticism [ edit ]
Despite claims that the pill and sexual revolution were positive for women in America, some feminist writers have criticized the changes that occurred. Some books published which promised sexual freedom and liberation were not wholly positive for women, for instance Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex, which advised women "don't get yourself raped."[20]
The Women's Movement [ edit ]
Feminist movements combined with important literature such as Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique helped change peoples concepts of the woman’s role in relation to sex. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan tackles the issue of the domestic role of women in 1960s America and the feeling of dissatisfaction with it. Friedan believed that women should not conform to this popularized view of the feminine, (The Housewife) and that they should participate in, if not enjoy the act of sex.[21] The book itself was very popular on college campuses, among the young and is synonymous with the counter-culture ethic. Its importance to 1960s feminism and the sexual revolution lies in that it created a new wave of thinking in regards to the domestic and sexual role of women in society
Gay Rights and the "undocumented" sexual revolution [ edit ]
Even in a time of unprecedented societal change, and burgeoning liberal views and policies, homosexuality was still widely publicly reviled, and more often than not was seen as a malaise or mental illness, instead of a legitimate sexual orientation. Indeed, throughout the 1950s and 1960s the overriding opinion of the medical establishment was that homosexuality was a developmental maladjustment.[22] Though doctors were supposed to act as objective scientists, their conclusions undoubtedly reflected the biases of their cultural settings, which resulted in prejudices against homosexual behavior being cloaked in the language of medical authority and unproven claims being accepted by the majority of society as fact.[23] Essentially, labeling homosexuality as a psychological condition prevented this group from being able to make demands for social and legal rights as well as cultural representation.
Homosexuals were often characterized as predatory deviants who were dangerous to the rest of society. For example, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, between 1956 and 1965, sought out these so-called 'deviants' within the public system, with the particular focus upon teachers.[24] The persecution of gay teachers was driven by the popular belief that homosexuals did untold damage when around vulnerable young people as naive adolescents were considered easy prey to recruitment into homosexuality by perverse teachers attempting to unnaturally reproduce.[25] In addition, male homosexuals were often seen as inherently more dangerous (particularly to children) than lesbians, due to stereotypes and societal prejudices.
Many modern commentators on the gay sexual revolution[citation needed] in 1960s America allege that this area of the decade has been severely under emphasized, lacking the attention that they feel it deserves. During this time, there was a large oppression of gay people, men in particular. While America was moving forward in the sexual revolution, there was still sodomy law in place not allowing gay men to have sex. One of the biggest laws that were placed was the anti-sodomy law. In the 1960s, every state had anti-sodomy laws, making it punishable for up to 10 years in prison for engaging in anal sex. It took many years before these laws to change making sodomy legal, Illinois being the first state. While it cannot be said that the 'gay revolution' had as much impact as some others during the decade (the movement only really began to gain significant momentum and more public support during the 1970s), it is important to consider the part that the gay liberation crowd had to play in the overarching'sexual revolution'. In 1971, what was considered the first gay porno movie was shown at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City. The movie was called Boys in the Sand. With this movie, the gay community was launched into the sexual revolution and the porn industry. The biggest breakthrough for gay men was after the sexual revolution in 2003, when Lawrence v Texas made it legal in all 50 states to have anal sex. After this, the porn industry never had to make stag films nor did they have to censor their material in states that had anti-sodomy laws.
Indeed, in an age of sexual revolution and urban chaos many spontaneous acts of defiance occurred as homosexuals found creative ways to resist heteronormative social codes throughout the 1960s. Frank Kameny's Mattachine Society chapter, in Washington DC, campaigned openly for gay rights by confronting various federal agencies about their discriminatory policies in 1962 and 1963.[26] While by 1968 there were only fifteen gay and lesbian organizations in the United States, and the increase in numbers was considerably slow-paced, the appearance of a more militant approach to loosening the grip of prevailing norms contributed to widening the gay subculture to previously isolated homosexuals. Furthermore, the homophile movement had already set about undermining the dominant psychiatric view of homosexuality.
The Stonewall riots, 1969 [ edit ]
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community[note 1] against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.
Another important element of the 'gay sexual revolution' is how the sex/gender system that was in place throughout the 1960s allowed forms of domination to continue to oppress minority groups, such as homosexuals. The Mattachine leaders emphasized how homosexual oppression was a socially determined pattern and held that strict definitions of gender behavior led men and women to unquestioningly accept social roles that equated'male, masculine, man only with husband and father' and that equated 'female, feminine, women only with wife and mother'.[27] These early homosexual emancipationists saw homosexual women and men as victims of a 'language and culture that did not admit the existence of a homosexual minority'.[27] Ultimately, the way in which the homophile movement understood the roots of its ostracism and oppression reveals how the homosexual crowd fought for an expansion of rights based on similar theories that drove some heterosexual women to reject American society’s traditional ideologies of sexual norms.
The Stonewall riots of 1969 marked an increase in both public awareness of gay rights campaigners, and also in the willingness of homosexuals across America to campaign for the rights they believed that they were due. However, it would be misleading to conclude that resistance to homosexual oppression began with 'Stonewall'. As David Allyn has argued numerous acts of small-scale resistance are required for political movements to take shape and the years preceding 'Stonewall' played a role in creating the gay liberation movement.[28] Arguably, the Stonewall riots have come to resemble the pivotal moment in gay rights history largely because they are characterized by a great unrecorded oral history, which has allowed for myths to be used to fill in the gaps in the story, and precisely for this reason, enabled many members of the gay community to locate their lives and struggles within this narrative.[29] Stonewall veteran Jim Fouratt has been identified as stating: "If you have a choice between a myth or a fact, you go with the myth."[29] While the Stonewall riots were certainly a turning point in terms of precipitating an unparalleled surge of activism and organizing for gay rights, it was not the first example of rebellion against homophobia and intolerance. Moreover, gay life after 'Stonewall' was just as varied and complex as it was before. In the era following 'Stonewall' there was still a variety of approaches taken by homosexuals to propagate their message, which included not only the confrontational approach of 'Stonewall' but equally an attempt at assimilation into the broader community.
See also [ edit ]Here’s a new "lead pollution causes bad behavior" study by Jessica Wolpaw Reyes using National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 and NLSY97 data. I reviewed her first attempt on this important topic back in 2007 in “ Lead Poisoning and the Great 1960s Freakout.”
Now by comparing self reports and parental reports of behavior problems in the NLSY studies versus state results of average lead levels in blood, she finds more support for the lead > bad behavior, but less so for lead > violent crime nor for lead > black bad behavior. This is big news because it helps explain why Robert Heinlein’s 1939 prediction that the 1960s-1970s would be the Crazy Years turned out pretty accurate, but it shoots down explanations for the black-white crime gap based on putative lead pollution.
LEAD EXPOSURE AND BEHAVIOR EFFECTS ON ANTISOCIAL AND RISKY BEHAVIOR AMONG CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS Jessica Wolpaw Reyes Abstract It is well known that exposure to lead has numerous adverse effects on behavior and development. Using data on two cohorts of children from the NLSY, this paper investigates the effect of early childhood lead exposure on behavior problems from childhood through early adulthood. I find large negative consequences of early childhood lead exposure, in the form of an unfolding series of adverse behavioral outcomes: behavior problems as a child, pregnancy and aggression as a teen, and criminal behavior as a young adult. At the levels of lead |
“Instead of having a painted or a wallpapered wall, a store might have a wall made of plastic, or if not plastic, a high-shine material that looked plastic-y,” Wood says. “Then people became used to those materials, and those materials became less scary. Things like Formica would be used for display tables, and then you’d see Formica sold for your kitchen counters or on a table that you’d want to buy. I think it’s less scary, even if it’s subconscious, when you’ve connected that with being a modern material.”
For example, the Eames shell chair—which is now a coveted collectible—was a strange, new piece of fiberglass furniture offered at a 1950s department store. But it received an award from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in collaboration with Merchandise Mart of Chicago, which put on an annual “Good Design” showcase, starting in 1949. Having this MOMA stamp of approval helped make the Eames chair a staple of mid-century furnishings.
“‘Good Design’ awards were given out so that a general middle-class consumer could make smart buying decisions,” Wood says. “The consumer could say, ‘This new molded fiberglass chair seems weird to me, but I know it is a good choice because the museum said so.’ They were meant to be affordable, comfortable, and beautiful at the same time—just very simple everyday objects. You might have a whole cafeteria filled with Eames chairs or a dorm room with an Eames chair. They weren’t considered iconic pieces in the same way they are today.”
But it’s unlikely department stores will ever have that much influence on American tastes and culture again. As much power as the department stores were gaining in the mid-century, they faced their first serious threat in the ’60s: the discount box store. Combining the cheap convenience of a five-and-dime store like Woolworth’s with the specialized sections of a department store, Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target all debuted in 1962 and, in the following decades, popped up all over the United States.
“These stores were even more tailored toward complete self-sufficiency,” Wood says. “There is a real difference in how you navigate the through the store. You walk around with your cart. And then you go to one central checkout, as opposed to the checkout in a specific department, and pay for everything all at once. You have the concession stand, so you maybe get a snack, but you’re not going to spend the whole day there, because you can’t get a whole meal.”
In 1988, Wal-Mart introduced its first Supercenter, a combination of its standard discount department store with a full grocery store, as well as other services like shoe repair or fast food. As Wal-Mart opened more and more Supercenters in the 1990s and 2000s, Target and Kmart also opened “super” stores offering groceries. These days, even suggesting a trip to Wal-Mart will send people into a state of exasperation. Same goes for the mall. Has the shopping experience been drained of all its pleasures?
“It’s an older idea of shopping, where you spend half a day at the mall, being leisurely about it, wandering through the stores, and getting lunch,” Wood says. “You maybe buy something, or maybe you don’t, but you go just be at the mall.”
“You could think, ‘I could be eclectic like that. I could combine this Danish Modern piece with my Colonial Revival table.’”
Perhaps the lack of the enthusiasm comes from the big box stores full of low-quality goods made overseas. And when it comes to something we need, we want it immediately. “We have different ideas of efficiency now,” Wood says. “We want to shop with as little intrusion by anyone else as possible. Self-checkout is one of, in my opinion, the least efficient tools in the world, yet everyone is obsessed with using self-checkout at the grocery store. It’s so much faster to just wait in line and have someone check out for you.”
Self-checkout debuted in 1992, just a few years before the World Wide Web made online shopping widely accessible to everyone. Amazon and eBay, both launched in 1995, taught us to be even more self-sufficient shoppers—at this point, the two Internet giants offer everything you’d find at Wal-Mart and more. Other online retailers, like Zappos and ModCloth, focus on the kinds of fashion you’d find at department stores. Of course, Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Nordstrom, Macy’s, JCPenney, Sears, and IKEA all offer robust selections online as well. In exchange for all this convenience, perhaps we’re less concerned making a mistake, by wasting our money ordering the wrong thing.
“In the mid-century, convenience was defined as a place to shop within your town, within a 5- or 10-minute drive from your house,” Wood says. “Whereas our notion of convenience now is not leaving our houses. These ideas of self-sufficiency and self-service have been pushed so far that you go on Amazon and you just say, ‘This is what I want.’ Amazon says, ‘Okay, here’s everything we have that matches that description,’ and then you choose. In actuality, I think Amazon is highly inefficient if you don’t know what you’re buying because you don’t have anyone to help you and say, ‘No, actually, this is better than that.’ Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted that your department store was going to sell you something that was good.”
“In the ’60s, there was a lot of unrest in urban areas, and women in the suburbs would have been scared to drive into downtown.”
These days, retailers are particularly concerned with the concept of “showrooming,” which means consumers go look at an item in the store, and then go home to order it online. Big bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders are closing down, electronic retailers like Best Buy and RadioShack keep shuttering locations, and even the relentless growth of Wal-Mart and Target has been slowed. Wood could care less about the box stores, but she will be disheartened if the traditional department stores die out completely.
“What still draws me to go to department stores—because I still love department stores—is having tangible goods in front of you and being able to touch, to see, and to feel what it is that’s being sold,” Wood says. “You lose a lot when you don’t see an array of goods—your ability to compare quality and price, and see exactly what the store has to offer. When you’re shopping online, you’re just relying on anonymous online reviews, and sometimes, other people have bad opinions. I want to be able to buy things that represent me and not what represents someone else and what they want. I think that will be the saddest part if there are no more department stores.”
But there is hope for the department-store anchored mall in America after all, according to a 2013 survey by Glimcher Realty Trust, part of its RetailMonitor series studying consumer behavior. Turns out, consumers say they like the shopping mall for the same reasons Wood does—and malls will succeed if they provide the right balance of shopping, entertainment, and community. As Sears and JCPenney branches shut down, surviving malls are replacing their anchor spots with fitness centers, grocery stores, and attractions such as children’s museums and ice rinks and filling in the other storefronts with services like hair salons.
“The survey findings show consumers seek an all-around shopping experience,” says Marianne Bickle, director of the University of South Carolina’s department of retailing, who consulted on the survey, in a statement. “From the moment they enter the mall, consumers begin to enjoy the tactile experiences, ambiance of the environment and aromas of the stores and restaurants.”
Michael P. Glimcher, CEO of Glimcher agrees: “While shopping will always be the primary reason people go to the mall, the survey supported our notion that going to the mall is about the experiences—whether that’s having a salad and a glass of wine with your girlfriends or enjoying a movie on a Friday night.”
Those sights, smells, and tactile experience are things the Internet can’t replicate—yet.
(Follow Alessandra Wood’s column at Huffington Post. Recommended reading: The Department Store Museum web site. Jan Whitaker’s “The World of Department Stores”; Jeffrey Hardwick’s “Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream”; Raymond Loewy’s “Never Leave Well Enough Alone”; William Pahlmann’s “The Pahlmann Book of Interior Design”; Barbara D’Arcy’s “Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating”; Michael Galinsky’s “Malls Across America”; Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson’s “Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs.” Also, don’t miss the 2009 documentary “Malls R Us;” the trailer is here.)Home > Press > Student Nanotechnology Laboratories Network Set Up in Iran
Abstract:
Student Nanotechnology Laboratories Network was established in Tehran in the presence of the Iranian vice-president for science and technology and the minister of education.
Student Nanotechnology Laboratories Network Set Up in Iran
Tehran, Iran | Posted on December 15th, 2014
The network consists of 42 nanotechnology laboratories for the education and training of students. The laboratories are equipped with at least eight important laboratorial devices in the field of nanotechnology that are made in Iran, including optical and electron microscopes (STM, SPM, and AFM), sputtering device, electrosonic device, electrospinning, wire electrical explosion device and so on.
The plan to establish student nanotechnology laboratories began in 2012 and seven student laboratories were equipped with nanotechnology devices by March 2013. In 2014, the equipment of student nanotechnology laboratories was done faster and the establishment of 42 laboratories began. Based on the plan, 39 nanotechnology student laboratories will start their activities by March 2015.
A budget of $1,700,000 has been allocated to this program, which has been provided by Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council, Ministry of Education and Training, and the office of Vice-President for Science and Technology.
Students of nine provinces in the country have access to nanotechnology student laboratories, and more laboratories will start work in other provinces by the end of this year.
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February 21st, 2019With that, the 2011 MLG season has come to a close. This time the tournament was bigger, grander, and accordingly, had even more to talk about than normal.NaNiwa opened the first day with a win over NesTea in the MLG Global Invitational, and went on to cause some minor controversy later in the tournament with some interesting manner decisions. The lovable Liquid Zerg HayprO showed his true killer side, with a win over NesTea and a solid 1-2 performance against MVP in back-to-back matches.Of course, the real story of the tournament is Leenock. Young Leenock, after nearly missing his flight to Providence, crushed through the open bracket and fought many close battles to emerge the ultimate champion. Even after getting knocked to the loser's bracket by DongRaeGu, he played confidently and passionately, with aggression and tenacity rarely seen on stage. After busting through MMA, Idra, Huk, and MVP, he faced the man who sent him there and came back from a two game extended series deficit to make it through to the finals.ESPORTS veteran and MLG translator, Hwanni spent the early part of the weekend saying he thought Leenock was going all the way. He was in the zone from the very start, playing to the top of his ability with a concentration and fearless attitude that is only born from absolute belief in one's own abilities.In the finals he faced NaNiwa, who had taken down NesTea not once butin the last 48 hours. Fearless as ever, his aggressive responses to NaNi's fast expanding saw him through the first best-of-three and on to the extended series to make him the first player to win from the loser's bracket since HuK's win in MLG Raleigh 2010.Here is how the top ten shook out. If you didn't have time to watch as many as you would like you can always check this thread for some unique and noteworthy games.
THINGS TO PONDER
By confusedcrib
Are Mvp and Nestea Still the Best Players in the World?
Should Team Evil Geniuses Have Established a North American Team House?
TL responses to reactions:
We've reviewed the section of the article internally and while we believe that writers are entitled to expressing their opinions in TL articles, we should have exercised more care in allowing this to be posted. TL as a news site carries a heavier responsibility when it comes to talking about rival teams, and we should have recognized that before posting this article.
We believe that this topic (EG's teamhouse) is a worthwhile one to discuss, but we agree that one paragraph posted in an event recap is not the right place for it. It should have been posted in an editorial format that was clear and not where it was. The argument also should have been developed much further than a single paragraph.
In the future we hope to be more thorough with our editing process. We will be taking your feedback into account and we hope to avoid situations like this.
Who is GoSu.Gatored?
This is the guy that took out Ganzi
Photo Credit to omgyumyum.com's "omg Latern"
Hero or Huk?
The Big Upsets
Rise of the "No Names"
For me, Providence raised many more questions about the turbulence of E-sports than it answered. While a great tournament, Providence was pretty freaking weird. A middle of the road GSL performer took the whole tournament, a Swedish guy with no big tournament results in 6 months took second place, and Spanishiwa, dde, and State placed in the top thirty two...even though there were thirteen Koreans in the open bracket. I just don't know what to think anymore, the world of Starcraft is crumbling around me. While I ponder the collapse of the world, here are some things to ponder about the tournament.Up to this point, it's been pretty unanimous that Nestea and Mvp are the best two players in the entire world. Not only are they the best players in the world but they do not lose games. Ever. But the two gods showed their vulnerability at Providence.I knew that the big - "g" Gods may actually be lower case ones when on Friday night Naniwa took them both out in the global invitational.I thought as I sat atop the judging throne with Artosis, the greatest judgment-er of them all. As the tournament went on though, things got weird, as Nestea ended up taking twelfth place and Mvp fourth. Nestea first lost to Haypro and lost to Naniwa,. But it's important to remember that in his run through the open bracket, Nestea did not lose a single game. As for Mvp, he similarly did not lose a single game going through the open bracket, but lost to MC, dropped a game to Haypro, and then got knocked out by Leenock.After results like that, I don't know what I should be thinking anymore. I'm with Artosis on this oneI'll be honest guys, I'm really afraid of getting flamed for this, but it's something that's concerned me for long enough that I'm just going to say it. EG did badly, and I can't help but feel that the team house is not paying for itself. Of course when you go to EG's coverage of the event, they point to having "solid results overall," but in reality, it's only ever their golden three that do well. Thanks to Idra, Huk, and Puma, EG always manages good PR, but the results of their other players are starting to get down right disturbing: iNcontroL lost to State and Strifecro, StrifeCro lost to syckness and RuFF13, Lzgamer lost to Catz and exMaSter. Only Machine and Axslav's results are remotely explainable, with losses to Nestea, dde, Gatored, and Violet. Even with those two players though, losses to Gatored and dde when you live in a team house are hard to justify.To be honest, if they want to justify having a team house, they need to work out a better system. While Puma and Idra seem to be practicing correctly, I can't shake the feeling that they would do well regardless of where they were living. EG needs to figure out what those two are doing right, and have everyone try to emulate it to avoid poor results. Having a team house in North America established a wonderful precedent, now they just need the results to match.Other responses: Liquid`Nazgul Perform well once, and it could be a fluke, do it twice, and you deserve recognition. At IEM New York, Gatored was able to take out Strelok, DongRaeGu, and oGsTop. At MLG Providence, Gatored took out Axslav and Ganzi, only losing to ViOlet and Leenock, two of the best players at the tournament. The guy is seriously becoming a PvT sniper, with his major tournament wins against Terran including Qxc, Strelok, Top, and now Ganzi. This guy is quickly gaining my attention for his results, and it would be a smart move to pay him more attention in the future.Do I root for Huk or do I root for Hero? If both are streaming, who do I watch? If they decide to have a competition for who is more adorable, whose side do I take? Hero is improving at a jaw dropping rate, taking out Puma, Sjow, Ret, Puzzle, Jinro, Keen, and Sheth on his way through the tournament. And of course Huk is just the cutest little guy around. Even though he only managed to take out HerO for this tournament, he never really got the chance to prove himself, only losing to the first and second place winners.If there is one thing I know, it's that there may now be a Hero Huk rivalry in affect. HerO finally managed to best Puma at MLG, and now it's time for him to focus on Huk. The rivalry is about more than just wins or losses, or even that it's TeamLiquid's former protoss star against our present one, it's about play style and results.Hero and Huk both play Protoss similarly: willing to go all in, leaning towards gateway styles, and having some amazing control. They're both great players. Just be aware, you may soon be forced to pick a sideThere were a lot of big wins that no one saw coming, and went uncasted on the main streams. A lot of these upsets were in the open bracket, showing that in this time of Starcraft, it may be true that no one is safe. Gatored 2 – 0 HerO 2 – 1 Major 2 – 1 GanZi 2 – 0 Oz 2 – 1 MC 2 – 1 PuMa 2 – 0 PuMa 2 – 1 Leenock 2 – 1 NaNiwa 2 – 1 NesTea 1 – 2Going into the tournament, I don't think that many people would have predicted some of these close results. In a lot of ways, Providence made the “unbeatable” players look pretty beatable.If you hunt your way through the open bracket results, there are a lot of really weird things to see; results that imply the skill gap between top ladder players and lower tier professional players may be closing. The question of what it really means to be a pro gamer is getting less obvious, as more and more "no name" players snipe out top dogs to get their names out there. State 2 – 1 HeavOnEarth 2 – 1 Gatored 2 – 0 sycknesS 2 – 0 Forbs 2 – 1 Forbs 2 – 1 Ostojiy 2 – 0 dde 2 – 0 Binski 2 – 0 RuFF13 2 – 1Is the skill gap closing? Or was this just a bad tournament for the bigger name players that are listed above?Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, and the Perils of Unexamined Political Rage
Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaens countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds.
-Homer, The Iliad
Last week a reliable voice of the left, Jonathan Chait, bravely re-entered the waters of politically incorrect peril with his treatment of the Bernie Sanders versus Black Lives Matter kerfuffle in Seattle where a Sanders event was shut down by a group of black activists demanding recognition of racial injustice. Chait notes that the subsequent arguments from the left supporting the actions of BLM possessed a not insignificant resemblance to the utterances of such unfortunate figures as Mao Zedong who once rationalized his view of ideological censorship thus: “the reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right.” Chait describes this new development in political correctness,
Political correctness is an elaborate series of norms and protocols of political discourse that go well beyond the reasonable mandate of treating all people with respect. Its extravagant imagination of mental trauma lurking in every page, its conception of “safety” as the absence of dissent, and its method of associating beliefs with favored or disfavored groups: They all create a political discourse that is fraught at best, and at worst, inimical to reason. False accounts of a stomach-turning rape at the University of Virginia and the police assassination of a surrendering Michael Brown lingered uncorrected for far too long, as social-media activists swatted away well-founded doubts as rape denial or racism. The “victims” of p.c. culture are not white males but the inhabitants trapped within their own ideological hothouses.
Chait ends his essay thus:
When we’re debating which candidates are progressive enough to be allowed to deliver public speeches, something has gone terribly wrong.
But what exactly is that “something” to which Chait is referring?
In a previous article I wrote for the University Bookman, Why Secular Liberalism isn’t Liberal, I argued citing authors such as Jonathan Haidt, Rene’ Girard and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, that as societies such as ours become more secular they don’t become less religious but rather revert to a more primitive tribalist form of religion. I note again here that Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind is particularly useful in understanding that ominous “something” which Chait dare not name.
After spending some time explaining how conventional deployments of moral and political thinking have a deeply tribal character, Haidt describes a series of studies which indicate that our capacity for benevolence toward members we view as moral or political kin has a deeply physiological origin and that associated with that same mechanism is the capacity to harm those whom we deem outside our tribe in the interests of our own tribe. In one study he cites there is even an indication that we take physiological pleasure in the pain or misfortune of others if we view them as operating outside the acceptable norms of our own kin.
But what forms peoples notions of who is within and without our moral tribe? Citing the work of psychologist Dan McAdams, Haidt argues that in addition to innate characteristics and environment there is a third component, what McAdams refers to as ‘Life Narratives’, the stories which inform our identity. Here Haidt cites the work of sociologist Christian Smith,
Every social order has at its core something sacred, and he shows how stories, particularly “grand narratives,” identify and reinforce the sacred core of each matrix … Each narrative … identifies a beginning (“once upon a time”), a middle (in which a threat or challenge arises) and an end (in which a resolution is achieved). Each narrative is designed to orient listeners morally – to draw their attention to a set of virtues and vices, or good and evil forces – and to impart lessons about what must be done now to protect, recover, or attain the sacred core of the vision.
If something has gone wrong, as Jonathan Chait puts it, perhaps it has something to do with the stories we tell ourselves. According to E.D. Hirsch in his book The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, that is exactly what has happened. According to Hirsch, a self-described secular liberal, American educational experts consciously chose to stop emphasizing citizenship in curriculum over a hundred years ago. This had the effect of unraveling a keystone in American self-understanding, the notion that we are all members of what Rawls refers to as a “Social Union of Social Unions.”
Before the nation existed there was the tribe. The history of tribal and racial hatred is the history and prehistory of humankind. Our insight into the universal phenomena of tribalism has deepened since the advent of evolutionary psychology, whose speculations make us realize how natural are the group hatreds and cruelties of history resisted by the artificial constructs of civilization … The American experiment, which now seems so natural to us, is a thoroughly artificial device designed to counterbalance the natural impulses of group suspicions and hatreds … This vast, artificial, transtribal construct is what our Founders aimed to achieve. And they understood that it can be achieved effectively only by intelligent schooling.
Hirsch describes American education in its first century as the product of a conspiracy of textbook publishers like Noah Webster and William Mc-Guffey whose products sought not only to teach the citizenry the three R’s but a commonality of language, knowledge and shared loyalty to the good of the Republic.
Out of these sentiments emerged the idea of the American common school. The center of its emphasis was to be common knowledge, virtue, skill, and an allegiance to a larger community shared by all children no matter what their origin. Diverse localities could teach whatever local knowledge they deemed important, and accommodate themselves to the talents and interests of individual children; but every school was to be devoted to the larger community and the making of Americans.
Leading up to the twentieth century all of this changed. As the nation experienced a population boom and schools had to be built to accommodate the new citizens, educational theory fell under the hegemony of fashionable progressivism.
Shortly before the beginning of the twentieth century, with a ferocity fueled by nationalistic self-righteousness, advocates of a rival set of ideas attacked the common-school tradition – and even the idea of tradition itself. The new theorists said, “We are not like Europeans; we are not slaves of the past. We are a practical (and better) people who look to the future. Our methods of education must reflect that.” Painting a bleak picture of the mindless rote learning of common-school education, the enthusiastic reformers heralded the advent of “the child-centered school.”
Hirsch continues,
As late as 1940, some common subject matter was still being consciously set forth in school-books, but by the 1950’s that was no longer true: commonality in the early grades had collapsed. After a long struggle, the new set of ideas had overmastered the earlier tradition of providing every child with shared knowledge and democratic values.
Hirsch argues that the full effect of this new educational order could be seen as one would expect roughly twelve years later as verbal SAT scores would take a famous rapid descent never to be reversed.
Today the progressive arguments against a common celebrated American identity are just as passionate but based on different grounds. Text books have swung from the likes of Noah Webster to Howard Zinn, the liberal historian who claims ambivalence regarding whether in sum the world ultimately benefited from the United States. This choice has been motivated by an understandable desire to build student identity on an even more transnational notion of global citizenship and multicultural awareness. But what had promised to achieve an ultimate form of inclusive identity, has really only provided a jargon and terminology that characterizes yet one more political tribe against all other tribes.
The irony is that it has taken a century for sociologists like Haidt, et al, to only begin to understand what the Founders already knew and applied so well in their statecraft. The Founders were haunted by the long history of brittle Republics of the past as chronicled by the likes of Livy and Tacitus. Indeed, if you were to read Haidt’s text then venture to read Madison’s Federalist 10 you would realize there is very little that Haidt learned in his extensive sociological studies that the Founders didn’t already divine from their deep reading of history. Man is by nature tribal and factitious. Republics must therefore be so constituted with this feature in mind. The Founders solution was two-fold, a Republic structured with redundancies that required constant checks and accountability between multiple centers of political power, and a system of education that sought to form citizens who were citizenship-minded. The tragedy is that during the last century, our experts have succeeded in virtually leveling any remnant of that system designed to override our most factitious instincts.
Today we see the effects. Our politics appears to be being pulled apart by extremes, enraged by forms of tribal grievances embodied by the BLM episode in Seattle, and the continuing popularity of candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump who are both appealing to their own forms of tribal resentment.
While we moderns seem to be slow to appreciate the dark depths such passions and rage can lead to, it was a fundamental awareness of our pre-modern predecessors. Indeed, it was the thematic dilemma in one of the West’s founding pieces of literature, Homer’s Iliad.
In that epic poem, the Achaen warrior Achilles gives vent to his rage and grievance leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Upon meeting and defeating his great foe, Hector, killer of his beloved Patroclus, he yet rages more. He defiles Hector’s dead body before the eyes of his father Priam watching from atop the walls of Troy. It is only later, when Priam sneaks into Achilles’ camp that we see the warrior’s rage for the first time diminish as the words of Hector’s father touch the hero. Priam does this by appealing to the deep bond between father and son, a bond which Achilles shares for his own father the great Peleus. This appeal hits its mark because it draws the Achean hero into a common tribe with Priam and his son Hector, the community of fathers and sons.
Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man’s hand he gently moved him back. And overpowered by memory both men gave way to grief.
In our country’s best moments our common identity as Americans served the same purpose as Priam’s calming words, a recognition of ourselves as members of different tribes but sharing a common tribe by citizenship. Now that understanding has been hollowed out by a century of benign neglect and the effect of what has replaced it is on display now in our politics and culture. What remains to be seen is if we can somehow be as good at learning the lessons of our present unfolding history as our founders were over two centuries ago, or even the first readers of Homer’s great Iliad.You can earn a lot of money these days as a high tech "bounty hunter" who locates hard-to-find software bugs and turns them into the vendors for reward money.
Just this week, a team of security researchers in Poland got a hefty $50,000 prize from Google for uncovering some holes in Google's App Engine cloud, Google confirmed.
The researchers say this is the largest prize Google has ever awarded through its "Vulnerability Reward Program," more commonly known as a "bug bounty" program.
That's when hackers report the software holes they find to the makers of the software in exchange for prize money. They do this instead of using them or selling them on the black market for nefarious reasons.
This isn't the biggest award Google has ever given out. Hacking contests often pay even bigger rewards. For instance, Google set aside $2.71828 million in prizes for its fourth annual Pwnium, a contest where hackers all try to hack Chrome. (The amount was a geek joke. That number is known as "the mathematical constant e," an important concept to understand when writing algorithms.)
Google was prepared to pay $150,000, a nice year's salary, for a hack delivered by a web page that let the hacker control a Chrome OS PC even after it reboots.
And Google confirmed that it did give out one $150,000 prize to a hacker who did such a thing on an HP Chromebook 11.
Google isn't alone. Microsoft has given out $300,000 to date, including two $100,000 prizes in 2013, and a bunch of undisclosed prize amounts in 2014.
Meanwhile Bugcrowd, a startup that helps hackers find bug bounties (and earn prize money), list dozens of bounty programs that will pay $1,000-$5,000 per really bad bug.
All this to say that even though it looked like the bad guy hackers (known as "black hats") were winning in 2014, the white hats still have some tricks of their own.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Petro Poroshenko: "We should have the representatives of the OSCE - just for the quick reaction if anything goes wrong"
Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine have released 1,200 prisoners, President Petro Poroshenko has said.
The releases followed Friday's ceasefire deal, he said, which included an exchange of prisoners.
He was speaking during a visit to the strategic south-eastern port city of Mariupol, which has come under shelling from pro-Russian rebels in recent days.
Mr Poroshenko announced his arrival in a tweet: "Mariupol is Ukraine. We will not surrender this land to anyone."
Meanwhile, EU member states have agreed to impose a new package of sanctions against Moscow, to come into force in the coming days.
EU Council President Herman van Rompuy said the measures were aimed at "promoting a change of course in Russia's actions destabilising eastern Ukraine".
But the 28-member bloc is being deliberately vague about when they will come into force, to allow time to assess the implementation of the ceasefire, BBC Europe correspondent Chris Morris reports.
The ceasefire appears to be holding, although the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which brokered the deal, described it on Monday as "shaky".
Before the truce came into place, pro-Russian separatists made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol.
Mr Poroshenko said during his visit on Monday that the city's defences would be reinforced and that rebels would suffer a "crushing defeat" if they advanced on the city.
Mariupol is the last city in Donetsk region still held by the Ukrainian government and is a strategic port on the route to Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in March.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state.
Also on Monday:
Mr Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone to discuss "steps to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the situation", the Kremlin said
Mr Poroshenko said Ukraine is to receive "direct supplied of modern weaponry" from Nato countries, according to Interfax-Ukraine. Nato countries have previously denied similar claims
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Rebel leader held a ceremony in Donetsk on Monday to honour its defence from the Nazis in World War Two
Image copyright AFP Image caption The conflict has sparked a humanitarian crisis in parts of eastern Ukraine - here a man distributes food at a Red Cross centre in Mariupol
Image copyright Reuters Image caption "Self-defence" battalions have set up checkpoints near Mariupol
Appeal for monitors
Mr Poroshenko said that "over the past four days, we have managed to secure the release of 1,200 of our captives", according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency,
The announcement came after a ceasefire was reached in Minsk, Belarus, in talks brokered by the OSCE.
The negotiations involved former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, leaders of the pro-Russian rebels, and a Russian delegate.
Mr Poroshenko appealed on Monday for the OSCE to send representatives to areas where the ceasefire has been broken.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has left some 2,600 people dead since April.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption EC's Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen: "The sanctions package can be extended or stopped, depending on developments in the field"
Details of the EU sanctions are expected to emerge on Tuesday but the gas sector is not affected. Major state-owned oil firms are included such as Rosneft, which is already targeted by US measures.
Russia has warned that it could block international flights through its airspace if the EU goes ahead with new measures.
Diplomats say the new package will target Russian oil companies Rosneft and Transneft and the petroleum unit of state gas monopoly Gazprom.
Their access to financial markets will be restricted - a serious matter for Rosneft, which last month asked the Russian government for a $42bn (£25.2bn) loan.
Analysis: Andrew Walker, BBC economics correspondent
Rosneft calls itself the leader of the Russian petroleum industry. That makes it a very important player in the European Union's energy market. About 90% of the crude oil used in the EU is imported and Russia is, by a large margin, the biggest supplier.
The sanctions don't appear to directly affect that relationship. They would prevent Rosneft raising money in European financial markets.
But as crude oil is mainly transported by |
violent killing of women.
But his argument did little to appease critics in Mexico.
Videos like this one "objectify women, glorify violence, and reaffirm stereotypes about women causing problems for men and therefore deserving punishment," said Lucia Lagunes, head of Women's Communication and Information, a rights NGO.
The subject is highly sensitive in a country where nearly half of all women over the age of 15 -- 47 percent -- have suffered some form of sexual violence, according to government statistics.
The Mexican interior ministry condemned the singer by name in a statement expressing "profound rejection of this type of content, and in particular, the video of singer Gerardo Ortiz."
The video "clearly invites violence against women, in addition to minimizing and normalizing this social scourge," it said.
Ortiz's video also caught the attention of officials in the western state of Jalisco, who issued a summons for the singer for questioning. Two years ago police seized six AK-47 assault rifles and a grenade launcher at the upscale home in Jalisco where the video was filmed.
- Objectifying women -
Some 600 women have been murdered in the State of Mexico, which nearly surrounds Mexico City, in the past four years, according to the non-governmental National Citizen Observatory of Femicides.
The State of Mexico now competes with Ciudad Juarez, the city bordering the United States that became infamous for its spate of femicides, for the grim title of the most dangerous place for women in the country.
At the other end of the spectrum of violence, examples of sexual harassment and abuse abound in the country, where two recent cases have seen women victimized for speaking out.
On March 8, International Women's Day, a 26-year-old US reporter called Andrea Noel posted online security camera footage showing how a man approached her from behind on a street in Mexico City, lifted her dress and pulled her underwear down to her ankles.
Instead of eliciting sympathy, Noel was savaged on social media with critics saying her clothes and lifestyle were an invitation to harassment.
Noel eventually fled Mexico after receiving death threats.
In a similar case, a young woman from the eastern state of Veracruz, named Daphne Fernandez, was subjected to online harassment after she spoke out about sexual abuse one year earlier at the hands of four young men who are the sons of influential local personalities.
- Mexico's violent reality -
Norma Mora, a gym instructor who experienced an assault similar to Noel, says she wishes she could somehow "avenge" all victims of sexual violence on Mexico's streets.
At one point, she made plans to buy a stun gun, pepper spray and a club for self-defense -- before she realized a change of attitude among men was what was really needed.
That, she says, will be a titanic task.
"Mexico is a very macho country, and violence against women is deeply ingrained," she said.
One group of activists has gathered more than 4,000 signatures on the Change.org website to persuade YouTube to pull the Ortiz video.
But that will do little to stop the violence, said Manuel Valenzuela, an expert in narcocorridos at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
And for as long as "violence and death plague the daily lives of millions of Mexicans," he said, these songs and videos will continue to exist as a "crude mirror of our reality."The largest body in our asteroid belt, dwarf planet Ceres has captivated our imagination ever since NASA's Dawn spacecraft sent back images of strange, bright spots on its surface back in 2015.
Those mysterious spots have since been confirmed as little more than large salt patches, but astronomers have now revealed that Ceres is hiding an even more intriguing secret - it's appears to be covered in huge craters of water ice, hidden just below its surface.
Yep, our new favourite dwarf planet (sorry, Pluto) has been hiding vast reservoirs of ice from us all along.
It's well known that Ceres is covered in dark, shadowy craters, many of which are positioned so that they never see the light of day. But researchers across two separate papers published last week have discovered that at least one of these craters - and perhaps many of them - are filled with frozen water.
That means the dwarf planet, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, could one day serve as a refuelling base for missions heading deep into our Solar System - not to mention the fact that it just got a whole lot more fascinating for astrobiologists.
"There are over 600 persistently shadowed regions on Ceres," said one of the researchers who worked across both appears, Norbert Schorghofer from the University of Hawai'i, in a press conference last week. "I call it Ceres' darkest secret."
The prediction that Ceres was covered in ice hidden just below the surface was first made by astronomers 30 years ago, but until now, we haven't had the evidence to back it up.
When the Dawn spacecraft started orbiting the dwarf planet in March 2015, the focus was initially on its strange bright spots, rather than its dark craters.
But now, in one of the studies published last week, Dawn's Framing Camera has been able to capture scattered light coming from a crater called PSR2 near Ceres' north pole, and the data show that it's filled with a huge sheet of frozen water.
These dark craters are known as 'cold traps', seeing as they contain temperatures lower than –163 degrees Celsius (–260 Fahrenheit and 110 Kelvin). This means they're so cold that very little ice stored in them is likely to turn into vapour, even over billions of years.
These #Ceres craters hold ice and won’t "let it go" for 1 billion+ years -- check out new #AGU2016 results https://t.co/tBzQNTS9g8 pic.twitter.com/m95JjuN8r5 — NASA's Dawn Mission (@NASA_Dawn) December 15, 2016
So far, PSR2 is the only crater researchers have managed to look inside using Dawn's infrared mapping spectrometer, but the team also detected bright deposits on the floor of 10 other permanently shadowed craters - which could likely be evidence of more ice.
In fact, in the second paper released last week, the team estimates that Ceres is made up of about 10 percent water, now frozen into ice.
"On Ceres, ice is not just localised to a few craters. It's everywhere, and nearer to the surface with higher latitudes," said lead researcher Thomas Prettyman, from the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.
"These results confirm predictions made nearly three decades ago that ice can survive for billions of years just beneath the surface of Ceres."
The second study used Dawn's gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) to look at the number and energy of gamma rays and neutrons being scattered by the top metre of Ceres' surface.
The way these neutrons and gamma rays are scattered can tell researchers what the surface material is made of.
The team suggests that rather than Ceres having a solid layer of ice covering it, the planet is likely made up of a porous mixture of rocky material, and ice has filled its pores.
Based on this evidence, it's more likely than ever that other asteroids in the main asteroid belt could contain ice just under their surface - which is awesome news for space explorers who want to mine asteroids for hydrogen on the way to more distant planets.
"The evidence strengthens the case for the presence of near-surface water ice on other main belt asteroids," said Prettyman.
The research also sheds light on which types of rocky bodies in the Solar System could have once had water ice - and might still have it.
"By finding bodies that were water-rich in the distant past, we can discover clues as to where life may have existed in the early Solar System," said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator of NASA's Dawn mission.
The big question now is where Ceres' ice came from in the first place.
"We are interested in how this ice got there and how it managed to last so long," said Schorghofer in a press release. "It could have come from Ceres' ice-rich crust, or it could have been delivered from space."
Either way, we're eager to find out what other secrets Ceres might reveal to us in the coming months.
The two papers have been published in Science and Nature Astronomy, were presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco last week.
Check out an incredible flyover of Ceres' Occator Crater below:BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Crews responded to a house fire in the 100 block of Grant Street near Lafayette Avenue in Buffalo Tuesday night.
Although officials received initial reports that someone was inside the house, crews did not find anyone and after several searches determined the house was vacant, said a Buffalo Fire Department Chief.
He also said nobody was injured.
Extra crews were called to the scene of the fire due to its initial intensity and the possibility that someone was inside the home. Crews also worried the fire may spread to buildings on either side.
The fire was contained fast enough to keep it from spreading to another building, however the house that caught fire is a complete loss, the chief said.
An emergency demolition of the house that caught fire has been ordered due to the extent of the damage. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash are dear friends. The two joined the Dallas Mavericks back in 1998 and played together for six wonderful seasons.
Nash announced over the weekend that he’s retiring, so obviously Nowitzki has some words for his former teammate.
Dirk on Nash: He overcame a lot in his career, being injured, and being slow, and white and unathletic — Amin Elhassan (@AminESPN) March 23, 2015
He said that in the most nonchalant, normal way on an ESPN NBA Insiders podcast. Nowitzki also said Nash’s retirement wasn’t shocking and he was surprised the news was just now coming out as opposed to several months ago.
“I think it was a relief for him, I think he was happy it was over with,” said Nowitzki. “I told him in October that I was proud of him. That he had an amazing career.”
When they joined the Mavs, Nowitzki was a first-round draft pick and Nash was acquired from the Phoenix Suns. Nowitzki explained how that first year was hard being so far away from Germany, but that Nash and Michael Finley made him comfortable.With another knee injury to Hassan Whiteside, rookie Bam Adebayo has gone from borderline rotation player to Heat starter.
Whiteside, in extended comments Friday morning, said he will be out indefinitely with a knee bruise, and Adebayo — speaking hours before Friday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets at AmericanAirlines Arena — said he’s prepared to handle the load in Whiteside’s absence.
Coach Erik Spoelstra said Adebayo will start with Whiteside out.
The objective, Adebayo said, is “just taking off what H did. Just being vocal, high motor and just getting my teammates involved. Telling them when screens are happening and when they’re not happening.”
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Does the work he put in behind the scenes pay off now?
“You got to take it as serious as if I wasn’t playing,” he said. “Just coming in here every day and preparation and being ready.”
He said he will prepare for a bigger role “like I would if H was still here. Just doing my own routine and keeping my routine in sync and getting my mind right before the game listening to coach’s schemes, and go out there and try to execute.”
Adebayo has turned heads around the league.
In a podcast with Richard Jefferson this week, Cavaliers forward Channing Frye: “That [guy] I played [Tuesday night] was humongous. I had never seen him before, I’m very impressed. He’s going to be on the scouting report for the rest of the league. Do y’all know how hard it is to put the ball as a righty, drop step and dunk on the left side of your body over somebody. Did you see how he moved Kyle [Korver]?”
Cleveland’s Kevin Love said of Adebayo: “He’s good.”
SHARE COPY LINK Adebayo talks about getting some extended playing time Tuesday in the Heat’s 108-97 loss to the Cavaliers.
Cavaliers guard Dwyane Wade said: “He was dunking on everybody. … That’s how athletic you got to be to make things up in mid-air.”
Adebayo is averaging 5.3 points and 3.9 rebounds in 12 games, including four starts.
He had 19 points and six rebounds in 18 minutes against Cleveland on Tuesday, shooting 7 for 7 from the field.
Against the Knicks on Wednesday, Adebayo had nine points, five rebounds and two steals, shooting four for five from the field in 30 minutes. But his defense was uneven in that game.
“I like the progress,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo. “It’s hard not to see the progress Bam is making. Look, he makes mistakes, too. He’s not doing everything perfectly.
“He is really trying to apply everything he is learning while he is going through that process of learning our system, learning our culture, learning the NBA game. It doesn’t clutter his mind from bringing the thing he is best at, and that’s his energy, his athleticism, his multiple efforts. Those things are his foundation and he’s growing in all the other areas.”
Players guarded by Adebayo are shooting 49.2 percent against him, compared with 44.6 percent against Whiteside.
Spoelstra said the Heat’s defensive system will not change without Whiteside, though Adebayo and Olynyk aren’t nearly the shot-blockers nor defensive deterrents that Whiteside is.
“It’s going to be tough,” Whiteside said of Adebayo’s challenge in the Heat’s defensive system.
▪ Charlotte Hornets guard Kemba Walker was ruled out for Friday’s game with a shoulder contusion.As some of you may know, last year I created and cleaned up a complete history of the NHL Entry Draft, from the original draft in 1963 in Montreal all the way up until 2013 in Philadelphia. I used this spreadsheet – what eventually became known as the ‘Draftbook’ – to study trends and track success in drafting. Mostly for fun, to be honest.
With the 2015 Draft set to take place later this month, I figured now is as good a time as any to update my Draftbook and include last year’s 2014 Draft in Sunrise.
This is long, long overdue, and I plan on updating it with the 2015 data set as soon as it’s available. In the meantime though, I figure it will give some of my fellow writers, statisticians and fans something fun to poke around in, and maybe help generate some cool content leading up to the 2015 Draft.
The 2014 Draftbook contains the following data – Year, Draft Round, Pick (Round), Pick (Overall), Name, Position, POB, Height, Weight, Amateur League and Amateur Team.
All of these columns can be sorted and filtered, allowing us to quickly get answers to questions like, “How many 6’3 centres have been drafted in the top 10 picks in the past 20 years?” or “How many players have the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted out of the OHL?”
The data set is not perfect, but it’s as close as we can get without many hours of researching old leagues and team names. Not saying that will never happen, but it won’t be happening today.
Some of the data has been changed – for example, for Amateur League data, all SWE and SHL and SWEDEN have simply been changed to ‘Sweden’. If it’s the Allsvenskan, it will read ‘Sweden D2’, and if it’s one of the Swedish junior leagues, it will read ‘Sweden Jr.’.
If you have any questions or comments, leave it in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter.
Download the 2014 Draftbook here.After Georges St. Pierre edged Johny Hendricks via split decision to retain his welterweight title at UFC 167, it was clear something needed to change.In the Octagon that night, the Canadian superstar said that he needed to “step away for a little bit.” A few weeks later, “Rush” made it official, as he vacated the 170-pound belt and took an indefinite leave of absence. Nearly three years later, St. Pierre is finally ready to make a comeback, and UFC 206 in Toronto appears to be a target date — provided he and the Las Vegas-based promotion can come to terms.Back in November 2013, St. Pierre’s triumph over Hendricks marked his seventh consecutive triumph via decision in the UFC. On the upcoming documentary “The Hurt Business,” St. Pierre admitted that he had lost some of his motivation (the interview was filmed before he announced his intention to return).“Critics said I was fighting more to win instead of finishing the fight. And it’s true,” St. Pierre said. “Towards the end I didn’t have the same anger, I didn’t have the same drive to hurt a guy and to finish it. It’s a fact. I tried to get it back but it’s very hard.“I think the best way to get it back for me was to step out. Because it’s more of an emotion thing. I was fighting more for winning instead of going through the guy. I needed to step out to let my hunger go up.”St. Pierre’s initial feelings following UFC 167 prompted a tirade from Dana White at the evening’s post-fight press conference.“There’s no, ‘Listen, I’m going to go on a cruise and I’m going to be gone for two years. I’m going to take a hiatus. I’m going to take a leave of absence,’” White said then. “Whatever the hell he was saying, that’s not how it works. You owe it to the fans, you owe it to the belt, you owe it to this company and you owe it to Johny Hendricks to give him that opportunity to fight again unless you’re going to retire.”These days the UFC president is more subdued when it comes to St. Pierre, but he has repeatedly expressed skepticism regarding the fighter’s desire to compete again.“Dana White makes a lot of comments. But Dana White always will do what serves him best on a business standpoint,” St. Pierre said. “Because he didn’t want me to leave. He wanted me to come back to get people to tune in, to make me come back. But it was time for me to take a break.” "The Hurt Business" is slated for a Sept. 29 premiere in theaters. The film, which “examines the rise of mixed martial arts fighting through the eyes of today’s top stars, is narrated by Kevin Costner and directed by Vlad Yudin.TODAY: Miami has announced the signing of McGehee.
YESTERDAY, 4:38pm: McGehee is actually still on release waivers until tomorrow, MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro tweets. Once he clears, the Marlins are expected to make “a strong push” to sign him. McGehee is represented by Meister Sports Management.
4:12pm: The Marlins have agreed to terms with infielder Casey McGehee, Andy Slater of 940 AM-WINZ tweets. Slater notes that McGehee should join the team on Friday.
The Giants released McGehee yesterday, according to MLB.com’s transactions page. They had previously designated him for assignment after an awful.213/.275/.299 performance in 138 plate appearances. The Giants will still be on the hook for most of the remainder of McGehee’s $4.8MM salary.
With Martin Prado on the disabled list with a shoulder issue, the Marlins have lately gone with Derek Dietrich and Miguel Rojas at third base, the position McGehee has played almost exclusively in the big leagues since last season. Both Dietrich and Rojas have performed well at the Triple-A level this year, and Dietrich is also off to a good start in the big leagues, hitting.259/.333/.481 in 60 plate appearances.
Dietrich is, however, left-handed, as is primary first baseman Justin Bour. One would think the right-handed McGehee would still be able to play first base, so the he could potentially fill for one or the other against left-handed pitching. The Marlins already have righty first base options in Michael Morse and Jeff Baker, although Morse is in the midst of a very poor season and Baker is currently dealing with an oblique injury. McGehee has struggled this season too, of course, although the fact that he performed well with the Marlins in 2014 (after which they traded him to San Francisco) might earn him more chances in Miami than he might receive elsewhere. The corresponding move the Marlins make when they officially add McGehee to their roster will likely help explain how they plan to use him.Poachers Decimate Tanzania's Elephant Herds
Enlarge this image toggle caption Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
"The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it." — Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
Conrad wrote more than a century ago, when there were no laws against shooting elephants. If anything, today's restrictions on the ivory trade have only increased its value.
The slaughter of elephants and the seizure of illegal ivory have soared to their highest levels in decades. A voracious market in Asia and chaotic wildlife protection in much of Africa have put elephant herds at risk throughout the African continent, particularly in Central and East Africa. Poachers are gunning down whole families, oblivious to game scouts.
A key battleground is Tanzania, one of the world's last great repositories of elephants. Perhaps 70,000 to 80,000 elephants roam this nation's immense sanctuaries, amounting to perhaps a quarter of all African elephants.
In colonial times, the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar held the largest ivory auctions in the world. Today Tanzania has regained that infamy. Those public auctions have been replaced by underground networks of smugglers, but Tanzania remains a leading source of ivory.
From 2009 to 2011, the country was the leading exporter of illegal ivory in the world. Thirty-seven percent of all elephant tusks seized by law enforcement came from Tanzania, with neighboring Kenya a close second.
On Saturday, customs officials in Hong Kong announced the seizure of nearly 4 tons' worth of ivory hidden in two containers shipped from Indian Ocean ports in Tanzania and Kenya.
Whether the ivory is merely transshipped through Tanzanian ports or plundered from its parks is a point of contention.
Few Protections For Elephants
Conservationists say Tanzania has for years been one of Africa's worst elephant slaughterhouses. They blame authorities who are unable or unwilling to control poaching and trafficking. The government acknowledges there is a problem and says reforms are under way.
"There's an enormous slaughter of elephants going on in Tanzania right now. Things are out of hand," says Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who has been studying and protecting elephants in Africa for 47 years. "There's no protection in numbers for elephants any more than there was for bison in the last century when they were all wiped out in America. So people shouldn't kid themselves."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of African Wildlife Trust Courtesy of African Wildlife Trust
Tanzania had been curiously mute over the massacre of its elephants. But recently, an avuncular, white-haired member of Parliament offered this grim assessment.
"Thirty elephants per day. At the end of the year, you're talking about 10,000 elephants killed," says James Lembeli, chairman of Parliament's Natural Resources Committee and a former National Parks official. "Move around this country where you have populations of elephants: carcasses everywhere."
In Search Of Dead Elephants
I decided to go see for myself.
Two Masai tribesmen in tire-tread sandals use elaborate whistling to herd their cattle. They know this landscape of dry thorn brush and tawny grass intimately. So they lead us to a recent elephant kill on the Tanzania-Kenya border.
We walked up on the carcass of a dead elephant. It was killed sometime last month. All that's left is a great leathery hide, gray on the outside, pink on the inside, decomposing on the savanna.
The poachers hauled off the tusks. The villagers came and cut away all the meat, and took the head and bones. The scene is being repeated again and again across Tanzania.
The poachers come in all types in Africa these days. The Democratic Republic of Congo recently accused Ugandan soldiers of machine-gunning elephants from a military helicopter. Some poachers track jumbo elephants on foot for days like big-game hunters. Others use high-tech shortcuts.
Robert Waltenburg manages Lake Chala Safari Camp, a small, private game reserve where we found the carcass. It's one of eight elephants killed here in recent weeks.
Social Media Help Poachers
Waltenburg believes his clients unintentionally guide poachers to their targets by posting photos of elephants with big tusks on social media, which are monitored by resourceful poachers.
"It's so easy to research on the Internet, just type in 'elephant sightings' in this region. Things will pop up," Waltenburg says.
There's an enormous slaughter of elephants going on in Tanzania right now. Things are out of hand. There's no protection in numbers for elephants any more than there was for bison in last century when they were all wiped out in America.
Reliable numbers of killed elephants are hard to come by. According to the MIKE program — Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants — poachers are responsible for 60 to 90 percent of elephant deaths in Tanzanian wildlife reserves. National parks like the Serengeti are better protected.
Like other African countries, Tanzania is losing its elephants to poverty, poor administration and corruption.
First, a pair of big tusks is a year's income to a subsistence peasant.
Second, wildlife rangers are ill-paid, and punishment for a convicted poacher can be as little as a $13 fine.
Third, individuals inside the Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism have been selling out the nation's heritage that they were supposed to protect.
Wildlife Officials Implicated
In the past few months, the minister and top officials in the Wildlife Department were sacked for their roles in two scandals: taking bribes for the assignments of hunting blocs and allowing 116 live wild animals to be loaded onto a jumbo jet and smuggled out of the country to Qatar.
The new minister, a former diplomat named Khamis Kagasheki, gets high marks from wildlife advocates. In his office in Dar es Salaam, Kagasheki is asked whether people in this building helped the poachers.
"You know," he says with a deep sigh, "there has been, of course, there's been corruption."
His concern is echoed by an outspoken tour operator, Pratick Patel.
"I think a lot more firing needs to be done. We know for a fact, the whole industry knows for a fact, that a lot of the wildlife department are involved, very much involved in poaching in the game reserves," Patel says. "Unfortunately, the Wildlife Department has, to some extent, been operating like an independent company."
Kagasheki admires his northern neighbor, Kenya, where anti-poaching laws and the Wildlife Service are much tougher on elephant killers. Kagasheki says he is trying to turn around the culture of the ministry he took over five months ago.
"What I'm saying is we have to be stringent. We have absolutely no choice. These people are killing innocent animals with impunity. And when you look at these elephants, beautiful beasts," he says.
Conservationists are dubious of Tanzania's commitment to elephants.
This month, Tanzania notified the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that the country would like to sell off its 100-ton stockpile of confiscated ivory and downgrade the protection of elephants.
The government says a one-off ivory sale will raise millions for wildlife protection. Conservationists say ivory sales just fuel the slaughter of more elephants.Things are going pretty well for Travis Sanheim right now. He's having success in juniors, second in scoring both on his Calgary Hitmen and out of all WHL defensemen with 28 points through 22 games - fewer games played than the other top guys. He's a good candidate to make Team Canada's World Juniors team. And he had a sweet assist on the most prolific goal in Teddy Bear Toss history.
Following the teddy bear game (a 2-1 shootout victory for the Hitmen) I had the chance to check in with Sanheim, and where he's at in terms of his development.
"Right now I'm just focusing on developing my game, and making sure that I'm doing everything right to be able to get to that next level. I'm not sure when that'll be, but I just wanna make sure that I'm ready and trying to get there as quick as possible."
He's also been following the Philadelphia Flyers this season as best as he can, and that includes Shayne Gostisbehere's journey:
"I think it's pretty cool to see that [Gostisbehere's] having success at the NHL level. He's a pretty skilled guy, and I think you've seen that in the games that he's played. When he gets his opportunities, he makes the most of it. I got a chance to play with him as a D-partner in pre-season and he ended up scoring two goals in that game. Just the skill that he has, the ability to control the play, he's going to be a good pro and good NHLer for a lot of years."
Maybe one day, down the line, that pairing can be reunited in the NHL. Sanheim will likely turn pro next season, and if everything goes according to plan, it will only be a matter of time for him.BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s leaders will unveil a reform agenda for the next decade on Tuesday, seeking to balance the need to overhaul the world’s second-largest economy as it loses steam with preserving stability and to reinforce the Communist Party’s power.
A paramilitary policeman holds the Chinese national flag at a flag lowering ceremony on Tiananmen square next to the Great Hall of the People, where the closing ceremony of the Chinese Communist Party plenum is going to be held on Tuesday, as the portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong is seen in the background in Beijing, November 11, 2013. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
The blueprint, which past experience suggests will be first published by the official news agency Xinhua, will show just how committed the new leadership is to reform after formally taking power in March.
Economic reforms were expected to dominate four days of closed-door talks that began on Saturday and involved the 205-member Central Committee of China’s ruling Communist Party. The conclave was held under tight security at a Soviet-era hotel in western Beijing.
Some social and political issues could have been tackled, but Western-style political reform were probably not on the agenda, analysts said.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang must unleash new growth drivers as the economy, after three decades of breakneck expansion, begins to sputter, burdened by industrial overcapacity, piles of debt and eroding competitiveness.
Yu Zhengsheng, the fourth-ranked member of the ruling elite, said last month the meeting would deliver “unprecedented” reforms. However, several analysts and official media have sought to tone down expectations.
“The chances of seeing big surprises will be small,” said an economist with a top government think-tank, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter because he was involved in preparations for the meeting.
A draft plan on key reforms was formulated ahead of the conclave, combining proposals from various government ministries and top think-tanks.
The Development Research Centre, a think-tank for China’s cabinet, proposed last month eight key areas for reform at the plenum - finance, taxation, land, state assets, social welfare, innovation, foreign investment and governance.
Some reforms still face stiff resistance from powerful interest groups such as local governments or state-owned monopolies, people involved in reform discussions have said.
Most progress is expected with steps such as letting market forces play a bigger role in setting the price of capital, energy and land, cutting red tape and some fiscal and tax reforms.
“I don’t think the final document can exceed expectations - the opposite may be the case,” said the economist with the top government think-tank in Beijing.
“It is absolutely impossible for them to add new reforms to the initial list,” said the economist.
The meeting’s communique will not reveal any heated debates that might have taken place behind the scenes, an arrangement that allows the Communist Party to present a unified voice on the plans. It is also unlikely to be particularly detailed.
The Central Committee’s third plenum comes at a time when the party is still grappling with the fallout from the downfall of disgraced Bo Xilai, who had been a contender for a seat at the apex of China’s power.
The former party boss of the southwestern city of Chongqing was jailed for life in September on charges of corruption and abuse of power, but he has many sympathizers.
Underscoring the party’s worries, supporters of Bo have setup a new political party, in a direct challenge to the de facto ban on new political groups.
Historically, third plenums in China have served as a springboard for key economic reforms.
Former leader Deng Xiaoping launched reforms to open the economy to the outside world at a third plenum in 1978.
That was followed in 1993 with an endorsement of the “socialist” market economy, paving the way for sweeping reforms spearheaded by then Premier Zhu Rongji, which led to China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
This time, the focus is economic rebalancing by increasing the urban population and greater efforts to promote consumption to move away from exports and investment, China’s main growth engines.
Slideshow (4 Images)
The leaders are expected to loosen the household registration system, which blocks migrant workers and their families from access to education and social welfare beyond their home villages.
They may also push land reforms to allow farmers to sell land when they leave their villages - a key hurdle to Beijing’s urbanization drive to turn millions of migrants into consumers.
While the meeting will set the broad reform agenda, state agencies will be left to work out the details and the next event to watch will be the annual Economic Work Conference likely to be held in December.Words have magical powers over our imagination. Words give us the power to communicate our experience to other human beings. Words are the tools we use to share our imagination. Words are symbols we use to create meaning in our imagination, inside our minds. The old Hebrews assigned tremendous power not only to words, they assigned magical powers to letters as well. The letters we use to “spell” words become magic when we combine the right way. For Example, “We yearn for freedom from the smoking habit,” awakens all kinds of strong emotions that motivate us to take action to achieve freedom from the habit. We can literally feel the words as we think and speak them. Words are so powerful that the words we think have the power to shape our reality. Words are as close to magic as we can get. By “spelling” words we can lift ourselves up or put ourselves down. The old Hindu sages knew the power of mantras, the words we repeat fill up our subconscious with the message we want, or oftentimes the message we don’t want to. Words shape the reality of the monkey, the monkey understands words only literally. The monkey cannot understand symbolic meaning. There is no difference between the word snake and an actual living snake for the monkey. The monkey cannot read between the lines, because reading between the lines requires imagination. The monkey has no imagination, it only has the present and the memory of the past, only humans have imagination. Only the human can rise above the symbols and create meaning.
“I should quit smoking”. The word “should” is hard to explain, even for the oxford dictionary which states, “Should is used to indicate obligation, duty or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions”. We use the word “should” to criticize ourselves based on what we imagine to be correctness. The word “should” implies an obligation to feel shame, or guilt, or both. It also cancels out any word that comes after it as we can see in this example, “I should quit smoking” which becomes “I obligation smoking” or “I’m obliged to smoke”. The word should removes the next word “quit” and replaces it with the obligation to feel guilt, or shame, or both. So, although the sentence is grammatically correct, the meaning we construct in our imagination is paradoxical, “I guilt trip myself about my smoking habit”. We aim to quit smoking and our thoughts only manage to generate painful emotions and anchor them to the cigarette. Building on our previous experience with the word should we can move to the next symbolic level of meaning: “I should not smoke,” which becomes “I shame and guilt myself and then smoke”. “I should exercise more,” turns into “I guilt myself using my lack of exercise. Where did I put the lighter?” We can replace the word “should” with the word “must” or even worse the phrase “have to” and get similar results. Those words trigger shame and we do the action we wanted to stop to alleviate the shame we just generated. This sounds a lot like monkey business. Do we as adults really need to be shamed into doing the right thing? Is that what God intended for us? To shame ourselves into behaving correctly? Can’t we just behave ourselves without the threat of negative consequences? Do we brush our teeth to avoid cavities and pain, or do we brush our teeth to have healthy, strong teeth?
“I must” is even more ambiguous than “I should” and is basically “I should” with emphasis on obligation, the emphasis might as well be on generating guilt, or shame, or both. The phrase “have to” has a deep meaning that escapes the mind at first glance, it actually means “I have no choice.” This is not a dictionary based definition, it’s a symbolic definition. Having no choice is unbearable for human beings. When faced with no choice, we fight with our own thoughts. “I have to brush my teeth” turns into a prolonged mental battle followed by, “Oops, I forgot to brush my teeth, but I made choice. A choice I didn’t want to make.”
We need to cleanse our thoughts of those words and rid our minds of ambiguity. “I should”, “I must” and “I have to,” need to become “I need,” “I want to” and “I will”. “I will brush my |
you ruled by disputes and self-righteousness?
It is time for the whole body of Christ to come together to present a unified spirit of love to the world. The religious spirit is hated by the world. Even they can see it is full of hatred, murder, and condemnation. It is time in these last days to say, “I love my Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Charismatic, Methodist, and Pentecostal brethren even though we are all striving to better understand the paradox in Biblical doctrine.” None of us have arrived yet. We all agree Jesus is Lord and it was God who sent Him to give us life eternal. Maturity in Christ is not gauged by the knowledge of God but by the Spirit of God in us (2 Cor. 10:5).
Author, pastor and counselor, Bruce S. Campbell received his Master’s of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. His latest novel and companion study guide, The Beginning: Prelude to the Apocalypse, discuss many of the paradoxes of the Christian faith. In 2009, Bruce and his wife, Jill, founded The Secret Place to counsel ministers who are struggling in sin or need to be renewed in their faith journey. For more information, visit www.BruceSCampbell.com.
Photo courtesy: Pixabay.com
Publication date: October 20, 2015WASHINGTON – An unprecedented 50% of Americans think it’s high time that marijuana should become legal in the United States, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.
That’s up from 46% from a year ago — and way up from a mere 12% in 1969, when Gallup first asked the question and 84% of respondents opposed to legalization.
“If this current trend on legalizing marijuana continues, pressure may build to bring the nation’s laws into compliance with the people’s wishes,” the pollsters said in a statement.
Support for legalization was strongest among liberals (69%), those aged 18 to 29 (62%), and those living in the western United States (55%).
Least likely to support legalization were those over 65 (31%), conservatives (34%) and southerners (44%).
Gallup based its findings on telephone interviews on October 6-9 with adults in all 50 states. Samples were weighted by gender, age, race, education and region, with a maximum margin of error of plus or minus four percent.
On its website, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) said: “Marijuana legalization is becoming more popular with just about everyone.”
But it said more political pressure is needed before change can come about.
Last June, several US members of Congress introduced legislation in Washington to legalize marijuana nationwide but allow each state to regulate, tax and control the drug itself.
It was the first-ever effort to legalize the production and consumption of marijuana at a national level, although its sponsors acknowledged that it had little chance of becoming law.
“We believe the federal government shouldn’t be involved with prosecuting adults smoking marijuana,” said Democratic Congressman Barney Frank at the time. “We don’t have enough prosecutors or police officers to do so.”
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the production and consumption of marijuana for medical purposes, while 14 states have decriminalized small amounts for consumption.
“I don’t expect to pass it in this Congress,” Frank said. “But I think we’re making progress. This is an educational process.”
Some 850,000 Americans were arrested in 2009 for marijuana-related offenses, according to FBI figures. Nine out of 10 of those cases were for possession.Sam's POV I woke up to my Phone alarm going off, quickly looking around confused by my surroundings before I realized I was at Maude's. I went to turn of it off before I saw the time. 8:30 am. Shit I have to get to work. I began to get up quietly.
"Sam?" A groggy Maude asked, rubbing her eyes. "Sorry, go back to sleep. I just have to get to work," I whispered. "Shit, we slept in didn't we?" She questioned, sitting up quickly. Almost bumping heads with me. "Don't worry about it," I laughed, "But I have to go." "Ok, I'll watch Dwight if you want," she said laying back down. "Thanks you're the best," I said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. As I walked out the door I could have swore I heard a sleepy "I love you" but decided it was just my brain. In the car I couldn't stop thinking about It though. Did she love me? Did I love her? Of course, but am I in love with here?. I put my thoughts to the side as I pulled in to the Defranco Inc. parking lot. Maude's POV I couldn't go back to sleep after Sam left. Partly because of the loss of warmth, and mostly because of the words that slipped out of my stupid mouth. "I love you" 3 words. 8 letters. Who knew those three words could have so much effect on me. It wasn't a lie. I do love him. I'm in love with him, I have been for awhile. But it was too early to tell him. We've only been together for about three weeks. I turned over, trying to go back to sleep. After 10 minutes of that I decided to get up and make breakfast. I made me a bowl of oatmeal and sat a my breakfast bar. Sam's POV I sat down at my desk and booted up my computer to get some nerd news. I was greeted by Whitney and Filup. "Hey Sam, you're late" Whitney joked. "And you're wearing the same clothes as yesterday," Filup added. Without thinking I almost just replied "Maude's House" but caught myself in time. We hadn't told are friends yet either. We wanted to make sure we had something real and not just a fling before we said anything. After this morning I was sure it was real. "Fell asleep on the couch, and missed my alarm" I choked out. Replies were really awkward looks from the both of them. Before they could say anything I changed the subject. "So find anything interesting for nerd news?" I asked. The day went mostly normal, I changed into a random FHP shirt for the video. End of the day I was in my car again heading to Maude's. I pulled up and I was nervous about this morning. What did she mean? Was it all in my head? A quiet knock later and I was greeted with the familiar blonde hair tucking into my shoulder during a hug. "Hey Bunny" Maude's voice rang out. Maude's POV "Hey Bunny" I sang, wrapping him in a hug. I invited him in and Dwight and Zelda were happy to see him, Dwight more than Zelda. "So Maude I wanted to talk about something," I heard Sam say when he stood up from petting the dogs Fuck! He heard what I said this morning and wants to break up. He must of seen my face because he grabbed my hand saying "Nothing bad I promise." He pulled me to the couch, sitting us down. He looked at me with those handsome hazel eyes "I think we should at least tell our friends about us" he said. I was shocked. This was the last thing I thought he would say. I didn't know how to respond. "It's just that I know we said that we would wait til we were ready," he rambled, "but I'm very confident that this is not just a fling. At least to me" "Sam," I laughed, stopping him. "What? Why are you laughing?" He asked. "Because I think you're just so cute Bunny," I giggled, "but I completely agree, this is real" "Really?" He questioned. "I've never been sure of something in my life." I smiled He pulled me into kiss. After a short talk we decided that I'd tell every one next week when I visit the office. Pulling me back into a kiss as we laid down on the couch. Let's just say thank god tomorrow was Saturday. ; )
-MindyAn Arab ambassador to UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural body, apologized on Friday to his Israeli counterpart for voting in support of a resolution that characterized the Old City of Hebron, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site, as a Palestinian heritage site “endangered” by Israel.
The Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth published a screenshot from Ambassador Carmel Shama-Hacohen’s phone showing the interaction with the unidentified Arab ambassador.
Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia are the three Arab states on UNESCO’s heritage committee, which voted for the controversial resolution on Friday afternoon at its meeting in Krakow, Poland.
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According to the screenshot, after the vote, at 8:11 p.m., the Arab envoy sent Shama-Hacohen a message via the Whatsapp messaging app: “sorry for today, it was too heated, it is difficult to say it was a secret vote…”
A minute later, Shama-Hacohen replied: “I know my friend. For me it is like u did it.”
Nine minutes passed before the Arab ambassador answered simply: “No choice…”
The vote passed by 12 to three with six abstentions.
According to Shama-Hacohen, Israel had obtained promises of support from five countries on the heritage list, including an Arab ambassador who, according to Yedioth, conditioned his “no” vote on a completely secret ballot.
Israel then demanded that the vote take place behind a curtain, where the many cameras in the hall would not be able to catch each envoy’s mark on their vote slip. Israel says the curtain was agreed to by the Polish committee chair, Jacek Purchla, but was not present when voting commenced on Friday.
Shama-Hacohen protested loudly, and the voting took place during a heated exchange between the ambassadors.
In his speech to the committee after the vote, the Israeli envoy ended his comments by saying he had to take a call from his “plumber,” telling the assembled ambassadors that the call was more important than the decision they had made in the committee.
“There was no plumber,” Shama-Hacohen confirmed in an interview with Army Radio Sunday. “It was a way to end my speech in a way they’ll remember that shows our contempt for the essence of the decision.”
Despite the setback, he said Israel’s standing in the world body has risen. “We’ve turned the corner, from lowering our heads and accepting these decisions quietly to taking up the diplomatic fight. There isn’t a vote that passes without an increase in the number of states that support us, including this vote in Krakow,” the ambassador said.
The vote’s results sparked outrage in Israel and the US, and expressions of joy from the Palestinian Authority.
“Despite a frantic Israeli campaign spreading lies and distorting the facts about Palestinian rights, the world has recognized our right to register Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque [the Muslim term for the Tomb of the Patriarchs] under Palestinian sovereignty,” the PA’s foreign ministry said.
“This vote is a success for the diplomatic battle fought by Palestine on all fronts, in the face of Israeli and American pressure on member states,” the statement said.
The Palestinian terror group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, also hailed the decision, calling it an “affirmation of our full rights in Hebron and all Palestinian land.”
Israel said the Hebron resolution — which refers to the city as “Islamic” — denies thousands of years of Jewish connection there.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed UNESCO for “yet another delusional decision,” and vowed to protect the site.
“This time they ruled the Tomb of the Patriarchs is a Palestinian site, meaning not a Jewish site, and it is in danger,” he tweeted.
The Foreign Ministry labeled the vote a “moral blot” on the world body, while President Reuven Rivlin said that UNESCO seemed “intent on spreading anti-Jewish lies.”
Netanyahu announced that Israel would further reduce its membership dues to the agency by $1 million in protest at the decision, and would instead spend the funds on establishing a museum of Jewish heritage in the Hebron area.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley also harshly condemned the resolution, calling it “tragic” and an “affront to history,” and vowed that Washington would review its ties with UNESCO as a result of the decision.
In a statement, Haley said the resolution “undermines the trust that is needed for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to be successful,” and “further discredits an already highly questionable UN agency.”
“The United States is currently evaluating the appropriate level of its continued engagement at UNESCO,” she warned.
The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is revered as the biblical burial place of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs.
Earlier this week, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee passed a resolution denying Israeli claims to the Old City of Jerusalem. Although the text was much softer than similar resolutions passed in previous years, Israel condemned it strongly.This post is a reprint of a post at OpenNebula.org
We've crafted this post to answer a recurring question we've been hearing lately, specially from organizations planning to build their own private cloud:
How do you compare OpenNebula with OpenStack?...
This is indeed a complex question. There is no single answer because open-source projects and technologies present several dimensions. But we are far from afraid to answer it: the short, tl;dr version would be that they represent two different open-source models. While OpenNebula is an open-source effort focused on user needs, OpenStack is a vendor-driven effort.
This is neither a question of one being better than the other, they simply represent different approaches. Let us compare both open source options based on the following criteria: internal organization, governance model, roadmap definition, contributor profile, target user, product, and market competition. Obviously this comparison is biased (no way around that), but we have tried to be as neutral as possible.
A. Different Open-Source Project Models
Both projects release code under the liberal Apache 2.0 license, follow a transparent development process with a public roadmap, and have the same license agreement for new contributions. They present significant differences though, specially in:
Internal Organization. While OpenStack comprises many different subprojects (14 at the time of writing this post) aimed at building the different subsystems in a cloud infrastructure, OpenNebula offers a single integrated, comprehensive management platform for all cloud subsystems.
While OpenStack comprises many different subprojects (14 at the time of writing this post) aimed at building the different subsystems in a cloud infrastructure, OpenNebula offers a single integrated, comprehensive management platform for all cloud subsystems. Governance Model. The main difference between both projects is in their governance model, mainly for the definition of the architecture, the release cycle and the roadmap. While OpenStack is controlled by a Foundation driven by vendors, OpenNebula follows a centralized, "Benevolent Dictator" approach. OpenNebula is managed by a single organization that focuses on the interest of the project and strategically leads it to ensure that meets users needs.
The main difference between both projects is in their governance model, mainly for the definition of the architecture, the release cycle and the roadmap. While OpenStack is controlled by a Foundation driven by vendors, OpenNebula follows a centralized, "Benevolent Dictator" approach. OpenNebula is managed by a single organization that focuses on the interest of the project and strategically leads it to ensure that meets users needs. Roadmap Definition. OpenNebula roadmap is completely driven by users needs with features that meet real demands, and not features that result from an agreement among the different vendors participating in the management board of the project.
OpenNebula roadmap is completely driven by users needs with features that meet real demands, and not features that result from an agreement among the different vendors participating in the management board of the project. Contributor Profile. While in OpenNebula most of contributions come from the users of the software, the contributors to OpenStack are mostly vendors building their own OpenStack-based cloud product. Since we started OpenNebula six years ago, we wanted users to have a voice in the project and not to privilege contributors over users.
Now the question is,
Why is OpenNebula following a "Benevolent Dictator" management model?.
In our view, OpenStack is governed by a consortium of competitors, trying to create its own product or to provide compatibility for its particular device. The mixture of vendor motivations makes it increasingly difficult for a foundation to meet both the needs of the project and the monetization goals of each vendor. It is also interesting to remark that many of these vendors are also offering commercial products that directly compete with OpenStack components.
Traditionally, multi-vendor industrial consortiums are the best approach to commoditize a core component in the long term, mainly when there exists solid base software, but not to bring to market a complete enterprise-ready solution from scratch in the short term. In these situations the addition of more developers and members slows the project down, and the well-known Brooks law (The Mythical Man-Month) applies both at development and governance levels. OpenStack is reaching a point where the consensus based approach has limited the competitiveness of the project.
We believe that a centralized model with a strong individual leadership is the best way to quickly build a production-ready enterprise-class open-source product, mainly in the early stages of a fast growing market. Please do not pin this on us being control freaks; we do so because we want to create a great product and we want to take responsibility for the entire product and need to be responsive to our users. Benevolent dictator governance is the model followed by other successful open-source projects like Android or Linux Kernel, and, in our view, it is the most effective way to focus on engineering quality, to prioritize user needs, and also to ensure long term support.
The above reasons are the foundation of this claim: OpenNebula is made for users by users, OpenStack is made for vendors by vendors. This may seem like a daring statement, but we have been following this path for years, and haven't observed anything that proves this wrong.
B. Different Cloud Models
Although there are as many ways to understand cloud computing as there are organizations planning to build a cloud, they mostly fall between two extreme cloud models:
Enterprise Cloud Model (Datacenter Virtualization): On one side, there are businesses that understand cloud as an extension of virtualization in the datacenter; hence looking for a VMware vCloud-like infrastructure automation tool to orchestrate and simplify the management of the virtualized resources.
(Datacenter Virtualization): On one side, there are businesses that understand cloud as an extension of virtualization in the datacenter; hence looking for a VMware vCloud-like infrastructure automation tool to orchestrate and simplify the management of the virtualized resources. Public Cloud Model (Infrastructure Provision): On the other side, there are businesses that understand cloud as an AWS-like cloud on-premise; hence looking for a provisioning tool to supply virtualized resources on-demand.
Although OpenStack now tries to be everything for everyone, it was created as an open-source effort to compete against Amazon Web Services (AWS). Therefore while OpenStack is addressing the Infrastructure Provision segment; OpenNebula better meets the needs of Enterprise Cloud Computing. Since both tools enable infrastructure cloud computing, there is some overlap in the features they provide. However, each cloud model presents different architectural constraints and requires specialized interfaces, management capabilities and integration support. OpenNebula and OpenStack serve different needs and implement completely different philosophies.
C. Different Product Views
OpenNebula is a single enterprise-ready open-source product, easy to install and operate, with a single installing and updating process, a one-stop community and a long-term commercial support. Any organization can use the open-source distribution to build a production cloud, and receive best-effort support through the community mailing list. Additionally, any organization can purchase commercial support directly from the developers. The important aspect is that we do not deliver enterprise editions of the software, we commercially support the community software.
On the other hand, OpenStack comprises many subprojects with different levels maturitythat require complex integration to achieve a functional cloud infrastructure. A growing number of components and subprojects is making even more difficult their integration and coordination, and the delivery of a single coherent solution. No update path is provided if you want to install a new version, and there is not commercial support. Any organization interested in using OpenStack, and requiring commercial support and enterprise maturity, is recommended (by the vendors running the project) to deploy any of the several enterprise distributions.
From a business perspective, OpenNebula does not compete with OpenStack but with the many existing vendor "stacks" based on OpenStack, mainly with those by HP, Red Hat and IBM. These enterprise-grade distributions incorporate different versions of the OpenStack components with extended features, custom enhancements and integrations that may erode their compatibility and interoperability. Moreover many of them include proprietary components and exhibit significant differences in the implementation of critical underlying functionality.
So the organization that chooses OpenStack is actually using proprietary software based on OpenStack, and is locked into that specific distribution given that the vendor only supports its own stack, not the community version. Even worse, there is no way to migrate to another vendor distribution. In other words, these distributions do not offer the main benefits of open-source: low-cost, no lock-in, flexibility and interoperability.
D. A Look To the Future
We expect OpenStack to further fragment into more vendor specific "stacks" with narrow test matrices and extended proprietary features that lock customers in and don't interoperate well. OpenStack's biggest success is marketing. These vendor "stacks" and cloud providers will continue marketing "OpenStack" as the primary and, in most cases only, differentiator.
However OpenStack penetration in the market is relatively small compared with the investment made by vendors and VCs. These vendor specific "stacks" are not only competing with OpenNebula, other open-source cloud management platforms like CloudStack and Eucalyptus, and proprietary incumbents, they are also competing between them and with the open source community itself. All vendors claim they are the OpenStack leader because it's a winner-take-all game. Only one of the OpenStack distributions will gain critical mass on public and private clouds. Red Hat, now the dominant contributor to OpenStack, is in our view the only plausible winner.
Don't get us wrong, OpenStack is an open-source project with excellent developers, and some of its components are great from a technology point of view. Because a single cloud management platform can not be all things to all people, we will see an open-source cloud space with several offerings focused on different environments and/or industries. This will be the natural evolution, the same happened in other markets. OpenNebula and OpenStack will coexist and, in some cases, work together in a broad open cloud ecosystem. In the meantime, we will continue with our focus on solving real user needs in innovative ways, and getting our users involved in a fully vendor-agnostic project.El Melvino is back once again, this time bringing you the latest up to date information on things! (Extremely vague, I know and not so up to date anymore xD.) Like promised, this week shall focus on Amon the deck. What this means is that I’ll just give you a sort of decklist and explain some things while I do that. So without further ado, let me go through some of the must have cards in the deck!
Note: This was being written while Amon support was not announced, so please, do me a favour and read before saying this is outdated. I will be doing an updated version very soon.
Grade 3:
Demon World Marquis, Amon
Amon! Yes, this is the bad boy to start everything. He is the spiciest things in the world. Soft control? Check. Subtle power up? Check. Yes, this boy is so spicy that playing 4 of him is a must.
Amon’s Leader, Astaroth
Astaroth is the next spicy boy that we must play four of. He is literally the man that is needed to continue any sort of relevancy in the G-Era. Since he is the legion for Amon, he is will make those Amon swings that much more relevant. Basically, if you know or are pretty sure your opponent does not have any PG’s, use him to effectively minus your opponent to kingdom come. Pair this with the forerunner that I will talk about later, and you have a scary column that your opponent will just hate you for. The only con I can think of is the fact that his soul charge ability is mandatory…
Grade 2:
Doppel Vampir
Honestly, you can tech almost any grade 2’s that you want. I generally recommend Doppel Vampir, not because he is the most amazing shit ever, but because he is a decent rearguard that your opponent may have trouble guarding against. Essentially, he is a stronger version of the formerly dreaded rearguard, Silent Tom. The only reason why I say he is decent is because he is GB1 and needs to trigger his Darkness keyword. However, the latter is not much of cost until near the end of your game. (You are playing on your own, what opponent? They are doing things? I didn’t notice.)
Amon’s Follower, Hell’s Draw
Another card that I do recommend is the Amon’s Follower, Hell’s Draw. You don’t need to play this at 4, but it can be useful for the early turns. Near the end though, it is not that great, so it’s honestly up to you.
Amon’s Follower, Ron Geenlin and Squallmaker Vampir
Other cards I do recommend as well are Amon’s Follower, Ron Geenlin for the 12k attack or Squallmaker Vampir for that +5k attack and soul charge. The latter is not a must use ability, but it can help. I generally use Geenlin at 4 and Squall at 2.
so Izaya…
Where is Psychic of Dust, Izaya? What? You want me to tell you to play this card? You can. I won’t stop you. It is a decent card, but I rather guard restrict with my rearguards and still swing big instead of swinging big with huge vanilla beaters. Plus, with the inclusion of Amon’s Follower, Ron Geenlin, it can easily keep up with grade 1/2 rush, where Izaya relies on grade 3 to grade 3 interaction to be of any use. To each their own, but I avoid this boy since he is just as vanilla as Doppel pretty much. How you may ask? Well consider the following: you swing for high powered columns with Izaya on each side, forcing your opponent to MAYBE guard 3 big attacks. Now that is great and all, but I find that only works when the opponent is at 5 damage or if you play stands. Now, I would think running stands in an Amon deck removes some of the lethalness that is attributed to your Vanguard and rears (in that criticals are much scarier overall). Now imagine two Doppel Vampir’s on either side. Sure, the overall attack value is smaller, but imagine criticals and no 0’s. That is painful considering Doreen is most likely boosting at least 1 of them. That is terrifying in my opinion as generally, that base column becomes a minimum of 32k a turn. In that case, having it deal two damage is overall the more terrifying prospect, in which they’ll most likely have to drop their hand to guard it.
Grade 1:
Doreen the Thruster
The main card that I say play 4 or bust would be Doreen. This card. Where to even start? This card is just really good. It does have the downside of not being able to use its ability except during your main phase, but that doesn’t stop the card from being a monster on its own or paired up with another rearguard. Basically, play this card behind another rear to avoid losing it to an attack. Against control, focus your power onto the vanguard, but we’ll go over the different ways to play against other different decks.
Amon’s Follower, Hell’s Deal
Another card that I personally like to play 4 of is the one and only Amon’s Follower, Hell’s Deal. This is the grade 1 version of Hell’s Draw, which means that I don’t lose extra rearguard pressure to soul charge, which is really nice. You can play this at 3 though since it is a good ability, but it isn’t as necessary as one might think.
Dimension Creeper
Dimension Creeper. This card is the ultimate first ride. I play 4. It literally is just, yes. Yum. *Incoherent babbling*
Perfect Guards
As for the PG’s, you have honestly 2 options. The first one, which is what I recommend is Flag Breaker. Counter-charging is lovely, especially in this deck. ESPECIALLY IN THIS DECK. ESPECIALLY IN THIS DECK! Did you get the message?(Insert name here when can.) Basically, this card is the more consistent PG in that it costs you a bit of soul, but then let’s you live. So fair trade off? This is dependent primarily on play style and I prefer the first more inconsistent one, then the one that costs me power and potentially lethal turns. (I know, minus 3k should never be so relevant, but I find that it is…) To each their own, however, and if the second one treats you better, then you better play that second one.
Grade 0:
Amon’s Follower, Barmaid Grace
The barmaid. She is bae, play her at 1 and don’t let her die, or else your turns shall suffer greatly in the game that you are playing. I could justify playing two of her, but not on the field at the same time. One counter blast in this deck is a lot and as such, you want her to be used once per turn and no more. The exception to this rule is if you are pushing for game and don’t care to think about any other turns beyond the one currently being done.
As for triggers, let me just go over that in the misconceptions area.
But before that….
Grade 4:
Abominable One, Gilles de Rais
Gilles de rais. Play 4 or please don’t consider this deck. You won’t go very far unless you are lucky or are just an extreme edgelord, which in that case go play Shadow Paladin.
Mask of Demonic Frenzy, Ericrius
Ericrius. Play 1 or 2, really up to you. He’s a good first stride, but even better in this deck than in others.
One Steeped in Sin, Scharhrot
Steeped in Sin. Play 2 because field nuking is sometimes needed in this deck. Not often, but he’s a card you won’t be sad having when the time comes.
MISCONCEPTIONS:
So here is where I will go over some of the major misconceptions about the deck and what should go into it.
Amon’s Follower, Grausam
First off, the triggers. You can play vanilla triggers, this is actually fine. Yes, the abilities are nice to have, but generally, the skills are irrelevant. The only one that is of almost any relevancy as a skill would be Amon’s Follower, Grausam, so if you want to get something extra and slightly mandatory, that would be the crit to get. Any of the others are just nice to have. Hysteric Shirley is nice, but generally, you do indeed enjoy some forms of defence, which you do lose dropping triggers onto the board just for them to go into the soul.
The second misconception is more of an obvious statement/observation. This deck is perceived to have counterblast issues. That is NOT the case. No, what this deck has is limited counterblasts, attributed to the fact of its time. The only time you should ever have trouble with counterblasts is if you use your skills like a freaking derp. I get that Amon is a lot of fun to use, but he is not a skill you want to achieve all the freaking time. On top of that, the two strides you’ll be using pretty much only would be Ericrius and Gilles de rais (gui de rae) for those of you that don’t speak French, don’t use counterblasts so that does not contribute to any issues. (As a French speaker, that pronunciation (Gills de Raius) irks me so hard, you would think I am an angry French man.) And as for other grade 4’s, you barely go into them. They are there for specific situations only and that is if you are put in a position where you need to use them, otherwise, you are wasting your time going into a vanilla strength-up stride, that either costs hand, or a counterblast. Essentially, most turns you’re using 1 counterblast, which will pile up, eventually. But if you get heals, or if you get flag breaker, well, you kind of mitigated an eventual problem.
The last misconception is based only on specific playstyles I have seen. Rule number 1 with the deck. Guard freaking early. You at 2 damage? Stay there for as long as you freaking can. That still means trigger barmaid during your grade 2 turn. But it means don’t be McDerpidityDerpDerp and use her and then Amon and the crit and then complain that you have no counterblasts to use barmaid any longer. Of course, you can’t! Efficiency with this deck is key and any less would tell me that you deserve to lose by that point. I like to think of this deck like Altmile decks that use lots of counterblasts, oh wait, all of them. Don’t be a derp, know which skills will make sense using and which will cost you the game because of your foolishness.
Decklists:
Grade 4: (16)
4x Gilles de butt hurt
2x Amon stride that you will almost never go into.
2x Ericrius (because this is the first stride and really good with barmaid)
2x Steeped in Sin man (good board wipe and can force no guards because of sheer power which is lovely.
2x Power boi. Yeah, he won’t see the light of day…
2x First G-Guard
2x Second G-Guard (This card… yeah, D-Robos, you ain’t got nothing on us DI’s. We will resist our Vanguard too, cause that’s totally relevant against you. But in all seriousness, this card can resist any number of targets, shutting down Links (even Deletors), and Guard break, which is D-Robos signature thing other than beating the ever living shit out of people with Justice SMASH!
Grade 3: (8)
4x Amon
4x Astaroth
Grade 2: (12)
4x Doppel Vampir
2x Squall
2-3x Hell’s Draw (Consistent early soul charge is great especially against rush decks as Amon loves to mess them up.)
4x Geenlin
Grade 1: (12)
4x Hell’s Deal
4x Doreen
4x Flag Breaker or the darkness pg
Grade 0: (17)
x1-2 Barmaid Bae (Can play more, up to you.)
x4 Critical trigger (Amon)
x4 Critical (Any, although if you can get the Nightmareland crit, do it).
x4 Draw (The one that soul charges is great if you can get it.
x4 Heal Trigger
On that note, as you can see, the darkness PG can only be used more efficiently, if there are cards to support it in the deck, however doing so, reduces other targets, so to each their own. Whereas, Flag Breaker helps with your countercharging issues that you may be having if you over committed the turn before.
Regardless, this is what I feel about the deck. I haven’t had counterblast issues and have managed rush very well simply because you have a hand, so guard attacks dammit. Oh, and auto crits are lovely, just saying. Hope you enjoyed this and if you disagree with me, that is completely fine! State your opinion! There is never only one way to play the deck! If you love Izaya and want to play him, by all means, do it! He is a great card, but generally just as vanilla as Doppel Vampir so to each their own! Oh and if you feel this post is messier than the last, probably is. Just saying.
Next time, I shall discuss another deck I really love: Machinings! Because I don’t like it when my opponent plays the game. See you soon!
AdvertisementsAfter news emerged yesterday that most of the analytics team assembled by former general manager Sam Hinkie would be gone by August, there was some room for mild concern about the future of the program under Bryan Colangelo. It's safe to say the analytics department is still in good hands.
Lance "Doc" Pearson, formerly the coordinator of coaching analytics and special video projects, announced on Twitter he has now been promoted to a full-time position as director of applied analytics.
Just to clarify, since it has come up. I AM staying on with the Sixers. I am now Director of Applied Analytics & traveling with the team. — Lance 'Doc' Pearson (@CoachLanceP) July 27, 2016
I'm employed by the @Sixers & my work aims to further long-term interests of the ORGANIZATION, not just one past/current/future individual. — Lance 'Doc' Pearson (@CoachLanceP) July 27, 2016
Pearson, who has a Ph.D in computational neuroscience from Boston University, as well as a bachelor's degree in computer science, mathematics, and philosophy from the University of Kentucky, has become a personal favorite of Brett Brown.
From a 2014 article via the Trentonian:
"I have a guy in my meetings who I’ve just fallen in love with," Brown said at Monday’s practice, speaking glowingly about Pearson. "I’ve got a lot of assistants, and I’ve got a gentleman with about four degrees that is incredibly impressive when you say, ‘What is your background?’ and he rolls up all of this about a doctorate. "And all’s he does in my meetings is (respond) when I say, ‘Is that true? Who’s the best in the league at this? What does this mean? We’re No. 1 in the league in pace. Is that (because of) a kick-ahead 3-ball? I don’t think so. You |
from coal has largely been the result of an increased reliance on wind power, as opposed to natural gas, which has replaced coal in a lot of other states. Despite a lack of state standards or incentives pushing it, Oklahoma’s use of non-hydroelectric renewables increased by 16 percentage points between 2004 and 2014, while the use of coal dropped 13 percentage points. Because of this, the state emissions rate for electricity production (which is what the CPP would regulate) has already been going down. Ultimately, the decrease that the CPP dictates for Oklahoma between 2012 and 2024 is smaller than the amount the state’s electricity emissions rate fell between 2004 and 2014.
Overall, though, the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are up just a bit since 2004. Oklahoma has the 17th-highest emissions rates in the nation, in part because of an increase in emissions from the use of natural gas in industrial applications, commercial buildings, and transportation — as well as an increase in emissions related to gasoline for transportation.
That data helps demonstrate where Oklahoma stands when it comes to climate change, but another important thing to consider is water and air quality. Both can have an immediate, direct impact on human health and are tied to the release of particulate matter and toxic chemicals from industry. One way to track this is with the EPA’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Model, which analyzes toxic chemicals released by industrial facilities, what happens to them, and their potential risks to human populations. The RSEI ranks Oklahoma as the 23rd riskiest out of 55 states and territories as of 2014.
You could also look at the American Lung Association’s State of the Air rankings of cities, which are drawn from EPA data. There, the state’s two largest metropolitan areas — Oklahoma City and Tulsa — fare poorly in a ranking of U.S. cities by the number of days each experiences high levels of ozone pollution, a lung-damaging gas that forms when the chemicals from vehicle emissions react with sunlight. Tulsa ranks 12th worst, and Oklahoma City 15th, out of 220 metropolitan areas. But on measures of particulate matter — tiny specks and droplets of pollutants that are tied to the release of emissions from power plants, cars, and factories — Oklahoma reverts back to its not-great, but-not-horrible self, with Tulsa and Oklahoma City making neither the Lung Association’s list of cleanest cities, nor its list of most-polluted. Tulsa is ranked 63rd and Oklahoma City 83rd.
The point of all this is not to say that Pruitt will be an excellent steward of the environment. He hasn’t been directly in charge of the environment in Oklahoma, for one thing. It’s also worth noting that our ability to know that Oklahoma is just kind of “meh” on environmental indicators is dependent, in large part, on federal data-gathering and analysis — and it’s hard to know whether Pruitt will want to continue those programs given his apparent belief in a smaller role for the EPA. But what this does demonstrate is that, for a wide variety of reasons, a state’s hostility toward federal environmental regulation is not a very good proxy for the quality of that state’s environment. The fight against regulation is only one part of a much bigger picture.Upstart Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been caught in a child-sex probe, a top political source told RadarOnline.com.
“Republican operatives and even Hillary Clinton‘s own dirt-diggers are furiously probing his perverted past writings, and it could blow up his campaign,” the snitch told Radar.
The 74-year-old Vermont senator, twice-married and the father of a “love child,” penned smutty essays that were published in the early 1970s during a stint as a freelance journalist.
PHOTOS: Putting Her Best Face Forward! Hillary Clinton Had Plastic Surgery Makeover For White House Run, Top Surgeons Reveal
In a 1972 writing that he has called a piece of fiction, Bernie described sick sexual fantasies of men and women.
“A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy,” he wrote. “A woman on her knees. A woman tied up. A woman abused. A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by three men simultaneously.”
He also wrote that 6-month-old babies should be allowed to romp naked on beaches where they can “see each other’s sexual organs, and maybe even touch them.”
PHOTOS: It’s A Presidential Baby! Chelsea Clinton Introduces Daughter Charlotte To The World – See Their Bundle Of Joy
He also confessed a fascination with articles about sexual assaults on kids.
“Do you know why [porn magazines] with the articles like ‘Girl 12 raped by 14 men’ sell so well?” he asked. “To what in us are they appealing?”
And as an outspoken Vermont congressman, he opposed 2003 measures that cracked down on pedophiles who travel overseas to prey on kids, and voted against outlawing some Internet child porn.
PHOTOS: Chelsea Clinton Shows Off Beautiful Baby Charlotte On NYC Stroll As Grandma Hillary Announces Candidacy For Prez!
“He’s a real sicko,” said the source.Korean golfer Kim Hae-rym won the SGF 67 World Ladies Championship at the Mission Hills Haikou Blackstone Course in Hainan, China, on Sunday.
But Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, which showed the match live, seemed so deep in a funk over Korea's decision to let the U.S. deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery in Korea that it avoided showing Kim at all cost.
Kim's main sponsor is Lotte, which is being boycotted in China because it handed over a golf course for the stationing of the THAAD battery to the government.
The championship was co-hosted by the Korean, Chinese and European tours, transmitted by CCTV and broadcast in Korea by SBS.
The final round culminated in a nail-biting duel between Kim and Bae Seon-woo. Both Kim and Bae finished with 14-under 205 so they went into play-off. On the second extra hole, Kim landed a birdie while Bae saved a par.
Despite being the center of the competition, CCTV mostly shot Kim from distance or showed her back. Even close-up shots were taken from an angle so that the Lotte logo on her hat did not show.Commenting on the results of yesterday's Referendum, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt MP, said:
"On Thursday 23 June, 2016, the British people were offered a once in a generation opportunity to decide Britain’s membership of the European Union. The Foreign Affairs Committee did not endorse either side on the campaign trail, but published a report which offered balanced analysis. There is now a clear path to follow.
The Committee urges the Government to act swiftly to negotiate Britain’s new relationship with the EU. As detailed in our report, the UK and EU should seek to negotiate some form of trade deal as quickly as possible.
Withdrawal from the EU will not change the UK’s formal status in other key global and regional alliances but swift action by the Government and Foreign and Commonwealth Office is essential to open up new opportunities for the UK to redefine its international role.
The Referendum result has clear implications for the workload of the FCO. The Committee produced a report on the 2015 Spending Review in which we noted that the department was severely short of resources. This shortage is now a crisis.
The FCO needs to be equipped to reassert its leading role in foreign policy-making so that Britain can take its place on the world stage. Significantly boosting the capacity of the FCO will send a strong signal of the UK’s commitment to an outward-looking, globally engaged foreign policy."Corey Haim’s mother, Judy Haim, opened up to Dr. Mehmet Oz about the allegations that Charlie Sheen raped her son when he was 13 years old.
“I know what’s going on out there with what everybody is saying, and … I can tell you as a mother that I haven’t seen one change in character. I would have known if anything was wrong,” Judy said in a sneak peak for an upcoming episode of The Dr. Oz Show. “My kid had nothing. He was, like, transparent. He never hid anything. He was Corey. It’s out of character, that’s No. 1. When my son was 13, he wasn’t going to ask Charlie Sheen to go and sleep with him.”
Judy then named a different man who allegedly abused her late son, though his name was censored.
Corey’s close friend Dominick Brascia claimed to The National Enquirer in a report published on Wednesday, November 8, that the Two and a Half Men alum, 52, sexually assaulted Corey, who died of pneumonia at age 38 in 2010, on the set of the 1986 film Lucas. “[Corey] told me they smoked pot and had sex. He said they had anal sex,” Brascia alleged. Sheen’s rep later said the actor “categorically denies these allegations.”
The report came years after Corey Feldman claimed in his 2013 memoir, Coreyography, that he and Haim had been sexually abused by people in the movie industry. In wake of the allegations against Sheen, a spokesperson for Feldman, 46, told Us Weekly, “Corey can only speak about his own experiences. He can only attest to event that he actually saw; anything he was told by other victims is merely hearsay. Unfortunately, some of them are not here to recount their horrors and all we can hope is that all abusers are held accountable.”
Judy’s full interview on The Dr. Oz Show airs on Friday, November 10. Check your local listings.
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!IGPX: THE ICHI MEGAMIX.
Hello Toonami Faithful!
Last year, our little Xmas gift to you all was our SUPERNOVA MEGAMIX, which a bunch of you enjoyed/downloaded. THIS year, we’ve been inundated with requests for an IGPX megamix. For those of you who’ve been asking, good news! SKULL ISLAND (DJ Clarknova and Brent Busby) are making you a special 70 (or so) minute megamix of our favorite IGPX tracks, along with outtakes, quotes from the show and some appearances froM TOM and Sara. We’ll put it up for a free download right here on this tumblr on Xmas day.
The reason we’re telling you guys about it NOW, is because we want YOU to make a cover for it! From now through Dec 22nd, feel free to send your designs for the cover of THE ICHI MEGAMIX to this tumblr! The winner will get one of those sweet T-shirts we’re giving away all month, and our undying gratitude.
See you on Race Day! (or Xmas, heh)
Love, The Toonami Crew.Corey Mock, the nationally ranked University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wrestler who was expelled for sexual misconduct in December, will return to campus this week despite growing anger among some students about his case.
"I feel disgusted. There is no other word for it," said Sania Khan, the roommate of the female student who says Mock raped her in March. "I feel like we had justice and now that has been taken away."
And just as news of Mock's return hit campus, administrators announced changes to the campus' sexual misconduct policy, which was altered in 2012 to require verbal consent for sexual contact. The policy, called "Yes means yes" has been widely adopted on campuses across the country and represents a pendulum swing in how universities handle rape accusations. The policy is also controversial, since some say a requirement of verbal consent puts men at risk.
The interim policy put into effect Jan. 5 more strictly codifies the "Yes means yes" standard of consent, university spokesman Chuck Cantrell said, and students were asked for their input on Tuesday. But students brought up Mock's case at the meeting. Students openly complained about the way the university handled the case and voiced frustration about his return to campus.
Corey Mock Corey Mock Photo by Contributed Photo /Times Free Press.
After Mock was expelled he appealed his case to Davidson County Chancery Court. On Friday, Chancellor Carol McCoy issued a temporary injunction allowing Mock, 24, to take spring-semester classes until a final ruling is issued on his expulsion appeal, the university confirmed Tuesday.
Mock and his attorneys argued that asking him to sit out his last semester as a senior pending McCoy's decision would cause "irreparable harm."
McCoy granted only part of Mock's motion. She did not allow him to return to the wrestling team, or to regain the athletic scholarship he had last spring.
Attorneys for Mock and UTC have until Feb. 8 to file briefs in the case, and it will likely be months before McCoy reaches a decision.
Molly Morris says Mock raped her in March. Her name had been withheld from previous stories in accordance with Times Free Press policy regarding rape cases, but on Tuesday she granted permission to print her name.
Morris is a transfer student from New Mexico but is no longer in Chattanooga. Still, she told the Times Free Press she fears that Mock's return to campus will put other female students at risk.
"He does have the potential to target someone else," she said.
Mock vehemently denied raping Morris. He says the two met on a dating app called Tinder and had consensual sex after a party.
Morris says she could not have given consent because she was unconscious and only remembers waking with Mock on top of her. She believed she was drugged.
When the situation was reported to the UTC administration, Mock was removed from a class he took with Morris and was suspended from the wrestling team. But in June, Mock was found "not responsible," the university's version of "not guilty."
That decision was reversed three weeks later after Morris and university administrators petitioned Joanie Sompayrac, the judicial officer who presided over the hearing, to reconsider. She reversed her decision without considering any new evidence.
“Regardless of what happens with the appeal, it's not over."” C.D. Mock, father of Corey
At issue was whether Mock had received verbal consent to have sex with Morris.
Mock appealed Sompayrac's decision, which was upheld by UTC Chancellor Steven Angle. In his December ruling, Angle cited the growing national scrutiny of the way schools handle sexual assault cases.
Mock was expelled.
He then filed the Chancery Court appeal.
Meanwhile, Morris had filed a Title IX complaint alleging that UTC improperly handled her case, which triggered an investigation by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
Mock's father, C.D. Mock, is head coach of the wrestling program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where Corey Mock previously wrestled. The elder Mock said he is happy his son can return to campus but said the university treated his son unfairly in an effort to avoid public criticism. He's been vocal about his opinions on a blog.
In a post defending his son, he offers his theory on what really happened last March.
"So why is she pushing this?" one post reads, referring to the victim. "We can only guess, but I am guessing she comes from a very religious family -- probably Catholic."
The blog also speaks out against the "Yes means yes" standard, which he called unreasonable.
"But, to suggest that a girl who has had two drinks is incapable of saying "no" is ludicrous. Let's poll college girls to find the truth on this; not old, single hags who hate men and have nothing to do but lobby politicians."
C.D. Mock said he is concerned that the climate at UTC will make things difficult for his son.
"Regardless of what happens with the appeal, it's not over," C.D. Mock said. "We want to clear his name."
Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter @clairelwiseman.
Previous news report:As the media reel over “fake news” influencing Donald Trump’s election, even our most reputable outlets turn a blind eye to their own contribution to a larger problem — fake science.
You’ve seen the hysterical reports before: One moment coffee causes cancer, the next it assuredly doesn’t. Meanwhile, BPA in cans and plastics is supposedly responsible for the scourges of obesity and autism, despite people not being exposed to quantities which could trigger human health effects.
The pervasiveness of inaccurate science reporting is starting to take its toll. According to a Pew Research poll, only 37 percent of U.S. adults believe genetically modified foods are safe to eat, compared to almost 90 percent of scientists.
With our internationally derided STEM education programs, most Americans lack the basic knowledge required to discern fact from science fiction. Audiences are left with no reason to doubt feverish health headlines or peddlers of junk science like popular TV personalities.
While we should shame fake news, there’s plenty of shame to go around for mainstream reporting as well.
Joseph Perrone
Washington, D.C.
The writer is chief science officer for the Center for Accountability in Science (accountablescience.com).Like a cranberry scone baked with nails and broken glass and wood splinters that Taylor Swift has just handed to you, Rolling Stone's new profile of Taylor Swift was chock full of surprises:
Taylor Swift was secretly hospitalized at some point in the last two years following a serious snowmobile accident.
Taylor Swift's apartment contains a tasteful shrine to Karlie Kloss.
Taylor Swift is self-described "straight-up enemies" with another wildly successful female pop star whom she declined to name.
That pop star is almost certainly Katy Perry.
Here's what Taylor Swift said when questioned about the mysterious subject of her new track "Bad Blood," which Rolling Stone describes as the "angriest" on her new album:
"For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not," she says. "She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, 'Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?'" Then last year, the other star crossed a line. "She did something so horrible," Swift says. "I was like, 'Oh, we're just straight-up enemies.' And it wasn't even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it." (Pressed, Swift admits there might have been a personal element to the conflict. "But I don't think there would be any personal problem if she weren't competitive," she says.)
Here's what Katy Perry tweeted the day after Rolling Stone's profile appeared online.
Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing... — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) September 9, 2014
Here's a page featuring profiles, videos, and self-penned essays about the women of NASA, for you to peruse on your own time.
Swift and Perry have yet to explicitly confirm a feud (and are unlikely to ever, barring a reconciliation-themed track a few albums down the line). But the reasons behind their fight are well known to the gossip scholarship community.
Why and how did the pair become enemies?
Like countless instances of "sabotage" across the ages, the incident to which Swift makes reference in the Rolling Stone interview likely revolves around back-up dancers. Here's what we can say for certain:
Following their stint performing on Katy Perry's California Dreams world tour in 2011, three of Perry's dancers (Lockhart Brownlie, Scott Myrick, and Leah Adler)—
—auditioned for and received slots on Taylor Swift's upcoming world tour in support of her album Red. According to a surprisingly dishy interview Brownlie gave to the the Examiner newspaper in his native of Australia, while dancers were mid-tour with Swift, Perry's camp reached out to see if they would be interested in accompanying Perry on a second world tour (for her then-upcoming album Prism). The catch: the gig would necessitate their leaving Swift's tour before its completion. All three agreed to leave early, in order to take the job with Perry.
Brownlie's version of the story suggests that the dancers left, at least in part, because they found touring with Perry a bit more fun:
"Obviously we were with Katy for 2 1/2 years, she's like family to us, so we were, like, 'absolutely'," Brownlie said. "We weren't really dancing in Taylor's tour anyway so I had got a little bored and I really wanted to do a promo tour." Working with two different artist was interesting for Brownlie. "The experiences were completely different," he said. "Taylor is very untouchable. "When we did see her, we had so much fun with her, but she's a lot more protected than Katy. "Katy's 28 now and can do her own thing. "Her team are so lovely, so we have such a good connection. And this time around she is a lot more in control."
Bronlie, Myrick, and Adler accompanied to Swift to her Rhode Island home for a very photogenic 4th of July celebration.
Approximately two weeks later, Swift fans took note that the singer had unfollowed the trio on Twitter. By the end of the month, they were off Taylor's tour.
So sweet & so sorry I won't be there but u will see some amazing friends of mine! Enjoy the show! Xo... http://t.co/ULcXpspla9 — Leah (@onlyLeah) July 26, 2013
But of course the most fearsome class of rivalries are those that start as friendships. Here's a timeline of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry's relationship, as seen in public on Twitter.
Part I: Let me tell you something about Janis Ian. We were best friends in middle school.
May 4, 2009 - Katy Perry, then 24, apparently initiates public interaction with Taylor Swift, then 19, telling Swift "Ur an angel." For context: It has been just under a year since the release of Perry's runaway hit "I Kissed a Girl." It has been just under a month since the release of Taylor Swift's runaway hit "You Belong with Me."
@taylorswift13 lover you. you deserve all de awards in the world! VOTE FOR TAY TAY! p.s. your mothers day video made me cry, ur an angel! — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) May 4, 2009
May 19, 2009: Taylor Swift mentions listening to a Katy Perry song, but does not tag Perry in the tweet. Does not receive response from Perry. Remains angel.
Hotel in LA, awaiting the days activities. Thinking of You - Katy Perry on repeat. — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 19, 2009
July 5, 2009: Swift watches Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas" music video. Muses about hanging a Katy Perry poster on her wall. Professes love for Perry, but does not tag her in tweet.
Watching the Waking up in Vegas video. I love Katy Perry. I think I'm going to hang her poster on my wall now. — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 6, 2009
July 6, 2009: The next day, Perry responds to Swift's tweet, declaring Swift "sweet as pie" and proposes that the two write a song together.
@taylorswift13 You're as sweet as pie! Let's write a song together about the subject we know best... for my new record. It'll be brilliant~ — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2009
July 22, 2009: Swift tweets that Perry's most recent tweet made her burst out laughing. Classic. Does not receive response.
@katyperry your last tweet made me burst out laughing. Oh my god that was classic. — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 22, 2009
August 28, 2009: Swift tweets that Perry's most recent tweet is one of the funniest things she has ever read. Classic. Does not receive response.
@katyperry your last tweet was one of the funniest things i've ever read. "KITTY PURRY EW" hahahaha classic. — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 28, 2009
October 25, 2009: Swift wishes Perry a happy birthday. Declares her "pretty."
@Katyperry knows how to throw a birthday party! I would even go as far as to say it was party-licious. Best EVER. Happy bday, pretty girl!! — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 25, 2009
November 2009: Taylor Swift begins dating singer-songwriter John Mayer.
December 13, 2009 Perry wishes Swift a happy birthday. Declares her "beautiful."
@taylorswift13 HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL GIRL! You deserve it all! — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) December 13, 2009
January 15, 2010 These girls are annoying.
Oh no! Someone save her from the sock monster! RT @taylorswift13: The hardest part about motivating myself to run is finding matching socks. — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) January 16, 2010
February 2010: Taylor Swift ceases dating John Mayer.
April 15, 2010: Perry makes a guest appearance on Taylor Swift's Fearless tour. The two perform Perry's single "Hot n Cold" at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Part II: So then in eighth grade, I started going out with my first boyfriend Kyle who was totally gorgeous but then he moved to Indiana, and Janis was like, weirdly jealous of him. Like, if I would blow her off to hang out with Kyle, she'd be like, "Why didn't you call me back?" And I'd be like, "Why are you so obsessed with me?"
November 15, 2011: After about a year and a half of sporadic Twitter compliment exchanges, Swift tells Perry "I seriously love you," then does not talk to her on Twitter for over a year.
@Katyperry I seriously love you. SO funny on Ellen! And those flashback shots in your new video = the prettiest. Ever. — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 15, 2011
November 20, 2011: Swift and Perry embrace at the American Music Awards
November 29, 2011: Perry posts a photo of herself and her cat on Twitter. She follows-up with a tweet directed at Swift and Swift's cat, Meredith, then does not talk to Swift on Twitter for over a year.
August 2012: Katy Perry begins dating singer-songwriter John Mayer.
Part III: And now I guess she's on crack.
February 10, 2013: Swift and Perry do not embrace at the Grammys.
March 23, 2013: Perry (who sometimes refers to herself in the third person as "Mother" or "MommaCat") retweets a tweet by back-up dancer Scott Myrick comparing a cake Perry gave him to celebrate his birthday one year prior to a cake prepared for Taylor Swift on the occasion of her Red tour. "Mothers [sic] always watching..." adds Perry. Does not receive response.
May 22, 2013: For the first time since November 2011, Swift abruptly directs a tweet to Perry.
To casual observers this may seem like a friendly response to a humorous photo of herself that Perry had tweeted earlier in the day.
But these tweets were almost certainly sent in the midst of Perry's successful behind-the-scenes coup to prematurely hire back three of her tour dancers.
Katy does not respond to this tweet.
February 2014: Katy Perry ceases dating Taylor Swift's ex-boyfriend singer-songwriter John Mayer.
September 9, 2014: Katy Perry tweets what is widely interpreted as a thinly veiled knock against Taylor Swift. Receives analytical blog post on Gawker.com. Does not receive response.
Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing... — KATY PERRY (@katyperry) September 9, 2014
[Images via Getty / TaylorSwift.com // Examiner interview h/t ONTD]Finally, here’s someone taking on body positivity in a way that actually feels constructive! Beauty company Dove knows that everyone, no matter their shape or size, should love the way they look, and its latest product furthers that cause: Dove is releasing a shock collar for women that can send over 5,000 volts of electricity through a woman’s body whenever she doubts her own beauty!
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Awesome. It definitely seems like this incredible product is going to help women everywhere love themselves through and through. So what are you waiting for? Latch that collar onto your neck, throw away the key, and get shocked into loving the skin you’re in. Thanks, Dove!It is a curious case in the annals of the FBI: The bureau considered a sting operation against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich after sifting through allegations from a notorious arms dealer that a $10 million bribe might get Congress to lift the Iraqi arms embargo.
The FBI ended up calling off the operation in June 1997. It decided there was no evidence that Gingrich knew anything about the conversations the arms dealer was secretly recording with a man who said he was acting on behalf of Gingrich’s then-wife, Marianne, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
But details of the case, which became public this week in an article and documents posted online by a nonprofit journalist, show how a series of second- and third-hand conversations alleging that the top man in Congress might be for sale caught the attention of federal investigators.
“There are so many falsehoods,” Marianne Gingrich said Thursday. “The FBI, they should have been protecting me, not going after me. This is scary stuff.”
Her lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said: “There was no basis whatsoever for an investigation. These were people puffing, which means they were making up access to a high-level goverment person.”
Gingrich’s presidential campaign did not provide immediate comment when asked for response Thursday.
The investigation began after the arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, told federal prosecutors and FBI agents in Miami that Marianne Gingrich said during a meeting in Paris in 1995 that she could provide legislative favors through her husband. The case progressed to the point that it was deemed a major investigation requiring approval in Washington.
Soghanalian, a convicted felon who is now dead, said he wanted the speaker’s help in getting the arms embargo lifted so he could collect an $80 million debt from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to an FBI document filed to obtain continuing wiretap authorization for the case. The facts in the document were “developed through a cooperating witness,” whom The Washington Post has confirmed was Soghanalian.
Soghanalian said Marianne Gingrich assured him “she would be able to do anything [Soghanalian] requested of her ‘as long as they had an understanding,’ ” the document states.
Several months after the meeting in Paris, a man who had been on the trip with Gingrich and Soghanalian told the arms dealer that the embargo could be lifted for the right price. In conversations recorded by Soghanalian, the man, a Miami car salesman named Morty Bennett, stated that Marianne “wanted 10 million dollars to get the job done, five million of which would go directly to Marianne Gingrich,” the document states.
Bennett said in an interview Thursday, “I knew somebody and introduced them to somebody and that was it. Thank you for calling, and don’t call me back.”
The document and the existence of the aborted sting was first revealed this week in a 6,400-word story by Joseph Trento, who operates a Web site called DC Bureau (www.dcbureau.org). Trento interviewed Soghanalian several times before his death in October at 82.
The investigation foundered because there was no evidence against Newt Gingrich to establish “predication” — a basis to believe the target was engaging in or about to engage in criminal activity — according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. FBI policy requires predication before significant undercover operations are initiated.
“There wasn’t any direct evidence that he knew anything,” said a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The rules are you just can’t go in there and do an integrity check on someone.”
Bruce Udolph, the former chief federal corruption prosecutor in Miami, said he could not confirm the existence of the investigation but added, “With respect to Speaker Gingrich, I am not aware of any direct, credible evidence linking him to any conspiracy to receive a bribe from anyone.”
The Justice Department referred calls to the FBI, which declined to comment on the case.
The Armenian-born Soghanalian was a high-volume arms dealer nicknamed “the Merchant of Death” who was indicted by federal authorities in South Florida for conspiring to sell U.S. helicopters to Iraq in violation of a U.S. ban. His 61 / 2 -year sentence was reduced to two years in 1993 because of his cooperation with federal authorities.
He was already a federal informant when he met with Marianne Gingrich in Paris in July 1995. Also in attendance at those meetings were Bennett and Howard Ash, who had earlier worked with Marianne Gingrich at the Israel Export Development Corp., a company that advocated for a free-trade zone in the Gaza Strip.
Marianne Gingrich, who had left her position as vice president of marketing at IEDC, said she went to Paris at the request of her former boss to help get an investment from Soghanalian in IEDC.
The FBI document states that Soghanalian, Marianne Gingrich, Ash and Bennett spent several days together in Paris. Gingrich said “her relationship with her husband was purely a relationship of convenience,” the document states. “She told [Soghanalian] that she needed her husband for economic reasons, and that he needed to keep her close because she knew of all his ‘skeletons.’ ”
“She also told [Soghanalian], ‘It’s time for me to make money using my husband, and after we get started doing this, it will be easy,” the document says.
In January 1996, the document states, Soghanalian said he received a call from Bennett, who said he was acting on behalf of Marianne Gingrich and asked for $10 million to get the embargo lifted. Bennett wanted more than $1 million in advance, $300,000 in cash. The rest of the money was to be wired into Bennett’s bank account so that it could be transferred to the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli-based think tank with offices in Washington where Ash was a fundraiser, according to the document.
“Bennett stated that the way they had the deal structured nobody would ever be able to prove it was anything illegal,” the document states. “Bennett stated that it would be handled like a campaign payment and ensured the source that [Marianne] Gingrich knew what she was doing. Bennett stated that the money was for Gingrich and her husband and that they needed buffers to protect them.”
Marianne Gingrich said Thursday, “All that’s hogwash.”
Soghanalian asked for a telephone call with Marianne. Bennett said that “would spook Gingrich” but that he would try to arrange it “for small talk about their Paris trip,” the document states.
But Bennett never produced Marianne Gingrich. He reestablished contact with Soghanalian in February 1997, and the FBI asked for approval from headquarters to keep recording the conversations “to develop evidence of possible Hobbs Act, Conspiracy, and Bribery violations by Bennett, Ash, Marianne Gingrich, and as yet unidentified federal officials,” the document states. Ash did not return calls seeking comment.
In June 1997, Soghanalian was planning to meet Gingrich and his wife at a fundraiser in Miami arranged by Ben Waldman, a Reagan administration official who later was lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s business partner in the controversial purchase of a casino cruise line in Florida. Waldman did not return calls for comment.
FBI agents began preparing to bug the meeting, but Neil Gallagher, then deputy chief of the FBI’s criminal division, ordered the investigation closed prior to the fundraiser, people familar with the case said. They said local agents were upset by Gallagher’s move.
“I’d have to refer any comment back to the FBI,” Gallagher said Thursday.
The FBI special agent in charge in Miami at the time, Paul Philip, who signed the document, said he could not recall the case. After reviewing the document, he said he could understand why the case did not progress.
“When you’re dealing with elected officials, you have to be real careful,” he said. “Not that they can do anything to us. But their reputations are so fragile, if you |
, she became the honorary ambassador of NGO Global ROPE. Global ROPE is a nonprofit organization registered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade which provides education training and welfare to children in difficult environments around the world.
“I want to be of help. It’s one of the reasons why I work hard saving money. Right now, it’s difficult to do because of scheduled activities, but I want to go to Africa to do volunteer work. My family is participating in it already. I think it will be valuable and precious time. I want to help senior citizens and hungry children the most.”
Girls’ Generation is starting their first world tour this year. Starting in Seoul, they are planning on having concerts in Asia, North America, South America, as well as other major cities in the world. They will be having two concerts on July 21~22nd at the Taipei Arena in Taiwan. All 22,000 seats were sold out. Tiffany couldn’t hide her happiness, saying, “It’s like a dream.” As soon as they debuted, one of her dreams was having a world tour. She’s especially looking forward to the day a Girls’ Generation’s solo concert will be announced in her hometown, Los Angeles.
Branch manager Song Junho was a big help when it came to Tiffany getting into investment techniques. From setting up a checking account, to insurance applications, he taught her basic investment tips. Branch manager Song stated, “She’s fast with understanding and learning tips. From the start, I made it so Tiffany could do things herself. A considerable number of celebrities use the VIP room at financial corporations. They just entrust their funds to the PB. However, Tiffany said she would try it herself. Recently, she signed up for various financial products while going around a number of banks. Fans flocked around her every now and then, but she didn’t show any signs of being annoyed and enjoyed it.”
After making a pocket to put money in, she deposited her funds in scattered time. This is because singers, like sports stars, earn money in bulk within a certain period of time. At the time where income is focused on, you need to plan your portfolio well in order to prepare your future well. Short-term funds were deposited into her savings, calculating interest rates. Short-term funds are liquidity funds for “what-if” situations. Because the lowest global taxation on financial income limit has decreased from 40 million won to 20 million won, funds to pay taxes are needed. Middle money has been applied to funds. Because she’s still young, aggressive investments with a part of her assets are possible. Rather than deferred investments, investment times were dispersed with accumulating investments. Long-term investments can become Tiffany’s seed money when she does volunteer work. Branch manager Song suggested donation insurance. Donators become the contractor, and contributing organizations are appointed as the beneficiaries. If the donator passes away, the insurance money goes to the corresponding organization. Not only that, but every month, a set amount of money goes to wherever the donator wants to sponsor.
Source: Forbes Magazine, dcinside
Translated by: ch0sshi@soshified
Edited by: bhost909@soshified
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Follow us on Twitter – http://twitter.com/soshified – for the latest on Girls’ Generation.Ukrainian government prepares extreme austerity measures
By David Levine
23 December 2014
Earlier this month, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk presented his government’s new economic program for 2015-2020 to the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s parliament. Lawmakers adopted the program the very same day.
The program proposes to implement extreme austerity policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international creditors. In his remarks before parliament, Yatsenyuk insisted, “Nobody will give us aid just for nothing. In order to get it, we need to carry out the very same harsh reforms that we talked about in the elections.”
According to the Prime Minister, in 2014 Ukraine “received a total of $9 billion in financial aid from the IMF, World Bank, and other financial institutions,” but overall spent $14 billion servicing its debts. “We will need $15 billion more next year,” he noted.
In the recently unveiled program, “de-bureaucratization, decentralization, deregulation, and accountability” are declared as the guiding principles of state policy. Its goals include the doubling of export volumes by 2019, “large-scale privatization of state property under the appropriate economic conditions,” “de-monopolization of the economy,” “capitalization of state banks,” financial restructuring of the state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz, restructuring of the judicial system, reform of law enforcement, and efforts to establish “energy independence.”
Overall, the state budget is to be reduced by ten percent relative to the country’s gross domestic product over the course of two years. Most of the cuts are to come from the so-called social sector. These include the laying-off of ten percent of the country’s public employees and the partial privatization of health care and education. The pharmaceuticals market is to be deregulated. Remaining subsidies and price controls on gas and electric power, “inefficient” social benefits, and “special” pensions are to be abolished.
Andriy Kobolev, head of Naftogaz, has stated that the elimination of price controls will lead to an increase in gas prices of three to five times for consumers, which will come on top of large utility price hikes already implemented this year.
A large-scale “reform” of the coal-mining industry is to be undertaken, including the shutdown of 32 unprofitable mines, the temporary shutdown of 24 mines, and the privatization of 37 mines during 2015-2019.
At the same time, a number of taxes, as well as a number of agencies that regulate business activity, will be abolished. Income taxes and taxes on small and medium businesses are to be reduced.
Yatsenyuk scolded the population in advance for daring to express any opposition to his program. “Don’t cry. Don’t be afraid. Don’t ask for anything,” he stated. The program is so extreme that some members of the parliamentary opposition and one member of the ruling party called it “genocidal.”
Even as it savages the living standards of Ukraine’s already poor population, the Kiev regime is increasing spending on the military and law enforcement, which it plans to raise to five percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The government has said it will renounce its “non-aligned” status and seek “compliance with NATO standards.”
Alongside the militarization of Ukrainian society, the government is promoting nationalism and a number of law-and-order policies aimed at stoking up right-wing sentiment and crushing dissent. A new state bureau of investigations is to be created, and there are plans to construct a security wall along the Russian border. “National patriotic education” classes will become a mandatory component of school educational programs.
A 120-page government “instruction” produced by the Ministry of Finance and circulated widely on the Internet has revealed some of the more specific austerity measures currently being considered. These include constitutional amendments reducing free, compulsory school education from 11 to nine years, abolishing constitutional guarantees of the rights to free education and health care, and reducing the number of members of parliament from 450 to 150.
Other legislative “reforms” proposed include increasing the retirement age to 65 for both sexes and the closure of educational institutions and libraries. Social benefits to be abolished include free meals for school children and hospital patients, free health resort treatment for children, free participation in youth sports centers, most state-funded scholarships, and reduced fees on public transport for students and teachers. Inflation indexing for the salaries of public sector workers is to be suspended. Price controls on medicines are to be abolished.
Numerous social benefits are to be “monetized”—i.e., in-kind benefits are to be replaced with cash subsidies that will lag behind inflation. Social benefits to single mothers and various categories of pensioners are to be “revised.” Pensions for working pensioners are to be reduced by up to 90 percent. A moratorium on indexing pension benefits to inflation will be prolonged indefinitely.
Benefits for victims of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are to be cut, and the boundaries of the officially designated radioactive hazard zone will be revised. Military servicemen are no longer to receive benefits for the rental and purchase of living quarters and uniforms, and the state will no longer pay employers for holding jobs for workers who have been drafted.
The Ministry of Finance document also recommends that school teachers’ weekly hours of classroom time be increased from 18 to 20 hours per week in 2015 and then to 25 hours per week in 2016. The Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine has issued an open letter to President Petro Poroshenko warning that this measure will result in layoffs in 2015-2016 of approximately 100,000 teachers. A significant portion of the country’s other education workers will also lose their jobs in the coming years.
Parliament is expected to consider a budget based on these Ministry of Finance recommendations on December 23. Under the draft currently under review, approximately 400 schools in rural areas with low numbers of students are to be closed. Spending on education is to be axed by approximately 20 percent, while spending on health care is to be reduced by approximately 40 percent. The actual extent of the cuts may turn out to be even greater due to the country’s very high rate of inflation.
The budget of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU) is likewise to be reduced by 25 percent. NANU trade union chair Anatoly Shirokov has noted that the academy is currently financed at just 65 percent of its minimum requirement, and that scientists “simply won’t be able to survive the proposed financing cuts.”
Ukrainian politician Volodymyr Oliynyk, a former member of parliament and ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, has commented that the proposed austerity policies will inevitably lead to a “social explosion.”
Already protests have occurred over wage arrears among different sectors of workers. In the city of Ternopil in western Ukraine, teachers organized a street protest on December 4 over the failure of authorities to pay wages and bonuses owed to them. Ternopil provincial authorities later explained that they lack the funds to pay off wage debts to the teachers.
Educators likewise protested proposed cuts last Thursday in Ivano-Frankivsk. Public transportation workers struck in Kiev the same day, demanding payment of wage arrears. Protests of university students and instructors in Kiev are planned for December 23.
Kiev emergency physician Ihor Khlobov told Vesti, “They pay us wages, but in parts and not all at once. They promise to pay out all the money before the end of the year.” Khlobov explained that emergency medical service workers are frequently fined by their employer, for example, when their ambulance takes more than 10 minutes to reach its destination.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Trump keeps calling Republican senators and berating them for not running interference on the Russia investigation.
Donald Trump appears to be singularly obsessed with the unfolding investigation into possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian operative, and Republicans in Congress have been feeling the sting of his paranoia.
At least five GOP senators have been personally contacted by Trump this month, as he franticly berates them for not properly protecting him from the burgeoning Russia controversy, according to press reports.
Tension over Russia reached such a volcanic boiling point this month and Trump got into a “profane” telephone shouting matching with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to The New York Times. “One source said the primary cause of Trump’s frustrations with McConnell has been the GOP leader’s failure to protect Trump on the Russia issue,” added CNN.
But McConnell isn’t the only Republican senator under pressure. Trump has reportedly also reached out to Arizona’s John McCain and Jeff Flake, Tennessee’s Bob Corker, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis to express his Russia frustration.
“Trump’s chewing out of GOP senators, according to people briefed on the calls, reflected the president’s frustration that fellow Republicans would make moves that could damage him, particularly on an investigation that he detests,” according to Politico. “It seems he is just always focused on Russia,” says one senior GOP aide.
Trump’s sense of panic over Russia is only likely to increase.
On Wednesday, CNN revealed that “congressional investigators have unearthed an email from a top Trump aide that referenced a previously unreported effort to arrange a meeting last year between Trump campaign officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
That aide is currently serving as Trump’s deputy chief of staff.
Meanwhile, Congress is moving ahead to protect special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s independent investigation:
.@SenBlumenthal: There is "growing support" for bipartisan legislation to protect special counsel from "political interference" https://t.co/kClre3RBcI — New Day (@NewDay) August 24, 2017
Earlier this month, Trump was forced to sign the Russia sanctions bill, which prevents Trump from easing restrictions without express consent of Congress. The initiative passed the House 419-3 and the Senate 98-2.
He made his contempt for the bill known by issuing a bizarre statement concurrent with the signing. In it, he denounced the bill, downplayed Russia’s election interference, and bragged about what a successful businessman he is. Days later, he blamed Congress for damaging the United States’ relationship with Russia.
Trump’s obsession with getting Republican senators to run interference for him clearly represents part of a larger pattern, where Trump is willing to take reckless, extraordinary actions in order to protect himself for the burgeoning investigation.
Early in his term, Trump requested that then-FBI Director James Comey pledge his loyalty to the president, and urged Comey to go easy on Michael Flynn, who was at the time serving as Trump’s national security adviser. Flynn was ousted in February when it became publicly known that had mislead people about previously undisclosed contacts with Russians during the Trump campaign, which made him susceptible to blackmail.
In May, Trump fired Comey over the Russia investigation, which he has condemned as fake news and a hoax. But reports this summer that Mueller had convened a grand jury for the Russia investigation confirms the probe is no joke.When Sage Creek High School opens to students in 2013, it will mark the end of new construction in the Carlsbad Unified School District and the beginning of upgrades and possible additions to other campuses.
The 13-campus district has spent the past decade growing at what school board President Kelli Moors calls “a breakneck pace.” But the pace is slowing, with no more room for the district to grow physically. It’s slated to come to a complete halt when construction on Sage Creek, the district’s second high school campus, is finished. Carlsbad Unified is built out.
Reaching that status means the district can now focus on what’s been on its wish list for a while: technology upgrades, a swimming pool and a performing arts center. Elementary and middle schools will likely be upgraded, as well, with wireless Internet hot spots and additions like playground equipment, which Buena Vista Elementary School received in recent years.
But those improvements won’t happen just yet.
Carlsbad Unified is still waiting on about $20 million in matching money that the state promised when voters approved Proposition P, a $198 million construction bond measure, in 2006.
When that comes through — and it’s unclear when that will be — the district will have millions to put toward the things it’s wanted but couldn’t fund, such as a technology-heavy curriculum.
“We’re still discussing textbooks, techbooks, electronic books,” Superintendent John Roach said. He added that the wait for millions of dollars from the state is also somewhat of a good thing.
“We have the luxury of time to see how the development of this works,” he said.
While district officials are ready to see Sage Creek open in fall 2013, the project has not been without criticism.
The district is facing a $7.8 million shortfall in its $82 million operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The following year could hold a budget deficit of about $5 million, according to early projections.
Trustees have voted to slash school discretionary funds, athletics, administrative jobs and nearly 20 percent of its teaching staff to help fill the budget gap. Those decisions have moved critics to ask why the district would continue its move toward built-out status during such an economically difficult time.
Critics such as Kurt Dearie, a teacher at Carlsbad High, have told board members they would rather see money go toward keeping teachers on staff than to another building such as Sage Creek.
“You cannot simply divide the staff at Carlsbad High School between two schools without lowering the quality of education,” Dearie told trustees at a meeting in February. “Building Sage Creek High School made no sense five years ago, it makes no sense tonight, and it will make no sense in the foreseeable future.”
Moors and Roach have said in public meetings that voters approved Proposition P, which helped pay for the new high school, overwhelmingly in 2006. The demand for a second high school was high at the time, and the district answered, Moors said.
And even though the term “built out” implies the district is in its final stages of growth, Roach, who plans to retire June 30, said he sees it more as the beginning of a new stage than the end of one.
“It’s a process of renewal,” Roach said. The opportunity for a new leader “to build on that renewal is tremendous... in spite of the financial troubles we’re facing."POVERTY in Scotland is a "scandal" and should never be allowed to be considered inevitable, Nicola Sturgeon has told anti- hardship campaigners.
The Deputy First Minister, who is almost certain to succeed Alex Salmond as First Minister next month, said she would be looking at the new powers promised to the Scottish Parliament to tackle inequality and poverty.
Ms Sturgeon addressed the Poverty Alliance annual conference as part of Challenge Poverty Week at the City Halls in Glasgow, and said that, post-referendum, politics must not return to business as usual.
One in five children are living in poverty and the Poverty Alliance said what was required was a comprehensive strategy, regardless of the outcome of the Smith Commission on new powers for Holyrood.
Ms Sturgeon said she wanted to capture the engagement of the public during the campaign to improve democracy and decision making in Scotland. The Glasgow South Side MSP looked back to the referendum campaign and said the lesson was that both sides demanded and now expect change.
She looked ahead to new powers for the Scottish Parliament from the Smith Commission and said they can be used to benefit the most vulnerable in society.
Ms Sturgeon said: "I still hold on to the idea that one day we won't need a Poverty Alliance.
"The Poverty Alliance work is more relevant and urgent now than it has ever been. Poverty levels are far too high. They are a scandal - let's not mince our words. Poverty should never be accepted as inevitable.
"What is more shocking is the fact we are going in the one direction. UK Government policies seem totally unacceptable."
Ms Sturgeon is likely to be the First Minister of Scotland when the new powers are anticipated to come into force next year, but she said the Westminster agenda continues to damage to Scotland.
She said the new powers were not a "magic wand" and admitted neither would independence have been.
In her opinion the best argument for more powers was Chancellor George Osborne's Tory conference speech and his announcement of another £2.5bn of cuts coming our way.
She said: "Let's not under- estimate the scale of that. That's just the start of the next round of cuts.It is not just the scale but how they are being targeted.
"The richest 10% have seen a 3% increase in income, while the poorest 10% a reduction of 8%.
"Poverty has increased in Scotland for the first time in a decade and it is estimated 100,000 more children will be in poverty by 2020.
"It is not acceptable to me or to the Scottish Government. It is a direct result of policies implemented by the UK Government."
While the Scottish Government has argued for full fiscal responsibility for Holyrood, she said that welfare had to be devolved, too.
She said: "Any package of more powers that doesn't include welfare means we will be missing a trick
She added: "One of the things that frustrates me is the amount spent to mitigate policies we don't agree with. We have spent £35m on mitigating the bedroom tax, and £35m is a lot of money if it is used better. You have to spend every penny you have got.
"We have got to make sure we build on the last seven years and continue with the early intervention approach and a strong child poverty strategy.
"Almost every decision we take: does it help or hinder efforts to tackle poverty?
"The Scottish Government will always look at providing resources, but it's how we use those resources."
Labour, meanwhile, criticised the record of the SNP Scottish Government on poverty.
Welfare spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "It's welcome to see the Deputy First Minister declare that tackling the scourge of poverty will be her top priority if elected First Minister in November.
"However it is disappointing to note that her rhetoric doesn't match her record. Nicola led for the Scottish Government on poverty whilst Health Secretary, and retained the responsibility at infrastructure. In that time we've seen stagnation, and - from recent indicators - decline.
"We have a real lack of vision and action from the Scottish Government in tackling poverty and more powers can't solve the problems of inaction."
stewart.paterson@eveningtimes.co.ukJosh Brent was released from jail Sunday after posting $500,000 bond. (Photo11: Matthew Emmons, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Jerry Brown's death marks the third time since 1998 that an NFL player killed another person because of suspected DUI.
IRVING, Texas — Since January 2000, NFL players have been arrested at least 624 times on various charges, including 42 times this year, according to data compiled by USA TODAY Sports.
Of those 624 arrests, 177 (28%) were arrested because they were suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Despite the league's various attempts to stop the problem, it remains the single-biggest criminal issue in the NFL.
Nothing else comes close. Nothing else has been more deadly.
EMOTIONAL WIN: Cowboys dedicate victory to Brown
INVESTIGATION: Agency to look at where Brent drank
Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jerry Brown became the latest victim early Saturday when police say teammate Josh Brent drove drunk, hit a curb and flipped his car, killing Brown, who was riding with him.
"We've all done it (driven intoxicated)," San Diego Chargers linebacker Takeo Spikes said Sunday. "But it's to a point now where maybe you were ignorant and didn't know any better or felt you were invincible. We've had enough of death to show us this is what you do not do."
In some kind of cosmic alignment, the accident Saturday happened on the same road — about 1½ miles away — from the national headquarters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an NFL partner in the fight against DUIs.
JERRY BROWN: High school remembers a positive kid
JASON GARRETT: Cowboys coach reflects on Brown, Brent
"I've been in those circumstances where I drove where I was under the influence," Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Larry Foote said. "We have to get a hold of the alcohol. Guys won't want to hear that. But that's the problem. Too much alcohol, getting drunk, you're out of control"
Brown's death marked the third time since 1998 that an NFL player killed another person because of suspected DUI. Brent's arrest also marked the 18th time this year that an NFL player has been arrested on suspicion of DUI — up from seven in 2011 and not far behind the worst NFL DUI years in recent history: 20 in 2006 and 19 in 2009. On average, NFL players are arrested for DUI about 13-14 times a year.
Jerry Brown was killed early Saturday morning. (Photo11: AP file photo)
The NFL has noted various efforts to stem the problem, including discipline, education and even chauffeur services available to players through the players union. All they have to do is call for a ride.
"The program is there and I don't know why every player in the league wouldn't use it," Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Shaun Smith said. "I've used it before when I've been out, and I'm sure I'll use it again. Personally, I'm not going to put myself or anyone else at risk by driving drunk. You just wish everyone felt that way."
JOSH BRENT: Released on bond; crash details emerge
REACTION: Vets' candid words on drunken driving in NFL
The numbers persist in part because it's a league full of rambunctious, wealthy young men who love to party almost as much as they love to drive fancy cars. NFL players fall into the most at-risk demographic for drinking and driving, with males ages 21-34 responsible for 42% of all fatal DUI crashes.
CLOSE Jerry Brown, Jr.'s grandmother said that her grandson, who police say was killed by a teammate in a drunk driving accident, was an inspiration to his family members. KSDK
And yet the NFL is better behaved compared to the general population. Out of about 2,000 NFL players per season, including team practice squads, 14 DUI arrests make for a rate of 0.7%.
By contrast, males ages 20-24 and 25-29 each have a DUI rate of double that, at 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively, according to FBI statistics for last year.
CLOSE One day after Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jerry Brown died in a one-car crash in which teammate Josh Brent was jailed for intoxication manslaughter, the Cowboys played through their grief to beat Cincinnati, 20-19.
The league still recognizes it has a problem on its hands, especially as it tries to repair its image as it relates to crime and player safety. Just one week earlier, Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, then himself. The night before the murder-suicide, Belcher was found asleep in his car outside the residence of another female friend. The police suspected he had been drinking and warned him about driving home. He went inside, avoiding a DUI before a different tragedy unfolded the next morning at his house.
One week later, another player is dead from an all-too-familiar cause. In 1998, St. Louis Rams defensive end Leonard Little killed another motorist while driving drunk. In 2009, Cleveland Browns receiver Donte Stallworth drove drunk and killed a pedestrian.
In 2003, Cowboys cornerback Dwayne Goodrich struck three men with his BMW. Two died. Goodrich pleaded guilty to negligent criminal homicide and wasn't released from custody until last year. He said he had a couple of drinks earlier that night, but he was not found guilty of DUI.
In the case of Brent, 24, this marks his second DUI arrest after being sentenced to probation for a 2009 DUI arrest when he was in college at Illinois.
Brett Bivans, a senior vice president at the International Center for Alcohol Policies, said rigorous enforcement is needed to prevent this. He recommends ignition interlock devices that are put on a car's dashboard to measure blood-alcohol concentration from the driver's breath. If it measures too much, the car won't start.
"We are considering that," Cowboys consultant Calvin Hill told USA TODAY Sports.
If players insist on partying and won't take a taxi afterward, it might be the only thing that'll work.
Ultimately the problem is an issue of" individual responsibility," MADD CEO Debbie Weir said.
Contributing: Jarrett Bell in Cincinnati, Jim Corbett in Pittsburgh, John Perrotto in Cleveland.Section 25 of the Constitution of Australia is a provision of the Constitution of Australia headed "Provision as to races disqualified from voting’ and providing that ‘For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted."[1]
History [ edit ]
The section was proposed in the 1891 constitutional convention by Andrew Inglis Clark, the then Tasmanian Attorney-General.[2] Clark adapted the wording from section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which was introduced in 1868 following the US Civil War and intended to deter states from excluding certain races from voting. Unlike section 25, however, the US provision made no direct reference to race.[3] At the time what became section 25 was introduced to the draft there was not intended to be a separate federal franchise. Rather, those permitted to vote in lower house elections at state level would form the make-up of the Commonwealth franchise. The drafters included it to ensure that a state could not on the one hand exclude people of a race from voting at the Commonwealth level while also benefiting from their inclusion in the population when determining the number of representatives that state would elect to the House of Representatives. It was argued that such a clause should be broader in order to prevent disenfranchisement such as that caused by property ownership qualifications in Western Australia, but this was never expanded on as it would have had no deterrent effect given Western Australia was to receive the minimum five representatives upon federation anyway. Later in the drafting process, section 30 was introduced, allowing the Commonwealth to legislate its own voting franchise. Section 25 was nevertheless retained, despite this somewhat diluting its purpose.
Despite the section's intention to deter disenfranchisement on the basis of race, in practice it has been of little effect. The existence of section 127 in the Constitution, which excluded Aboriginal people from being counted in population data, meant that the exclusion of Aboriginal people from state franchise had no effect on a state's population in applying section 24 to determine the make-up of the House of Representatives. Likewise, it had little effect on exclusion of other races, such as Queensland's exclusion of Aboriginal populations of other nations, as they were either insignificant in number in relation to the broader population or could be excluded by other means, such as on the basis of nationality, which would not trigger section 25. By the time section 127 was repealed, allowing the Aboriginal population to be counted in determining representation in federal parliament, all states already included Aboriginal people in their respective franchises.
There has been no direct High Court judgements relating to the application of section 25. This is largely because its existence has always been of little to no effect, and because any dispute over its application is unlikely to have been in relation to a population large enough to have any effect on the representation numbers in Parliament. It has however been referred to in numerous cases, in relation to matters such as universal franchise, voting equality, and the definition of 'people of the Commonwealth'. Justice Kirby referred to it in passing as support for the proposition that racial qualifications have been eliminated from voting.[10]
Reform [ edit ]
The repeal of section 25 has been put to referendum twice. In 1967, alongside the referendum in relation to Aboriginals, it was put forward to be repealed as part of an amendment to the Constitution that would have removed the nexus between the number of representatives in the House of Representatives and the number of senators in the Senate. It failed to get a majority nationwide, receiving just 40% of the yes vote, and only passed with a majority in New South Wales. Later, in 1974, it was to be removed as part of a constitutional amendment enshrining the concept of "one vote, one value" in the Constitution by ensuring electorates at state and federal level would be based on population and not geographic size or other methods. Again, this referendum was defeated, receiving 47% of the national yes vote, and only attaining a majority in New South Wales. Both these referendums failed for reasons more complex than any controversy surrounding the removal of section 25.
The 1975 Australian Constitutional Convention referred to the section as outmoded and expended and recommended it be repealed. Likewise, the Constitutional Commission in 1988 suggested it be repealed on the basis that it was outmoded and archaic.
More recently, it has been suggested section 25 be removed on the basis that it contemplates the possibility that a state may disenfranchise a race of people.[12] The Expert Panel on Recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution, in a report released in January 2012, among other things, recommended that section 25 be removed.[13] As Anne Twomey points out, however, much of the criticism surrounding section 25 is misguided, with some on the panel seeming to be of the belief that section 25 allows a state to prohibit people of a race from voting. She argues that the section neither allows nor disallows such action, but merely disapproves or deters it. However, she considers removing it as part of a wider effort to remove race from the Constitution appropriate given it has no practical effect.[15]
Others argue that the application of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 now means that a state could not prevent people of a race from being able to vote, and that due to this section 25 is spent. However, as the Racial Discrimination Act is not constitutionally enshrined, such protection is not permanently guaranteed. Regardless, the High Court may read down the Act from applying in this way so as not to allow the Commonwealth to infringe on a state's ability to legislate on its own constitutional matters as in Austin v Commonwealth.Chinese kite strings were blamed for three deaths, including of the 2 children, in Delhi.
Highlights Kite string slit throats of girl, 3, and boy, 4, on Independence Day 22-year-old man, riding motorcycle on flyover, was also killed Delhi govt bans glass or metal-coated Chinese kite string or'manjha'
The Delhi government has banned the use of glass or metal coated kite strings after two children were killed on Independence Day in separate accidents barely 10 km apart.Both 3-year-old Saanchi Goyal and Harry, 4, were travelling with their heads out of sunroofs in cars on Monday evening, when kite strings slit their throats. In West Delhi, a 22-year-old man Zafar Khan was killed when a kite string slashed his throat while he was riding a motorbike on a flyover.A Delhi government notification said on Tuesday that the sale, production and storage of metal or glass-coated kite threads commonly called the Chinese manjha would be banned in the capital. Only the use of cotton thread and natural fibre free of metallic or glass components would be allowed for flying kites, said the notification, imposing a penalty of one lakh rupees and five years in prison for those who violate the ban.Many people fly kites on their terraces and in gardens in the capital on August 15 to celebrate Independence Day and by evening there are lengths of manjha toughened with powdered glass hanging from trees, electricity poles and other places.On Monday, it was one such hanging piece of thread that slit little Saanchi's neck as she was returning home after watching a film with her parents. She was rushed to a hospital in Rani Bagh, but died on the way.Neighbours said Saanchi was the only child of her parents. Her father, Alok Goyal, is a businessman.Two hours later, at about 8 pm, Harry was returning home with his parents and older sister and had his head stuck out of the car's sun roof, when a kite string got wrapped around his neck leaving him bleeding heavily. Harry too had died by the time he was taken to a hospital in Janakpuri. Four people have died and three people, including a policeman, have been injured in kite string accidents in the capital since last week. On August 11, the Delhi High Court had asked the Delhi government and civic bodies to issue advisories ahead of Independence Day on the use of Chinese manjhas.Terry Firma
Another one bites the dust:
Former Liberty County resident Eddie Shauberger, 58, has been arrested in San Antonio, TX, after being indicted by a Liberty County grand jury on two counts of sexual assault of a child.
Shauberger is the former pastor of Oak Island Baptist Church in Chambers County, Texas.
In May 2009, in a business fraud case, Schauberger was indicted for tampering with a governmental document; in August 2010, for aggravated perjury; and in September 2010, for engaging in organized crime.
A four-year-old article about him in the Houston Chronicle points out that
Although he has no seminary training and his only experience was as a deacon, Shauberger was picked over other candidates to become Oak Island’s pastor because of his stirring oratory, members said. Shauberger continues to commute to the church from Liberty, where he raised his seven children and ran for public office [as a Republican] a dozen times. He lost each election — including his last one in 2002 for state representative — but never let that discourage him.
Amazing he didn’t get the job; between the mendacity, the fraud, and the propensity to fuck the weak and defenseless, he clearly has all the qualifications to be a successful politician.
[image via Beaumont Enterprise]CAMDEN -- A Willingboro man was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in federal prison for selling at least 200 handguns to criminals in the Camden area.
Joshua Jackson previously had pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Camden to charges of dealing firearms without a license, conspiring to deal firearms without a federal license and possessing firearms as a convicted felon, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors say Jackson, 36, obtained most of the guns in Ohio, either purchasing them himself from unlicensed sellers at gun shows or through straw purchases made by associates.
The guns were brought back to Camden either by Jackson himself, in a rental car, or by an associate, who transported the guns in duffel bags aboard Greyhound buses bound for Philadelphia and Mount Laurel, the statement says.
Prosecutors say the sale of many of the guns was brokered through Terrance Laboo, who previously pleaded guilty in the case. Laboo, who admitted he was also dealing PCP and cocaine at the time, sold the guns to other drug dealers in South Jersey, the statement says.
Jackson was sentenced to three years of supervised release in addition to the prison term, according to prosecutors.
Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.In this write-up, we will present several techniques used in exploiting a vulnerability in Google Chrome, and the various difficulties presented by its security mechanisms and considerations. We |
of seats Bennett’s party receives is not the only metric of rightward shifts in Israel. Take for example the fact that during the primaries for the Likud—which led the self-proclaimed most pro-settlement government in Israeli history—that party elected even more pro-settler elements into its leadership. The Likud, which then merged with Avigdor Lieberman, the man who was routinely referred to as “far-right” and “ultra-nationalist” only one election ago, is the largest party in the Israeli political system and now has others to its right. Last, keep in mind that while the members of the governing coalition and some of their natural allies were openly and staunchly pro-colonization and even annexation, no party in the Zionist opposition vociferously challenged the Israeli settlement enterprise—with the possible exception of Meretz, which took in a grand total of 7 seats. Those 7 seats, by the way, were considered a remarkable and unexpected triumph.
J Street also mentions the the Labor Party, which garnered 15 Knesset seats (compared to the party’s 13 seats in the previous government), as reason for hope. But the Labor Party leader’s Shelly Yachimovich sees no problem with the West Bank colonization project. “I certainly do not see the settlement project as a sin and a crime,” she told Haaretz.
I’ll end with both of these organizations’ praise for Tzipi Livni. Livni, of course, was foreign minister when Israel waged its punishing assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09, killing 1,400 Palestinians. Livni is the woman who famously said that it was “good” to go “wild” on Gaza–which is exactly what the Israelis did, as they rained down white phosphorus on a civilian population and killed civilians left and right.
And before the elections, +972 Magazine ran this piece by blogger Idan Landau that conclusively shows why Livni is not going to be the person to bring peace:
Do you remember the Palestine Papers? For a brief moment, in January 2011, the world reeled at the exposure of documents from the talks held between the PA and Ehud Olmert’s government in 2008. The Israeli team at the talks was led by Tzipi Livni, who negotiated with the head of the Palestinian team, Abu Alaa. The embarrassing documents were immediately denied by both parties; after all, they presented the Israeli side as obstinately rejectionist and the Palestinians as sycophantic collaborators. Livni played a central part in this historical fiasco: it was she who rejected, with unconcealed contempt, Abu Alaa’s meek attempt to discuss the partition of Jerusalem (“Huston [sic], we have a problem,” Livni sneered, apparently unaware she was presenting Israel, not the PA, as afloat in outer space.)
The liberal American Zionists are utterly delusional, grasping at any straw to try and convince the world that there is a possibility for a two-state solution and that Israel can make peace. But “peace” on Lapid and Livni’s terms is no peace at all, let alone justice. Both of those figures who J Street and Americans for Peace Now are celebrating have nothing to offer but continued maintenance of an apartheid status quo. I have the same question that Phil Weiss has: when will liberal Zionists give up their dream? It’s dead in the water right now, with no signs of the (mythical) liberal, democratic Israel they love. And the elections don’t change that reality one bit.A top Homeland Security Official admitted to Congress that electronics and software sold in the United States are sometimes preloaded with spyware, malware, and other nasty security-compromising components by unknown foreign parties.
Greg Schaffer, DHS assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week saying that Homeland Security and the White House have been aware of the threat for quite so me time.
Schaffer admitted he is aware of instances when foreign-made technology was built with embedded security risks but did not elaborate on what kind of equipment DHS has encountered. He also pointed out that overseas components are found in many domestically manufactured electronics.
Fast Company's Neal Ungerleider, who first reported the news, uncovered a few paragraphs in the White House's Cyberspace Policy Review (PDF) that he thinks shows the administration is aware of problems with imported technology:
"The emergence of new centers for manufacturing, design, and research across the globe raises concerns about the potential for easier subversion of computers and networks through subtle hardware or software manipulations. Counterfeit products have created the most visible supply problems, but few documented examples exist of unambiguous, deliberate subversions.
A broad, holistic approach to risk management is required rather than a wholesale condemnation of foreign products and services. The challenge with supply chain attacks is that a sophisticated adversary might narrowly focus on particular systems and make manipulation virtually impossible to discover. Foreign manufacturing does present easier opportunities for nation-state adversaries to subvert products; however, the same goals could be achieved through the recruitment of key insiders or other espionage activities."
Based on the review, which was written several months ago, the most compromised technology is counterfeit devices but it's possible mainstream products could be infected. This is particularly troubling since DHS declined to specify what kind of technology it found with embedded malware.
MSNBC's Alex Johnson found a YouTube video of the hearing; you can watch the exchange starting at 51:47.Galaxies can be used as tracers for numerous characteristics of the universe, including the “cosmic web” of hydrogen gas that connects galaxies and follows the distribution of dark matter filaments throughout the cosmos. Looking at where galaxies sit sheds light on these otherwise invisible structures, while also providing clues about the amount of mass in galaxies and how they influence their neighbors over time. Now, astronomers have traced the alignment of massive galaxies back 10 billion years, showing these objects have been in tune with their environment since the universe was just one-third its current age.The work was led by Lowell Observatory astronomer Michael West, who together with his collaborators used Hubble Space Telescope images of 65 galaxy clusters located billions of light-years away to study the orientation of the massive elliptical galaxies in the centers of these clusters. What they found suggests that the biggest, brightest galaxies in galaxy clusters have been heavily influenced by their unique environment since very early times. The study appears in Nature Astronomy online today.Galaxy clusters present a very different environment from “the field,” which is an astronomer’s term for the majority of the sky, which shows no preferential structure or clustering of galaxies. Inside galaxy clusters, individual galaxies are subjected to intense gravity, a hot intracluster medium of gas, and many more “flybys” between neighboring galaxies than could ever occur in the less dense field. And while galaxies in the field tend to be oriented any which way, galaxies in clusters are different. The massive galaxies at the centers of clusters show preferential alignment with their neighbors, and astronomers are still looking to find out why.One reason for this alignment could be that over time, gravity simply tends to orient large galaxies in the same direction as their neighbors. Alternatively, because large galaxies grow by absorbing smaller galaxies, these smaller galaxies could impart orientation on the galaxies that eat them due to the progenitors’ preferred orientation along the cosmic web.The results of West’s study don’t rule out either scenario, but they do help constrain the alignment by showing that it occurs very early on in galaxy evolution. “It’s an important new piece of the puzzle,” said West in a press release, “because it says that whatever caused these alignments happened early.”What’s next? West’s group plans to push the envelope further by trying to observe even more distant galaxies. Despite the precision achievable with Hubble, however, this will be challenging, as even massive galaxies appear fainter and smaller as the distance between Earth and these clusters grows. But such observations at the earliest epochs may help astronomers finally determine the reason for this preferred orientation, helping to complete our picture of early galaxy evolution.If there’s one Pan Am Games attraction that’s been difficult for sightseers on Toronto’s streets to locate, it’s the exceedingly elusive athletes themselves. For the most part, the roughly 6,000 competitors have been a rare sight around town.
Uruguayan Pan Am team members settle in for a card game at the athletes village. ( Darren Calabrese / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
Perhaps that’s a testament to the demands of the Games — or to the comforts of the athletes village, a $700 million-plus network of 2,200 suites that has helped to turn Pan Am athletes into homebodies. “It’s kind of like your own little bubble of a world,” said Quebec-raised, Calgary-based wrestler Genevieve Morrison, who won gold in the freestyle 48-kilogram division. “There’s all different athletes from different countries. There’s amazing food selection, awesome facilities. Everything’s shiny and new. “It’s just cool, you know — you feel important in there.”
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The gleaming complex in the West Don Lands is full of stress-relieving distractions. A lounge stocked with foosball, ping pong and PlayStation is a big hit with the Canadians. “Normally at night, the games room is pretty packed,” said Canadian tennis player Peter Polansky. “There’s always athletes bonding with each other there.” His game of choice? “We’ve been playing Call of Duty,” he said with a smile. The space is popular enough that carving out playing time can be, well, competitive.
“I’ve been wanting to get on the basketball machine but it’s always crowded,” lamented Morrison, laughing. “If we’re ever to host another Games, we need to order more basketball machines, because being able to play that unlimited basketball arcade game is awesome.” Athletes are also raving about the food — including egg whites, enthused Vancouver javelin thrower Liz Gleadle: “You know athletes always pick out the yolks” — even if some are restricted.
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“I was pretty limited to a handful of pretty boring things,” said Morrison, who has to be careful to make weight for her event. “I think the next couple days I’ll be able to be a bit more open... and go for the pizza and chicken wings and fries.” The Pan Am Games arrive mid-season in many sports, with world championships still to come and the Olympics a year away. “The focus is the competition when you come to these Games,” said Halifax gymnast Ellie Black, who won five medals here. “That’s the most important for us. And then after you can hopefully get some time to chill out and go look around and see some things.” Canadian softball player Kaleigh Rafter visited the CN Tower with teammates, but passed on the long line for an elevator ride to the top, while Charlottetown golfer Lorie Kane visited the CBC building and Austin Connelly — a dual citizen who grew up in Dallas but competes in golf for Canada — took in a Pan Am beach volleyball match. But most seem to prefer to hunker down in their temporary home during down time. “We watch a lot of Netflix, and we eat and do a little pin trading here and there,” said gymnastics silver medallist Kevin Lytwyn of Stoney Creek, Ont. “That’s pretty much it.” Partying appears to be limited. “People, for sure, cut loose,” said Gleadle, referring to athletes finished competing, “but I think everybody’s pretty respectful. They had to compete, and now someone else has to compete. It’s pretty rare you get to this level and people are disrespectful of each other’s performance needs.” Athletes from other nations like the location. “We were really fortunate to have the Distillery District right next to the village, which had cute coffee shops, great music, really great architecture,” said American women’s water polo captain Maggie Steffens. “It’s nice to get out of the village and enjoy the city you’re in. Some of us, I think, would be excited to go to Niagara Falls. But the city is amazing, so anywhere we can go.” Any other destinations in mind? “I think the destination we had was a gold medal,” said Steffens, who helped the U.S. beat Canada in the final. With files from Stephen Whyno and Gregory StrongThe Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity.[1] It is related to the crucifix (a cross that includes a corpus, usually a three-dimensional representation of Jesus' body) and to the more general family of cross symbols, the term cross itself being detached from the original specifically Christian meaning in modern English (as in many other western languages).[2]
The basic forms of the cross are the Latin cross with unequal arms (✝) and the Greek cross (✚) with equal arms, besides numerous variants, partly with confessional significance, such as the tau cross, the double-barred cross, triple-barred cross, cross-and-crosslets, and many heraldic variants, such as the cross potent, cross pattée, cross moline, cross fleury, etc.
Instrument of Jesus' execution [ edit ]
John Pearson, Bishop of Chester (c. 1660) wrote in his commentary on the Apostles' Creed that the Greek word stauros originally signified "a straight standing Stake, Pale, or Palisador", but that, "when other transverse or prominent parts were added in a perfect Cross, it retained still the Original Name", and he declared: "The Form then of the Cross on which our Saviour suffered was a simple, ', by whose Procurator he was condemned to die. In which there was not only a straight and erected piece of Wood fixed in the Earth, but also a transverse Beam fastned unto that towards the top thereof".[3]
Early Christian usage [ edit ]
There are few extant examples of the cross in 2nd century Christian iconography. It has been argued that Christians were reluctant to use it as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution.[1] A symbol similar to the cross, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, almost like a nomen sacrum (nomina sacra).[4] The extensive adoption of the cross as Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century.[5]
However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius[6] of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next,[7] and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase τὸ κυριακὸν σημεῖον (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross, when he repeated the idea, current as early as the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, that the number 318 (in Greek numerals, ΤΙΗ) in Genesis 14:14 was interpreted as a foreshadowing (a "type") of the cross (T, an upright with crossbar, standing for 300) and of Jesus (ΙΗ, the first two letters of his name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, standing for 18).[8] His contemporary Tertullian rejected the accusation of Christians being "adorers of the gibbet" (crucis religiosi).[9] In his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross.[10] The crucifix, a cross upon which an image of Christ is present, is not known to have been used until the 6th century AD.[11]
The oldest extant depiction of the execution of Jesus in any medium seems to be the second-century or early third-century relief on a jasper gemstone meant for use as an amulet, which is now in the British Museum in London. It portrays a naked bearded man whose arms are tied at the wrists by short strips to the transom of a T-shaped cross. An inscription in Greek on the obverse contains an invocation of the redeeming crucified Christ. On the reverse a later inscription by a different hand combines magical formulae with Christian terms.[12] The catalogue of a 2007 exhibition says: "The appearance of the Crucifixion on a gem of such an early date suggests that pictures of the subject (now lost) may have been widespread even in the late second or early third century, most likely in conventional Christian contexts".[13][14][15]
The Jewish Encyclopedia says:[16]
The cross as a Christian symbol or "seal" came into use at least as early as the second century (see "Apost. Const." iii. 17; Epistle of Barnabas, xi.-xii.; Justin, "Apologia," i. 55-60; "Dial. cum Tryph." 85-97); and the marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest was regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons (Tertullian, "De Corona," iii.; Cyprian, "Testimonies," xi. 21–22; Lactantius, "Divinæ Institutiones," iv. 27, and elsewhere). Accordingly the Christian Fathers had to defend themselves, as early as the second century, against the charge of being worshipers of the cross, as may be learned from Tertullian, "Apologia," xii., xvii., and Minucius Felix, "Octavius," xxix. Christians used to swear by the power of the cross
In contemporary Christianity [ edit ]
A crucifix on the wall of a church
Catholics, Orthodox Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, members of the major branches of Christianity with other adherents as Lutheranism and Anglicans, and others often make the Sign of the Cross upon themselves. This was already a common Christian practice in the time of Tertullian.[17]
The Feast of the Cross is an important Christian feast. One of the twelve Great Feasts in Orthodox Catholic is the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, which commemorates the consecration of the basilica on the site where the original cross of Jesus was reportedly discovered in 326 by Helena of Constantinople, mother of Constantine the Great. The Catholic Church celebrates the feast on the same day and under the same name (In Exaltatione Sanctae Crucis), though in English it has been called the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.
Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican bishops place a cross [+] before their name when signing a document. The dagger symbol (†) placed after the name of a dead person (often with the date of death) is sometimes taken to be a Christian cross.[18]
In many Christian traditions, such as the Methodist Churches, the altar cross sits atop or is suspended above the altar table and is a focal point of the chancel.[19]
In many Baptist churches, a large cross hangs above the baptistry.[20]
Rejection among various religious groups [ edit ]
Although Christians accepted that the cross was the gallows on which Jesus died,[21] they had already begun in the 2nd century to use it as a Christian symbol.[22] During the first three centuries of the Christian era the cross was "a symbol of minor importance" when compared to the prominence given to it later,[23] but by the second century it was closely associated with Christians, to the point where Christians were mocked as "adorers of the gibbet" (crucis religiosi), an accusation countered by Tertullian.[9] and it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross.[24] Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation retained the cross and crucifix in the Lutheran Church,[25] which remains an important feature of Lutheran devotion and worship today.[26][27] Luther wrote: Crux sola est nostra theologia, "The cross alone is our theology."[28]
On the other hand, the Great Iconoclasm was a wave of rejecting sacred images among Calvinists of the 16th century.[29] Some localities (such as England) included polemics against using the cross in worship. For example, during the 16th century, a minority of theologians in the Anglican and Reformed traditions Nicholas Ridley,[30] James Calfhill,[31] and Theodore Beza,[32] rejected practices that they described as cross worship. Considering it a form of idolatry, there was a dispute in 16th century England over the baptismal use of the sign of the cross and even the public use of crosses.[33] There were more active reactions to religious items that were thought as'relics of Papacy', as happened for example in September 1641, when Sir Robert Harley, pulled down and destroyed the cross at Wigmore.[34] Writers during the 19th century indicating a pagan origin of the cross included Henry Dana Ward,[35] Mourant Brock,[36] and John Denham Parsons.[37] David Williams, writing of medieval images of monsters, says: "The disembodied phallus is also formed into a cross, which, before it became for Christianity the symbol of salvation, was a pagan symbol of fertility."[38] The study, Gods, Heroes & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain states: "Before the fourth century CE, the cross was not widely embraced as a sign of Christianity, symbolizing as it did the gallows of a criminal."[39] This reaction in the Anglican and other Reformed Churches was shortlived and the cross became ubiquitous in these Christian traditions.[40]
Jehovah's Witnesses do not use the symbol of the cross in their worship, which they believe constitutes idolatry.[41] They believe that Jesus died on a single upright torture stake rather than a two-beam cross, arguing that the Greek term stauros indicated a single upright pole.[42] Although early Watch Tower Society publications associated with the Bible Student movement taught that Christ was executed on a cross, it no longer appeared on Watch Tower Society publications after the name Jehovah's witnesses was adopted in 1931,[43] and use of the cross was officially abandoned in 1936.[44]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Jesus died on a cross, however, their prophet Gordon B. Hinckley stated that "for us the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ." When asked what was the symbol of his religion, Hinckley replied "the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship."[45][46] Prophet Howard W. Hunter encouraged Latter-day Saints "to look to the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of your membership."[47] Images of LDS temples and the Angel Moroni (who is found in statue on most temples) are commonly used to symbolize the LDS faith.[48]
Notable individual crosses [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Arduino: The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Arduino
You May Like: Arduino and Genuino MKR1000 Development Workshop
What is Arduino?
You May Like: The Largest Collection of Arduino Books
Download 'Arduino: The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Arduino' Pdf
Do you have an idea for a cool project? Have you ever wanted to create a robot or your very own game controller? Well if you have then the Arduino is probably the piece of hardware that you can use to accomplish just such a task as well as countless others.In our younger age we had rector sets and other small electric kits filled with transistors, resistors and other devices that allowed us to send signals to devices that we had growing up. Innovation in technology and the throw away society building things and learning how they work is a lost art.This book 'Arduino: The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Arduino' we will explore a device that is making those days fun again. It is called the Arduino.The Arduino is a small computer board that allows you to connect up a wide variety sensors, switches and controls to create your very own hardware such as robots, remotes and more.The author talk about what the Arduino is, what you can do with it and why you want to get one. We will give you some sample projects that you can do, some ideas for projects that you can create and even some basic source code that you can use to get started. If you are itching to get started and build something cool jump into this book and see what the Arduino has to offer.You can download '' from the download button below. If any link is dead please feel free to leave a comment.Akka Typed: Coexistence
We believe Akka Typed will be adopted in existing systems gradually and therefore it’s important to be able to use typed and untyped actors together, within the same ActorSystem. Also, we will not be able to integrate with all existing modules in one big bang release and that is another reason for why these two ways of writing actors must be able to coexist.
There are two different ActorSystem implementations; akka.actor.ActorSystem and akka.typed.ActorSystem. The latter can currently only host and run typed actors and can therefore only be used for greenfield projects that are only using typed actors. It doesn’t have any integration with other Akka modules yet, such as Akka Remoting, Cluster, and Streams. That will of course be implemented. The advantage of the new ActorSystem implementation is that it is simplified and also more efficient, e.g. messages are not wrapped in envelope because the sender reference is removed.
akka.typed.ActorSystem is interesting, but currently very limited. Good news is that the untyped akka.actor.ActorSystem can host and run a mix of untyped and typed actors via an adapter layer. Pretty much everything you would expect works, such as:
send message from typed to untyped, and opposite
spawn and supervise typed child from untyped parent, and opposite
watch typed from untyped, and opposite
First we start an ordinary ActorSystem and create an untyped actor:
val system = akka. actor. ActorSystem ( "sys" ) system. actorOf ( MyUntyped1. props (), "first" )
(Same example in Java)
The untyped actor looks like this:
import akka.typed.scaladsl.adapter._ object MyUntyped1 { def props () : akka.actor.Props = akka. actor. Props ( new MyUntyped1 ) } class MyUntyped1 extends akka. actor. Actor { // context.spawn is an implicit extension method val second : akka.typed.ActorRef [ MyTyped1.Command ] = context. spawn ( MyTyped1. behavior, "second" ) // context.watch is an implicit extension method context. watch ( second ) // self can be used as the `replyTo` parameter here because // there is an implicit conversion from akka.actor.ActorRef to // akka.typed.ActorRef second! MyTyped1. Ping ( self ) override def receive = { case MyTyped1. Pong => println ( s "$self got Pong from ${sender()}" ) // context.stop is an implicit extension method context. stop ( second ) case akka. actor. Terminated ( ref ) => println ( s "$self observed termination of $ref" ) context. stop ( self ) } }
(Same example in Java)
It spawns a typed child:
object MyTyped1 { sealed trait Command final case class Ping ( replyTo : akka.typed.ActorRef [ Pong. type ]) extends Command case object Pong val behavior : Behavior [ Command ] = akka. typed. scaladsl. Actor. immutable { ( ctx, msg ) => msg match { case Ping ( replyTo ) => println ( s "${ctx.self} got Ping from $replyTo" ) replyTo! Pong same } } }
(Same example in Java)
There is one import that is needed to make that work:
import akka.typed.scaladsl.adapter._
That adds some implicit extension methods that are added to untyped and typed ActorSystem and ActorContext in both directions. Note the inline comments in the example above. In the javadsl the corresponding adapter methods are static methods in akka.typed.javadsl.Adapter.
Let’s turn the example upside down and first start the typed actor and then the untyped as a child.
import akka.typed.scaladsl.adapter._ val system = akka. actor. ActorSystem ( "sys" ) // system.spawn is an implicit extension method system. spawn ( MyTyped2. behavior, "first" )
(Same example in Java)
The typed actor looks like this:
import akka.typed.scaladsl.adapter._ object MyTyped2 { final case class Ping ( replyTo : akka.typed.ActorRef [ Pong. type ]) sealed trait Command case object Pong extends Command val behavior : Behavior [ Command ] = akka. typed. scaladsl. Actor. deferred { context => // context.spawn is an implicit extension method val second : akka.actor.ActorRef = context. actorOf ( MyUntyped2. props (), "second" ) // context.watch is an implicit extension method context. watch ( second ) // illustrating how to pass sender, toUntyped is an implicit extension method second. tell ( MyTyped2. Ping ( context. self ), context. self. toUntyped ) akka. typed. scaladsl. Actor. immutable [ Command ] { ( ctx, msg ) => msg match { case Pong => // it's not possible to get the sender, that must be sent in message println ( s "${ctx.self} got Pong" ) // context.stop is an implicit extension method ctx. stop ( second ) same } } onSignal { case ( ctx, akka. typed. Terminated ( ref )) => println ( s "${ctx.self} observed termination of $ref" ) stopped } } }
(Same example in Java)
It spawns an untyped child:
object MyUntyped2 { def props () : akka.actor.Props = akka. actor. Props ( new MyUntyped2 ) } class MyUntyped2 extends akka. actor. Actor { override def receive = { case MyTyped2. Ping ( replyTo ) => // we use the replyTo ActorRef in the message, // but could use sender() if needed and it was passed // as parameter to tell println ( s "$self got Pong from ${sender()}" ) replyTo! MyTyped2. Pong } }
(Same example in Java)
There is one caveat regarding supervision of untyped child from typed parent. If the child throws an exception we would expect it to be restarted, but supervision in Akka Typed defaults to stopping the child in case it fails. The restarting facilities in Akka Typed will not work with untyped children. However, the workaround is simply to add another untyped actor that takes care of the supervision, i.e. restarts in case of failure if that is the desired behavior.
In this blog post we have illustrated how you can try out Akka Typed in your existing projects and use it for some actors while not having to migrate everything in one go.
The full source code of these examples, including corresponding Java examples, are available in patriknw/akka-typed-blog.It’s a special artist who becomes a global household name without the need to tack on a surname. Think Madonna, Beyonce and Adele. The late rockers Elvis and Lemmy didn’t need to announce their family names. Think Usher and Prince, Sia and Kylie. Turns out another Kylie wants the name all to herself.
Kylie Jenner, the teenage model and star of reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians, has applied to trademark her first name in the U.S. Problem is Kylie Minogue has been performing as "Kylie" since before Jenner was born.
Kylie Minogue Engaged to Boyfriend Joshua Sasse
Jenner is seeking protection for the name “Kylie” in connection with advertising services, according to World Intellectual Property Review, though Minogue’s reps last week filed a notice of opposition to the application.
KDB, an Australian-based business representing Minogue, argues that if the US Patent and Trademark Office approved Jenner’s application then it would cause confusion among consumers and dilute the pop singer’s brand.
In its opposition, KDB said Jenner was a ““secondary reality television personality” who appeared as “a supporting character” on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and who has been criticized by disability rights groups and African American communities.
Kylie Minogue Splits With Roc Nation
Minogue has addressed the dispute in a message to her 2.3 million Twitter followers. “Hello... My name is KYLIE #lightyears”, she wrote, lifting a lyric from her 2000 song "Light Years".
Hello..... My name is KYLIE #lightyears — kylie minogue (@kylieminogue) February 28, 2016
Minogue has sold more than 65 million albums over her career. Her trophy room includes Brit Awards, Grammys and in 2007 she became the first-ever woman (and first foreigner) to receive Britain's prestigious Music Industry Trusts' Award. In 2011, she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. She has owned the domain name kylie.com since Aug. 21, 1996, a year before Jenner was born, The Mirror reports.
Jenner has also filed a trademark application for the name "Kylie" in connection with entertainment services, published for opposition last Tuesday.One thing is for certain, the global financial system is an extremely complex and tightly coupled system that is in the throes of non-linear feedback loops that threaten to rend it limb from limb. Small and slow inputs, like the bailout bill ($700 billion) or the ad hoc actions of the Federal Reserve (already $1.8 trillion and climbing), from the government control system are not even in the ballpark of what's necessary to mitigate the system's excesses and return it to normal operation.
One solution: Nuke entire parts of the system. In short, destroy the system's network connectivity. For example, credit default swaps ensure that failure will spread through internetworked contracts. Nuke CDS derivatives ($60 trillion or so) by making them illegal. Destroy parts of the network in order to save the remainder -- firewalls and firebreaks.A chatbot that provides free legal counsel using AI is now available in all 50 states starting today. This is following its success in New York, Seattle, and the UK, where it was invented by British entrepreneur Joshua Browder. Browder, who calls his invention “the world’s first robot lawyer,” estimates the bot has helped defeat 375,000 parking tickets in a span of two years.
“Everybody can win.”
Browder, a junior at Stanford University, tells The Verge via Twitter that his chatbot could potentially experience legal repercussions from the government, but he is more concerned with competing with lawyers. “The legal industry is more than a 200 billion dollar industry, but I am excited to make the law free,” says Browder. “Some of the biggest law firms can’t be happy!”
Browder believes that his chatbot could also save government officials time and money. “Everybody can win,” he says, “I think governments waste a huge amount of money employing people to read parking ticket appeals. DoNotPay sends it to them in a clear and easy to read format.”
Browder sped up the making of DoNotPay by creating a bot builder for himself to quickly drag and drop documents and automate bot creation. Then, he recruited volunteer and part-time lawyers to help him with the legal aspect of the tool. To deal with the differences between state laws, he had to work with lawyers and charities to make locality-specific bots and detect the user’s location to show only relevant local bots.
You can type in questions like “I got an unfair parking ticket,” or requests for legal compensation from an airline or reporting discrimination, for a total of 1,000 different categories, although results only pop up for certain keywords. If the chatbot successfully directs you to the appropriate issue, it can then generate an appeal letter for you that you can sign and print.
The letters include language like “I believe that the court should exercise fairness in cancelling a ticket that...is perfectly justified to be cancelled,” and “I feel that the issue of a ticket is an unlawful action inconsistent with precedent.” But if you stump the bot, it triggers a prompt: “Need extra help?” It then provides a rather unhelpful link back to Google.Global box office receipts are slightly up from a record-breaking 2015. Yet Hollywood is having one of its glummest summers in a long time. So far, this year has included roughly the same number of hits as as 2015, but many more flops and moderate disappointments. WSJ's Ben Fritz explains on Lunch Break. Photo: AP
Global box-office receipts are up slightly from a record-setting 2015. Yet Hollywood is having one of its glummest summers in a long time.
So far, this year has included roughly the same number of hits as 2015, but many more flops and moderate disappointments. Some movies that fell short of studios’ big expectations are “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” “The Legend of Tarzan” and “Ghostbusters.”
...Democrats chose former Labor Secretary Tom Perez as their new national chairman Saturday over a liberal Minnesota congressman, capping a divisive campaign that reflected the depths of the party's electoral failures as well as the energy from resistance to President Donald Trump.
Perez, the first Latino to hold the post, edged Rep. Keith Ellison in the second round of voting by Democratic National Committee members gathered in Atlanta. The new chairman must rebuild a party that in the last decade has lost about 1,000 elected posts from the White House to Congress to the 50 statehouses, a power deficit Democrats have not seen nationally in 90 years.
In a nod to his winning margin of 35 votes out of 435 cast, to say nothing of the lingering friction between old-guard Democrats and outspoken upstarts, Perez tapped Ellison to serve as deputy chair.
"We are all in this together," Perez said, calling on Democrats to fight "the worst president in the history of the United States."
Ellison, who had backing from many liberals, including 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, added his own call for unity and noted that he and Perez both want to rebuild state and local Democratic parties across the country.
"We don't have the luxury of walking out of this room divided," Ellison said, as the erstwhile rivals stood together on stage as some young Ellison supporters jeered from the gallery.
Trump chimed in via Twitter: "Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!"
Republicans control the White House |
. Captain, My Captain
The Concordia first sailed into the Tyrrhenian Sea, from a Genoese shipyard, in 2005; at the time it was Italy’s largest cruise ship. When it was christened, the champagne bottle had failed to break, an ominous portent to superstitious mariners. Still, the ship proved a success for its Italian owner, Costa Cruises, a unit of the Miami-based Carnival Corporation. The ship sailed only in the Mediterranean, typically taking a circular route from Civitavecchia to Savona, Marseilles, Barcelona, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily. In command on the bridge that night was 51-year-old Captain Francesco Schettino, today a figure of international contempt. Dashing and deeply tanned, with lustrous black hair, Schettino had joined Costa as a safety officer in 2002, been promoted to captain in 2006, and since September had been on his second tour aboard the Concordia. Among the officers, he was respected, though the retired captain who had mentored him later told prosecutors he was a bit too “exuberant” for his own good. Despite being married, Schettino had a lady friend at his side that evening, a comely 25-year-old off-duty hostess named Domnica Cemortan, from Moldova. Though she would later become an object of intense fascination in the press, Cemortan’s role in events that night was inconsequential. Before leaving port, Captain Schettino set a course for Savona, on the Italian Riviera, 250 miles to the northwest. As the ship steamed into the Tyrrhenian, Schettino headed to dinner with Cemortan, telling an officer to alert him when the Concordia closed within five miles of the island of Giglio, 45 miles northwest. Later, a passenger would claim he saw Schettino and his friend polish off a decanter of red wine while eating, but the story was never confirmed. Around nine Schettino rose and, with Cemortan in tow, returned to the bridge. Ahead lay mountainous Giglio, a collection of sleepy villages and vacation homes clustered around a tiny stone harbor, nine miles off the coast of Tuscany. The *Concordia’*s normal course took it through the middle of the channel between Giglio and the mainland, but as Schettino arrived, it was already veering toward the island. The ship’s chief maître d’, Antonello Tievoli, was a native of Giglio and had asked the captain to perform a “salute,” essentially a slow drive-by, a common cruise-industry practice intended to show off the ship and impress local residents. Schettino had consented, in part because his mentor, Mario Palombo, lived there, too. Palombo had performed several salutes to Giglio, Schettino at least one. As the ship made its approach, Tievoli, standing on the bridge, placed a telephone call to Palombo. The retired captain, it turned out, wasn’t on Giglio; he was at a second home, on the mainland. After some chitchat, Tievoli handed the telephone to the captain, which, Palombo told prosecutors, caught him off guard. He and Schettino hadn’t talked in at least seven years; Schettino hadn’t bothered to call when Palombo retired. “The call surprised me,” Palombo said. “I was even more surprised when Schettino asked me about the depth of the seabed in front of Giglio Island, the harbor area, specifying that he wanted to pass at a distance of 0.4 nautical miles [around 800 yards]. I answered that in that area the seabeds are good, but considering the winter season”—when few people were on the island—“there was no reason to go at close range, so I invited him to make a quick greeting and to honk the horn and remain far from shore. I want to clarify that I said, verbatim, ‘Say hi and stay away.’ ” Just then the phone went dead. It may have been the very moment Schettino saw the rock.
Not until the ship had closed within two miles of the island, Schettino’s officers told prosecutors, did the captain take personal control of the ship. As Schettino recalled it, he stood at a radar station, in front of the broad outer windows, affording him a clear view of Giglio’s lights. An Indonesian crewman, Rusli Bin Jacob, remained at the helm, taking orders from the captain. The maneuver Schettino planned was simple, one he had overseen many, many times, just an easy turn to starboard, to the right, that would take the Concordia parallel to the coastline, dazzling the island’s residents with the length of the fully lit ship as it slid past. In doing so, however, Schettino made five crucial mistakes, the last two fatal. For one thing, the Concordia was going too fast, 15 knots, a high speed for maneuvering so close to shore. And while he had consulted radar and maps, Schettino seems to have been navigating largely by his own eyesight—“a major mistake,” in one analyst’s words. His third error was the bane of every American motorist: Schettino was talking on the phone while driving. Schettino’s fourth mistake, however, appears to have been an amazingly stupid bit of confusion. He began his turn by calculating the distance from a set of rocks that lay about 900 yards off the harbor. What he failed to notice was another rock, nearer the ship. Giving orders to Bin Jacob, Schettino eased the Concordia into the turn without event. Then, coming onto a new, northerly course just over a half-mile from the harbor, he saw the rock below, to his left. It was enormous, just at the surface, crowned with frothing white water; he was so close to Giglio he could see it by the town’s lights. He couldn’t believe it. “Hard to starboard!” Schettino yelled. It was an instinctive order, intended to steer the ship away from the rock. For a fleeting moment Schettino thought it had worked. The *Concordia’*s bow cleared the rock. Its midsection cleared as well. But by turning the ship to starboard the stern swung toward the island, striking the submerged part of the rock. “The problem was that I went to starboard trying to avoid it, and that was the mistake, because I should not have gone starboard,” Schettino told prosecutors. “I made an imprudent decision. Nothing would have happened if I had not set the helm to starboard.” “Hard to port!” Schettino commanded, correcting his mistake. A moment later, he shouted, “Hard to starboard!” And then the lights went out.
It was 9:42. Many of the passengers were at dinner, hundreds of them in the vast Milano Restaurant alone. A Schenectady, New York, couple, Brian Aho and Joan Fleser, along with their 18-year-old daughter, Alana, had just been served eggplant-and-feta appetizers when Aho felt the ship shudder. “Joan and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, ‘That’s not normal,’ ” recalls Aho. “Then there was a bang bang bang bang. Then there was just a great big groaning sound.” “I immediately felt the ship list severely to port,” Fleser says. “Dishes went flying. Waiters went flying all over. Glasses were flying. Exactly like the scene in Titanic.” “I took the first bite of my eggplant and feta,” Aho says, “and I literally had to chase the plate across the table.” “Suddenly there was a loud bang,” recalls Patrizia Perilli. “It was clear there had been a crash. Immediately after that there was a very long and powerful vibration—it seemed like an earthquake.” A Bologna hairdresser, Donatella Landini, was sitting nearby, marveling at the coastline, when she felt the jolt. “The sensation was like a wave,” she recalls. “Then there was this really loud sound like a ta-ta-ta as the rocks penetrated the ship.” Gianmaria Michelino, a hairdresser from Naples, says, “The tables, plates, and glasses began to fall and people began to run. Many people fell. Women who had been running in high heels fell.” All around, diners surged toward the restaurant’s main entrance. Aho and Fleser took their daughter and headed for a side exit, where the only crew member they saw, a sequined dancer, was gesticulating madly and shouting in Italian. “Just as we were leaving, the lights went out,” Fleser says, “and people started screaming, really panicking. The lights were out only for a few moments; then the emergency lights came on. We knew the lifeboats were on Deck 4. We didn’t even go back to our room. We just went for the boats.” “We stayed at our table,” recalls Perilli. “The restaurant emptied and there was a surreal silence in the room. Everyone was gone.” Somewhere on the ship, an Italian woman named Concetta Robi took out her cell phone and dialed her daughter in the central Italian town of Prato, near Florence. She described scenes of chaos, ceiling panels falling, waiters stumbling, passengers scrambling to put on life jackets. The daughter telephoned the police, the carabinieri. As passengers tried in vain to understand what was happening, Captain Schettino stood on the bridge, stunned. An officer nearby later told investigators he heard the captain say, “Fuck. I didn’t see it!” In those first confusing minutes, Schettino spoke several times with engineers belowdecks and sent at least one officer to assess the damage. Moments after the Concordia struck the rock, the chief engineer, Giuseppe Pilon, had hustled toward his control room. An officer emerged from the engine room itself shouting, “There’s water! There’s water!” “I told him to check that all the watertight doors were closed as they should be,” Pilon told prosecutors. “Just as I finished speaking we had a total blackout I opened the door to the engine room and the water had already risen to the main switchboard I informed Captain Schettino of the situation. I told him that the engine room, the main switchboard, and the stern section were flooded. I told him we had lost control of the ship.” There was a 230-foot-long horizontal gash below the waterline. Seawater was exploding into the engine room and was fast cascading through areas holding all the ship’s engines and generators. The lower decks are divided into giant compartments; if four flood, the ship will sink. At 9:57, 15 minutes after the ship struck the rock, Schettino phoned Costa Cruises’ operations center. The executive he spoke to, Roberto Ferrarini, later told reporters, “Schettino told me there was one compartment flooded, the compartment with electrical propulsion motors, and with that kind of situation the ship’s buoyancy was not compromised. His voice was quite clear and calm.” Between 10:06 and 10:26, the two men spoke three more times. At one point, Schettino admitted that a second compartment had flooded. That was, to put it mildly, an understatement. In fact, five compartments were flooding; the situation was hopeless. (Later, Schettino would deny that he had attempted to mislead either his superiors or anyone else.) They were sinking. How much time they had, no one knew. Schettino had few options. The engines were dead. Computer screens had gone black. The ship was drifting and losing speed. Its momentum had carried it north along the island’s coastline, past the harbor, then past a rocky peninsula called Point Gabbianara. By 10 P.M., 20 minutes after striking the rock, the ship was heading away from the island, into open water. If something wasn’t done immediately, it would sink there. What happened next won’t be fully understood until the *Concordia’*s black-box recorders are analyzed. But from what little Schettino and Costa officials have said, it appears that Schettino realized he had to ground the ship; evacuating a beached ship would be far safer than evacuating at sea. The nearest land, however, was already behind the ship, at Point Gabbianara. Somehow Schettino had to turn the powerless Concordia completely around and ram it into the rocks lining the peninsula. How this happened is not clear. From the ship’s course, some analysts initially speculated that Schettino used an emergency generator to gain control of the ship’s bow thrusters—tiny jets of water used in docking—which allowed him to make the turn. Others maintain that he did nothing, that the turnabout was a moment of incredible luck. They argue that the prevailing wind and current—both pushing the Concordia back toward the island—did most of the work. “The bow thrusters wouldn’t have been usable, but from what we know, it seems like he could still steer,” says John Konrad, a veteran American captain and nautical analyst. “It looks like he was able to steer into the hairpin turn, and wind and current did the rest.” However it was done, the Concordia completed a hairpin turn to starboard, turning the ship completely around. At that point, it began drifting straight toward the rocks.
I larione Dell’Anna, the dapper admiral in charge of Coast Guard rescue operations in Livorno, meets me on a freezing evening outside a columned seaside mansion in the coastal city of La Spezia. Inside, waiters in white waistcoats are busy laying out long tables lined with antipasti and flutes of champagne for a naval officers’ reception. Dell’Anna, wearing a blue dress uniform with a star on each lapel, takes a seat on a corner sofa. “I’ll tell you how it all started: It was a dark and stormy night,” he begins, then smiles. “No, seriously, it was a quiet night. I was in Rome. We got a call from a town outside Florence. The party, a carabinieri officer, had a call from a woman whose mother was on a ship, we don’t know where, who was putting on life jackets. Very unusual, needless to say, for us to get such a call from land. Ordinarily a ship calls us. In this case, we had to find the ship. We were the ones who triggered the entire operation.” That first call, like hundreds of others in the coming hours, arrived at the Coast Guard’s rescue-coordination center, a cluster of red-brick buildings on the harbor in Livorno, about 90 miles north of Giglio. Three officers were on duty that night inside its small operations room, a 12-by-25-foot white box lined with computer screens. “At 2206, I received the call,” remembers one of the night’s unsung heroes, an energetic 37-year-old petty officer named Alessandro Tosi. The carabinieri “thought it was a ship going from Savona to Barcelona. I called Savona. They said no, no ship had left from there. I asked the carabinieri for more information. They called the passenger’s daughter, and she said it was the Costa Concordia.” SOS
Six minutes after that first call, at 10:12, Tosi located the Concordia on a radar screen just off Giglio. “So then we called the ship by radio, to ask if there was a problem,” Tosi recalls. An officer on the bridge answered. “He said it was just an electrical blackout,” Tosi continues. “I said, ‘But I’ve heard plates are falling off the dinner tables—why would that be? Why have passengers been ordered to put on life jackets?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s just a blackout.’ He said they would resolve it shortly.” The Concordia crewman speaking with the Coast Guard was the ship’s navigation officer, a 26-year-old Italian named Simone Canessa. “The Captain ordered … Canessa to say that there was a blackout on board,” third mate Silvia Coronica later told prosecutors. “When asked if we needed assistance, he said, ‘At the moment, no.’ ” The first mate, Ciro Ambrosio, who was also on the bridge, confirmed to investigators that Schettino was fully aware that a blackout was the least of their problems. “The captain ordered us to say that everything was under control and that we were checking the damage, even though he knew that the ship was taking on water.” Tosi put the radio down, suspicious. This wouldn’t be the first captain who downplayed his plight in hopes of avoiding public humiliation. Tosi telephoned his two superiors, both of whom arrived within a half-hour. At 10:16, the captain of a Guardia di Finanza cutter—the equivalent of U.S. Customs—radioed Tosi to say he was off Giglio and offered to investigate. Tosi gave the go-ahead. “I got back to the [Concordia] and said, ‘Please keep us abreast of what is going on,’ ” says Tosi. “After about 10 minutes, they didn’t update us. Nothing. So we called them again, asking, ‘Can you please update us?’ At that point, they said they had water coming in. We asked what sort of help they needed, and how many people on board had been injured. They said there were no injured. They requested only one tugboat.” Tosi shakes his head. “One tugboat.” Schettino’s apparent refusal to promptly admit the *Concordia’*s plight—to lie about it, according to the Coast Guard—not only was a violation of Italian maritime law but cost precious time, delaying the arrival of rescue workers by as much as 45 minutes. At 10:28 the Coast Guard center ordered every available ship in the area to head for the island of Giglio. With the Concordia beginning to list, most of the 3,200 passengers had no clue what to do. A briefing on how to evacuate the ship wasn’t to take place until late the next day. Many, like the Aho family, streamed toward the lifeboats, which lined both sides of Deck 4, and opened lockers carrying orange life jackets. Already, some were panicking. “The life jacket I had, a woman was trying to rip it out of my arms. It actually ripped the thing—you could hear it,” Joan Fleser says. “We stayed right there by one of the lifeboats, No. 19. The whole time we were standing there I only saw one crew member walk by. I asked what was happening. He said he didn’t know. We heard two announcements, both the same, that it was an electrical problem with a generator, technicians were working on it, and everything was under control.” Internet videos later showed crewmen exhorting passengers to return to their staterooms, which, while jarring in light of subsequent events, made sense at the time: There had been no order to abandon ship. When Addie King, a New Jersey graduate student, emerged from her room wearing a life jacket, a maintenance worker actually told her to put it away. Like most, she ignored the advice and headed to the starboard side of Deck 4, where hundreds of passengers were already lining the rails, waiting and worrying. The Massachusetts newlyweds, Benji Smith and Emily Lau, were among them. “Some people are already crying and screaming,” Smith recalls. “But most people were still pretty well collected. You could see some laughing.” For the moment, the crowd remained calm.
The island of Giglio, for centuries a haven for vacationing Romans, has a long history of unexpected visitors. Once, they were buccaneers: in the 16th century, the legendary pirate Barbarossa carted off every person on the island to slavery. Today, Giglio’s harbor, ringed by a semicircular stone esplanade lined with cafés and snack shops, is home to a few dozen fishing boats and sailboats. In summer, when the tourists come, the population soars to 15,000. In winter barely 700 remain. That night, on the far side of the island, a 49-year-old hotel manager, Mario Pellegrini, was pointing a remote control at his television, trying in vain to find something to watch. A handsome man with a mop of curly brown hair and sprays of wrinkles at his eyes, Pellegrini was exhausted. The day before, he and a pal had gone fishing, and when the motor on their boat died, they ended up spending the night at sea. “The sea is not for me,” he sighed to his friend afterward. “You can sell that damn boat.” The phone rang. It was a policeman at the port. A big ship, he said, was in trouble, just outside the harbor. Pellegrini, the island’s deputy mayor, had no idea how serious the matter was, but the policeman sounded worried. He hopped in his car and began driving across the mountain toward the port, dialing others on Giglio’s island council as he went. He reached a tobacco-shop owner, Giovanni Rossi, who was at his home above the harbor watching his favorite movie, Ben-Hur. “There’s a ship in trouble out there,” Pellegrini told him. “You should get down there.” “What do you mean, there’s a ship out there?” Rossi said, stepping to his window. Parting the curtains, he gasped. Then he threw on a coat and raced down the hill toward the port. A few moments later, Pellegrini rounded the mountainside. Far below, just a few hundred yards off Point Gabbianara, was the largest ship he had ever seen, every light ablaze, drifting straight toward the rocks alongside the peninsula. “Oh my God,” Pellegrini breathed.
After completing its desperate hairpin turn away from the open sea, the Concordia struck ground a second time that night between 10:40 and 10:50, running onto the rocky underwater escarpment beside Point Gabbianara, facing the mouth of Giglio’s little harbor, a quarter-mile away. Its landing, such as it was, was fairly smooth; few passengers even remember a jolt. Later, Schettino would claim that this maneuver saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives. In fact, according to John Konrad’s analysis, it was here that Schettino made the error that actually led to many of the deaths that night. The ship was already listing to starboard, toward the peninsula. In an attempt to prevent it from falling further—it eventually and famously flopped onto its right side—Schettino dropped the ship’s massive anchors. But photos taken later by divers show clearly that they were lying flat, with their flukes pointed upward; they never dug into the seabed, rendering them useless. What happened? Konrad says it was a jaw-droppingly stupid mistake. “You can see they let out too much chain,” he says. “I don’t know the precise depths, but if it was 90 meters, they let out 120 meters of chain. So the anchors never caught. The ship then went in sideways, almost tripping over itself, which is why it listed. If he had dropped the anchors properly, the ship wouldn’t have listed so badly.” What could explain so fundamental a blunder? Video of the chaos on the bridge that night later surfaced, and while it sheds little light on Schettino’s technical decisions, it says worlds about his state of mind. “From the video, you can tell he was stunned,” says Konrad. “The captain really froze. It doesn’t seem his brain was processing.” Schettino did make efforts, however, to ensure that the ship was firmly grounded. As he told prosecutors, he left the bridge and went to Deck 9, near the top of the ship, to survey its position. He worried it was still afloat and thus still sinking; he asked for that tugboat, he said, with the thought it might push the ship onto solid ground. Eventually satisfied it already was, he finally gave the order to abandon ship at 10:58. Lifeboats lined the railings on both sides of Deck 4. Because the Concordia was listing to starboard, it eventually became all but impossible to lower boats from the port side, the side facing open water; they would just bump against lower decks. As a result, the vast majority of those who evacuated the ship by lifeboat departed from the starboard side. Each boat was designed to hold 150 passengers. By the time Schettino called to abandon ship, roughly 2,000 people had been standing on Deck 4 for an hour or more, waiting. The moment crewmen began opening the lifeboat gates, chaos broke out. “It was every man, woman, and child for themselves,” says Brian Aho, who crowded onto Lifeboat 19 with his wife, Joan Fleser, and their daughter. “We had an officer in our lifeboat,” Fleser says. “That was the only thing that kept people from totally rioting. I ended up being first, then Brian and then Alana.” “There was a man who was trying to elbow Alana out of the way,” Aho recalls, “and she pointed at me, yelling in Italian, ‘Mio papà! Mio papà!’ I saw her feet on the deck above me and I pulled her in by the ankles.” “The thing I remember most is people’s screams. The cries of the women and children,” recalls Gianmaria Michelino, the hairdresser. “Children who couldn’t find their parents, women who wanted to find their husbands. Children were there on their own.” Claudio Masia, a 49-year-old Italian, waiting with his wife, their two children, and his elderly parents, lost patience. “I am not ashamed to say that I pushed people and used my fists to secure a place” for his wife and children, he later told an Italian newspaper. Returning for his parents, Masia had to carry his mother, who was in her 80s, into a boat. When he returned for his father, Giovanni, an 85-year-old Sardinian, he had vanished. Masia ran up and down the deck, searching for him, but Giovanni Masia was never seen again.
‘Someone at our muster station called out, ‘Women and children first,’ ” recalls Benji Smith. “That really increased the panic level. The families who were sticking together, they’re being pulled apart. The women don’t want to go without their husbands, the husbands don’t want to lose their wives.” After being momentarily separated from his wife, Smith pushed his way onto a lifeboat, which dangled about 60 feet above the water. Immediately, however, the crew had problems lowering it. “This is the first part where I thought my life was in danger,” Smith goes on. “The lifeboats have to be pushed out and lowered down. We weren’t being lowered down slowly and evenly from both directions. The stern side would fall suddenly by three feet, then the bow by two feet; port and starboard would tilt sharply to one side or the other. It was very jerky, very scary. The crew members were shouting at each other. They couldn’t figure out what they were doing.” Eventually, to Smith’s dismay, the crewmen simply gave up, cranked the lifeboat back up to the deck, and herded all the passengers back onto the ship. Others, blocked or delayed in getting into lifeboats, threw themselves into the water and swam toward the rocks at Point Gabbianara, 100 yards way. One of these was a 72-year-old Argentinean judge named María Inés Lona de Avalos. Repeatedly turned away from crowded lifeboats, she sat on the deck amid the chaos. “I could feel the ship creaking, and we were already leaning halfway over,” she later told a Buenos Aires newspaper. A Spaniard beside her yelled, “There’s no other option! Let’s go!” And then he jumped. A moment later Judge Lona, a fine swimmer in her youth, followed. “I jumped feetfirst I couldn’t see much. I began swimming, but every 50 feet I would stop and look back. I could hear the ship creaking and was scared that it would fall on top of me if it capsized completely. I swam for a few minutes and reached the island.” She sat on a wet rock and exhaled. A French couple, Francis and Nicole Servel, jumped as well, after Francis, who was 71, gave Nicole his life jacket because she couldn’t swim. As she struggled toward the rocks, she yelled, “Francis!,” and he replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Francis Servel was never seen again. The first lifeboats limped into the harbor a few minutes after 11.
By the time Giglio’s deputy mayor, Mario Pellegrini, reached the harbor, townspeople had begun to collect on its stone esplanade. “We’re all looking at the ship, trying to figure out what happened,” he recalls. “We thought it must be an engine breakdown of some kind. Then we saw the lifeboats dropping down, and the first ones began to arrive in the port.” Local schools and the church were opened, and the first survivors were hustled inside and given blankets. Every free space began to fill. “I looked at the mayor and said, ‘We’re such a small port—we should open the hotels,’ ” Pellegrini says. “Then I said, ‘Maybe it’s better for me to go on board to see what’s going on.’ I didn’t have a minute to think. I just jumped on a lifeboat, and before I knew it I was out on the water.” Reaching the ship, Pellegrini grabbed a rope ladder dangling from a lower deck. “As soon as I got on board, I started looking for someone in charge. There were just crew members, standing and talking on Deck 4, with the lifeboats. They had no idea what was going on. I said, ‘I’m looking for the captain, or someone in charge. I’m the deputy mayor! Where’s the captain?’ Everyone goes, ‘I don’t know. There’s no one in charge.’ I was running around like that for 20 minutes. I ran through all the decks. I eventually emerged on top, where the swimming pool is. Finally I found the guy in charge of hospitality. He didn’t have any idea what was going on, either. At that point the ship wasn’t really tilting all that badly. It was easy to load people into the lifeboats. So I went down and started to help out there.” For the next half-hour or so, lifeboats shuttled people into the harbor. When a few returned to the starboard side, scores of passengers marooned on the port side sprinted through darkened passageways to cross the ship and reach them. Amanda Warrick, an 18-year-old Boston-area student, lost her footing on the slanting, slippery deck and fell down a small stairwell, where she found herself in knee-deep water. “The water was actually rising,” she says. “That was pretty scary.” Somehow, carrying a laptop computer and a bulky camera, she managed to scramble 50 feet across the deck and jump into a waiting boat. While there was plenty of chaos aboard the Concordia that night, what few have noted is that, despite confused crew members and balky lifeboats, despite hundreds of passengers on the edge of panic, this first stage of the evacuation proceeded in a more-or-less orderly fashion. Between 11, when the first lifeboats dropped to the water, and about 12:15—a window of an hour and 15 minutes—roughly two-thirds of the people on board the ship, somewhere between 2,500 and 3,300 in all, made it to safety. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. Rescue at Sea
Ahelicopter arrived from the mainland at 11:45. It carried a doctor, a paramedic, and two rescue swimmers from the Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s fire-and-rescue service. A van whisked them from Giglio’s airfield to the port, where the swimmers, Stefano Turchi, 49, and 37-year-old Paolo Scipioni, pushed through the crowds, boarded a police launch, and changed into orange wet suits. Before them, the Concordia, now listing at a 45-degree angle, was lit by spotlights from a dozen small boats bobbing at its side. The launch headed for the port bow, where people had been jumping into the water. As it approached, a Filipino crewman on a high deck suddenly leapt from the ship, falling nearly 30 feet into the sea. “Stefano and I swam about 30 meters to rescue him,” Scipioni says. “He was in shock, very tired, and freezing cold. We took him ashore and then went back to the ship.” It was the first of six trips the two divers would make in the next two hours. On the second trip they pulled in a 60-year-old Frenchwoman floating in her life jacket near the bow. “Are you O.K.?” Turchi asked in French. “I’m fine,” she said. Then she said, “I’m not fine.” Next they pulled in a second Frenchwoman in an advanced state of hypothermia. “She was shaking uncontrollably,” Scipioni recalls. “She was conscious, but her face was violet and her hands were violet and her fingers were white. Her circulatory system was shutting down. She kept saying, ‘My husband, Jean-Pierre! My husband!’ We took her ashore and went back.” On their fourth trip they lifted an unconscious man into the police launch; this was probably the woman’s husband, Jean-Pierre Micheaud, the night’s first confirmed death. He had died of hypothermia.
By 12:15 almost everyone on the *Concordia’*s starboard side had fled the ship. Among the last to go were Captain Schettino and a group of officers. After leaving the bridge, Schettino had gone to his cabin to grab some of his things, before rushing, he said, to help with the lifeboats. Minutes later, the Concordia began to roll slowly to starboard, falling almost onto its side. For a moment there was complete chaos as many of those still on the starboard side, including the second and third mates, were forced to dive into the water and swim for the rocks. It was at that point, Schettino famously claimed, that he lost his footing and fell onto the roof of a lifeboat. The captain later said his lifeboat plucked three or four people from the water. Moments before the ship rolled, Giglio’s deputy mayor, Mario Pellegrini, scurried through a passageway, crossing the ship in an effort to help those still on the port side. “When we finished putting them on the boats, there was hardly anyone left on the right side of the boat,” Pellegrini recalls. “That’s when the ship started to tilt more. So I ran through a corridor, to the other side of the ship, and over there there were lots of people, hundreds, more than 500 probably.” When the ship began to roll, “I couldn’t understand what was going on, the movement was so violent,” says Pellegrini. “Suddenly it was difficult to stand. It was very disorienting. If you took a step forward, you fell. You couldn’t tell which way was up or down. You couldn’t walk. All the people were forced against the walls. That’s when the panic hit, and the electricity went out as well. Lights winking out all over. And when the ship stopped moving, we were in the dark, just the moon, the light of the full moon. And everyone was screaming.” The ship’s chief doctor, a rotund Roman named Sandro Cinquini, was already on the port side. “The ship actually fell gently,” Cinquini recalls. “That was the worst time. People were trapped in the middle [of the ship] as it turned and the water began to rise.” When the Concordia came to rest once more, its landscape was hopelessly skewed. With the ship lying almost on its right side, walls now became floors; hallways became vertical shafts. Pellegrini was on Deck 4, in a covered corridor with about 150 passengers; beyond was an open deck, where another 500 or so were struggling to regain their footing. When he was able to stand, Pellegrini glanced into the corridor behind—now below—him, and to his horror, he could see seawater surging toward him, as it was all across the starboard side of the ship, inundating the lowest decks and gushing into the restaurants on Deck 4. This was almost certainly the single deadliest moment of the night, when at least 15 people probably drowned. “That’s when I started getting afraid, for myself,” Pellegrini says. “And there were people still down there. You could hear them screaming.” The screams seemed to be emanating from behind a single hatchway. Pellegrini, working with Dr. Cinquini and another crewman, threw his weight into lifting this door, which was now on the floor. When it came free, he looked down a near-vertical hallway 30 feet long. “There were people down there—it was like they were in a well filling up with water,” Pellegrini says. A crewman grabbed a rope and, swiftly making knots in it, dropped it down to those trapped below. “Four or five of us all began pulling people up from below. They came up one at a time. The first one who came out, a woman, she was so surprised, she came up feetfirst. I had to reach down and pull her out. We took out nine people in all. The first one had been in water up to her waist, the last one was in to his neck. The worst was an American guy, really fat, like 250 pounds, tall and obese; he was hard to get out. The last one was a waiter—his eyes were terrified. The water was freezing. The water was so cold, he couldn’t have survived much longer.” “He told us there were others behind him,” says Dr. Cinquini, “but he could no longer see them.”
The ship’s roll trapped scores of passengers. Earlier, |
site. The first anthrax letters were postmarked Sept. 18, 2001, in Trenton.
The patent was awarded to Berry in March.
"In an era where chemical, biological or nuclear attacks at one or more locations either globally or within a country are possible, it is desirable to have a surveillance system capable of locating and identifying the type of attack so that a rapid response can be initiated," the description of the invention's background read.
Berry's system uses a computer to combine weather data with information on how various concentrations of biological or chemical agents would affect a specific location, according to the patent office filing.
Berry's organization is called PREEMPT Medical Counter-Terrorism Inc.; PREEMPT stands for Planned Response Exercises and Emergency Medical Preparedness Training. In a 1997 USA Today interview, he advocated the broad distribution of anthrax vaccine.
"We ought to be planning to make anthrax vaccine widely available to the population starting in the major cities," he said. The remarks were made soon after the Pentagon announced it would begin inoculating all 2.4 million military personnel against anthrax.
Berry pleaded guilty in 1999 to disorderly conduct to settle charges of forgery. State police said Berry's signature was on a fake will of the late Dr. Andrew Colletta, according to The Wellsville Daily Reporter. While initially charged with two counts of second-degree forgery, the plea to a lesser violation allowed him to keep his medical license.
"From what I know, he's a fine, conscientious physician who always had the interest of his patients at heart," said Joseph Pelych, the lawyer who represented Berry in that case. "I find it hard to believe he would be involved" in anthrax.
Anthrax is caused by bacteria that can be passed from livestock to humans. The disease can affect the skin, the lungs or the digestive system. When treated appropriately, less than one percent of people with the cutaneous, or skin form, of anthrax die. But more than half of those who contract inhalation or gastrointestinal anthrax perish.It seems foolish to write off Greece after the miracle of 2004, but both on paper and on the pitch, this seems a fairly weak side – albeit on that is well-organised and has a good understanding between players.
Otto Rehhagel is still in charge, and having played a variety of systems throughout qualification, appears to prefer a fairly defensive 4-3-3 shape that has generally been his favoured formation throughout his nine years in charge.
That’s not to say that he will keep the same shape throughout – indeed, it would be more of a surprise if he didn’t vary his tactics and alter personnel. As Euro 2004 showed, Rehhagel is a tactician in every sense of the word – changing his system at will to stifle his opponents, and to exploit their individual weaknesses.
There does appear to be a pattern to Rahhagel’s switches in formation – he always likes to have a spare centre-back. Go through the qualification matches for this tournament, and he switched between a few different shapes, most often a 3-4-3 and a 4-3-3. The three-man defence is used when the opposition play two forwards, the four-man defence is used when the opposition play three. Their formation will therefore probably depend on how Greece’s opponents are expected to line up.
Three up top
Rehhagel himself is intent on playing three forwards, in order to occupy the opposition full-backs. His trident will probably be Theofanis Gekas, Georgios Samaras and Dimitris Salpigidis, with Angelos Charistaes, the hero of Euro 2004, likely to be used as a plan B.
They form a slightly lopsided front three – Gekas, prolific in the qualifiers but against very weak teams, plays a central role based largely around movement. The two either side of him are very different players – Samaras is a tall, physical but skilful player who drops deep to the left for Greece and receives the ball to feet. On the right-hand side will be Salpigidis, a more traditional winger who takes his starting position outside the full-back.
Midfield
As in Euro 2004, the midfield roles are slightly difficult to understand. The wonderful, underrated Giorgos Karagounis has the clearest job – he is the creator. Not particularly mobile and a slightly rash tackler, he tends to float around to the right-hand side of the midfield, finding space wherever he can – with his excellent range of passing, it’s not really an issue if he doesn’t pick up the ball in central positions.
Karagounis’ two midfield colleagues, both essentially defensive midfielders, seem to base their game around mutual understanding rather than specific positional instructions, although Alexandros Tziolis is a more energetic player than Konstantinos Katsouranis, and therefore links up with the forwards slightly more.
Strong at the back
For a team so apparently negative and defensive, the 2004 side had remarkably attacking full-backs. That is again the case, with Loukas Vyntra the more positive of the two, getting forward to combine with his Panathinaikos teammates Karagounis and Salpigidis on the right. Another club teammate, Nikos Spiropoulos, is also capable of providing attacking width from left-back – these two push forward when Greece revert to 3-4-3 to become wing-backs. Sotirios Kyrgiakos of Liverpool and Vaggelis Moras of Bologna are the first-choice centre-backs.
Of course, this all assumes it’ll be the 4-3-3 – it might well be the 3-4-3 instead, in which case Tziolis would be the favourite to be dropped from the centre of midfield, with the brilliantly-named Sokratis Papastathopoulos likely to come in. Watch for the shift in order to keep a spare man.
Conclusion
Relatively unimpressive in their poor qualification group, Greece will nevertheless be a tricky opponent because of the tactical nous of their manager and the flexibility of their players.
The biggest problem will be scoring goals. Gekas was the top scorer in the entire UEFA qualification for this tournament, but nine of his ten goals came against Moldova, Latvia and Luxembourg, with another against Israel. That said, he was the Bundesliga top goalscorer in 2006/07, and will need to show that form here, because Samaras’ record of 5 goals in 33 caps and Salpigidis’ 3 in 33 are far from impressive.
Their best chance of scoring may well be, like in Euro 2004, from set-pieces. Moras is 6′5, Kyrgiakos is 6′4, and four other outfield players are over 6′ – add that to Karagounis’ excellent set-piece delivery and there is a clear threat. They won’t be as good as in 2004, but then they can’t be as bad as in 2008; the best thing to be said for Greece is that they are in a fairly weak group, and therefore could make the knockout stages.
Related articles on Zonal Marking:Space, in the “Star Trek” universe, may be an alluring and infinite frontier, but time is a much rarer and more vexing commodity.
On this planet, swaths of time pass between installments of the “Star Trek” film franchise, and 12 years have elapsed since the last “Star Trek” television series ended. These projects have covered vast stretches of continuity — whole centuries of future history and countless days in characters’ lives — while their one- and two-hour time limits imposed tight storytelling constraints.
These are among the challenges that will be taken on by a new series, “Star Trek: Discovery,” whose first episode will be shown Sunday, Sept. 24, on CBS. Further episodes will be released on the network’s streaming service, CBS All Access.
Set a decade before the adventures of Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew of the original “Star Trek,” the new series embraces the narrative traditions of the serialized TV age. Its central story line plays out over a 15-episode season, and its characters can be morally ambiguous and untrustworthy to viewers as well as to one another.Ron Howard could’ve coasted for the rest of his life on his beloved work as an actor on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, not to mention films like The Shootist and American Graffiti. But by the time he was in his teens, he’d already sensed that his true destiny was behind the camera rather than in front of it. Dozens of films and a few Oscars later, Howard is now finally turning back to television—as the director on the first episode of Genius, the National Geographic Channel’s event series about the life of Albert Einstein that premieres Tuesday. It’s the first time Howard has directed a TV movie since 1981’s The Time Crystal, a.k.a. Through the Magic Pyramid. (Check it out, kids!)
Howard spoke with Vanity Fair about his fascination with Einstein and his return to the small screen, as well as The Dark Tower, the next season of Arrested Development, his possible return to This Is Us, and how a mediocre sitcom led him to a life as a director.
Vanity Fair: You’ve said that you’ve been fascinated with Albert Einstein since you were a kid.
Ron Howard: I’ve always been fascinated by the possibility of an Einstein movie, but I never felt that there was the narrative shape there to support a movie. It was always frustrating. It was always hurried or rushed, or it was too narrow a scope. So I’d never gotten involved with any of [those projects]. But I read this one with a lot of curiosity.
It turns out that this had been developed for, gosh, probably six or seven years—based on Walter Isaacson’s book [Einstein: His Life and Universe]—as a feature, and they had shaped it instead into a 10-hour series proposal with a screenplay by Noah Pink for the first hour. And I was really taken by it. I realized how little I actually knew about Einstein, how much drama there was in his life, how many twists and turns there were, how much pressure there was on him.
I’d been looking for an opportunity to direct something for TV for our company at Imagine; like everyone else, I see how wonderful and ambitious the work is on television these days, and I’ve been wanting to be a part of it. And this was a rare opportunity and—interestingly—one where the network itself actually informs the project. For National Geographic to deal with the subject of Albert Einstein, it creates kind of an understanding as to what its ambitions are going to be and what the demands are on the creative team.
Having seen the first two episodes, I can testify that it’s very visually appealing.
So is National Geographic! [Laughs.] If you look at the magazine, it’s immersive, it’s entertaining, it’s obviously informative, and it’s incredibly visual. So the production team and the creative team and the cinematographer and I, we all looked at each other, and we said, “Hey, this is National Geographic! This may be a television budget, but we’ve got to live up to that standard!”
You directed the first episode of Genius. After doing so, did you find yourself wishing that your schedule had been open enough for you to direct more?
Uh, yes. [Laughs.] It was a fantastic cast, the scripts are strong. Ken Biller, who came in on the series as the showrunner, put together a terrific writers’ room in addition to Noah Pink, and they did their own research.
On the production side of Imagine, how is The Dark Tower coming along?
It’s coming along really well. They’ve moved up the release date. The acting’s great; Idris Elba is cool and makes a great Gunslinger; Matthew McConaughey is really fascinating and powerful as the Man in Black; and I think Nikolaj Arcel, who directed, has done a great job.
People no doubt ask you all the time what you learned from working on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days‑but what did you learn from doing The Smith Family with Henry Fonda, a show that lasted for 39 episodes on ABC, from January 1971 to June 1972?
Henry Fonda knew my father, Rance, because my father had toured in Mister Roberts with him. And Fonda... that was a money job. [Laughs.] He was tightly scheduled, and he was a consummate professional, but he wasn’t very chatty. But with me, he was willing to talk because, well, he just liked Rance! And that opened up a fantastic relationship and kind of an early mentorship. He was the one who saw my Super 8 movies and read a couple of short stories and a little script I wrote and said, “You know, if you love movies, you should become a director. Because it’s a director’s medium. And I can see that you can do it.” And he gave me film- theory books. He said, “If you truly love acting, you need to go to the theater, because that’s the medium for the playwright and the actor. But if you love movies, then you s, that meant so much.
The Smith Family was also a real lesson in what mediocrity looked like. It was not a good show. I’d been on The Andy Griffith Show, and as easy-going as it looked to viewers, there was a tremendous work ethic behind that show, led by Andy. There was also a clear-cut vision defined by the writers and defined by Andy that was adhered to. The difference was noticeable to me then: The Smith Family was being manufactured, The Andy Griffith Show was being lovingly handmade every week. That was an important object lesson to me. I don’t believe in manufacturing.
You turned up as yourself on the season finale of NBC’s This Is Us. Are you going to be in a position to pop up in Season 2?
You know, I don’t know. When [series creator] Dan Fogelman asked me to do this—I’ve known him for quite awhile, and I love the show—he said nothing about what’s going to happen with this movie project. So I haven’t heard.
Actually, it was funny when I was doing that, because I actually took the director aside and said to her, “You know, I play myself sometimes on The Simpsons or Arrested Development or in a Funny or Die sketch. And I know I’m still playing myself, but this needs to actually be kind of real. This needs to look like it’s an actual conversation. So please keep an eye on me.” [Laughs.] So we did a couple of takes.
Are appearances like that enough to keep at bay any acting bug you may still have?
Well, I don’t count playing myself in a “Funny or Die” sketch as acting. [Laughs.] But it’s fun! One of these days, though, I’d love to do a little acting again. It’s just that I’m so involved in what’s going on at Imagine Entertainment, and there’s so much going on. Now we’ve even entered the world of documentaries in a more consistent way. I had a fantastic experience working on the Beatles documentary [The Beatles: Eight Days A Week], and I hope to do more of that as well.
In closing, I’m obliged to ask if you’ve heard any update on Arrested Development.
I have! And I can’t tell you about it! [Laughs.] I don’t want to be coy, but, well, I’m absolutely being coy! And I’m knocking on wood at the same time. It’s just the challenge of getting everybody’s schedule together, because they’ve all become superstars. That doesn’t mean the deals are difficult—everybody just wants to do it—but schedules are tough. But Mitch Hurwitz has a great take on a season, and fingers crossed that we get to do it.
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood. E-mail Address SubscribeThe short answer: Get back to work and try not to worry about it too much. Swearing also helps, but it’s not critical.
Let me start the longer answer with some background information. Last summer we found out that a company in a large country we serve had blatantly copied our ideas about pipeline management software, our UX, design and large parts of our front-end code.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as the old saying goes. But the opportunists had also copied our design pixel-for-pixel. Here’s an example of their little “spot the difference” game:
Besides design, they were also using our code. The Easter egg we had planted (have you found it yet?) was fully functional. They hadn’t even bothered removing the Pipedrive logo that appears in some views. And all of this was done by people who initially approached us to become a partner, then snatched up our local domain and fell silent. We felt like we had been burgled.
Lawyer advises: send a “cease and desist” letter, and elevate to lawsuit if necessary
We explained the situation to our lawyer whose advice was:
“Generally what happens in this situation is that either the company or its counsel sends a “cease and desist” letter to the other company telling them to stop copying look and feel. Sometimes, these get elevated to lawsuits. (I’m thinking about Zynga – Vostu ).
“Sometimes ends up being a bad public relations problem in the blogs. (I’m thinking about Curebit – 37Signals.)
“You can’t really stop someone from copying – I think your response is to send a letter, and elevate to lawsuit if necessary.”
We got the copycat to retreat somewhat; more importantly, no real damage was done.
We didn’t want to invest too much time into this, so we used a rather pragmatic approach to sending a “cease and desist” message. We got in touch via one of our investors, who is well-connected in the country in question. He wrote a public Facebook post, pointing out the visual similarities and lines in their code served as evidence of theft. The case got a few mentions in local blogs (which increased our signups).
Although the accused denied any copying, they removed those lines of code and stopped our local domain from redirecting to their service. They also removed The Team section from their site.
Looking back, signups from that country have not slowed down, and the only tangible loss is our relevant domain.
What you can do to protect yourself against copycats:
Get domains and protect your trademark in key markets as early as possible. As a startup you can’t protect yourself against everything because time and money is tight. But make sure you’re covered in key markets.
Plant watermarks in your software or encrypt it, or both so if there’s a need to pursue legal action, you can prove theft.
If possible, look into patenting key components of your software – this offers more protection than copyright. More on that here.
Last but not least – have a clear vision about how you want to change the world and don’t be dependent on any single feature. If your vision is any good, there will be copycats. But if your vision is bigger than a feature (think cutting-edge tech, API, partners, support, etc.), copycats won’t be your biggest worry.
P.S. If you’d like to see the sales software that inspired this copycat, you’re welcome to check out Pipedrive (it’s free for 30 days).Three White House staffers have had their personal Gmail accounts breached in what appears to be a malicious operation directed at the team responsible for the Obama administration's social media outreach, according to individuals familiar with the incident.
The penetrated accounts have been sending other White House digital media employees bogus emails containing fraudulent links that can extract their personal email logins and Twitter credentials. More than a dozen current and former staffers were targeted, the individuals said. The scheme was ongoing as of Sunday night.
The goal of the intruders might be to glean sensitive government information, some cyber researchers said. White House personnel are prohibited by law from using personal Webmail accounts for business communications, but not all employees comply with the rules. The Twitter scam could be aimed at spreading misinformation through seemingly-official channels to citizens.
The “phishing” links -- labeled to look like legitimate BBC or CNN articles -- direct users to an authentic-looking Gmail or Twitter login screen to access the news content. At this point, the users have unwittingly been rerouted to fake login forms that enable hackers to capture their sign-on information.
White House social media employees might be relatively easy game within the administration, since their role is to make the executive branch more open to the public. "I imagine that the names and email addresses of people at the White House in digital media or anything related to media are easy to find since their job involves public access. A list of targets would be created from open sources and that's who the phishing email would be delivered to," said Jeffrey Carr, a cybersecurity analyst with consultancy Taia Global.
The objective for harvesting Gmail account information might be to capture administration-related email messages and contacts, he speculated.
The Presidential Records Act bars work communication outside of official email accounts. However, a 2012 House committee report showed that former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina used his personal email account to conduct official business involving a deal between the pharmaceutical industry and the Senate Finance Committee. And in 2010, the Washington Post reported that administration officials reprimanded then White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin, a former Google official, after document requests revealed technology policy-related emails from Google employees in his personal Gmail account.
The purpose of assembling Twitter sign-on information might be to disseminate disruptive messages, Carr postulated. This spring, a hacked Associated Press Twitter account informed the public that explosions at the White House had harmed the president. The Dow tumbled in response.
Sources familiar with the Gmail hack say the ploy is unique in the White House. In the past, one or two staffers who used two-step authentication to protect their Gmail accounts would receive text messages, indicating someone had entered the correct password to trigger the text authentication code.
(Image via kropic1/Shutterstock.com)Photo
Cities are our paradises of anonymity, a place for both self-erasure and self-reinvention. But soon, cities may fall first in the disappearance, or at least a radical remaking, of privacy.
Information about our innocuous public acts is denser in urban areas, and can now be cheaply aggregated. Cameras and sensors, increasingly common in the urban landscape, pick up all sorts of behaviors. These are stored and categorized to draw personal conclusions — all of it, thanks to cheap electronics and cloud computing, for affordable sums.
“People in cities have anonymity from their neighbor, but not from an entity collecting data about them,” said Deirdre Mulligan, a professor at the iSchool at the University of California, Berkeley. “These are far more prevalent in cities.”
On Friday, a company called LocoMobi announced it had acquired Nautical Technologies, the license plate recognition technology of a Canadian company called Apps Network Appliances. This gear sits at the entrance of a parking lot, identifying the license plates of incoming cars. That data goes to the cloud computing infrastructure of Amazon Web Services. When a car pulls out of the lot, the camera takes another picture, computers calculate how long a car was parked, and a charge is applied.
The company’s co-founder foresees tying the system to a car’s navigation system, enabling drivers to find and reserve nearby parking spots without wasteful driving. A license plate is certainly public information, and this all seems like a boon for drivers.
Eventually, however, something else happens, too.
“We can have so much fun with this,” the co-founder of LocoMobi, Barney Pell, who is also its chairman, said. “Imagine knowing that people who park here also park there – you’ve found the nearby stores, their affinities. You could advertise to them, offer personalized services, provide ‘passive loyalty’ points that welcome them back to an area.”
At that point public data has become personal information. It’s a little like the way a company called Euclid Analytics uses the pings when a smartphone looks for a Wi-Fi antenna (something that phones do as a matter of course) to track people moving through a crowded mall.
Euclid says it does not collect personally identifying information, though it could figure out a lot by examining those movements. In London, a software engineer inferred a significant amount of personal information by looking at public data about bicycle rentals.
The more recording devices we put in the world, the more once-evanescent things take on lasting life. Our speech is increasingly recorded and given new meaning when it is analyzed. This week, it emerged that Google has filed a patent to take its Google Glass recording technology (already responsible for a few urban scuffles) onto contact lenses.
Many of the technologists involved in data aggregation see a benefit to civil society. “So many of our urban problems have to do with people breaking rules and cheating systems, then disappearing,” Mr. Pell said. He noted behaviors like parking in handicapped spaces with illegitimate tags, or running red lights. “If compliance is information rich, our lives won’t have this death of 1,000 little cuts.”
“What happens when every secret, from who really did the work in the office, to sex, to who said what, is that we get a more truthful society,” said David Friedberg, founder and chief executive of Climate Corporation, a big data analysis company that Monsanto bought last year. “Technology is the empowerment of more truth, and fewer things taken on faith.” Public awareness of now hidden behaviors, he said, “is a conversation that will happen.”
That sense of where tech will take us is its own faith, Ms. Mulligan of Berkeley said. “There is an idea here that data is truth, and that’s not always true,” she said. “You may know who is running a red light, but you don’t know if there is a sick kid in the back seat, and they are racing to the hospital.”
More important, she said, that deferral to data comes at the expense of people making real choices about how to behave. “If you want people to act morally, you don’t tell them what they can and can’t do. We all need to think about the effect on others, what should be done,” she said.
Certainly, all these hacks on traditional privacy will not just be urban questions. With the coming of low-cost satellite systems, all of the Earth will be held to a mirror, in near real time, at an increasing granularity of visual, infrared and other kinds of data. And while companies may collect our public information, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, along with regulators in other countries, is increasingly interested in how this data is used.
On the other side, it isn’t clear how much we care about our privacy; also this week, Google updated its terms of service, purposely highlighting the fact that it automatically scans our content, including emails. So far this has not resulted in a drastic drop in how much people use Google.
What we have at this moment is an exceptional awareness of where we are going: It is a little bit as if, circa 1880, we’d been able to say “soon we’ll banish night, because our cities will have electric light.” The only real loss would not be thinking through the implications.Clinton meets with Black Lives Matter protesters
KEENE, N.H. — Hillary Clinton met with five Black Lives Matter activists behind closed doors following her campaign event here Tuesday evening after the group tried to disrupt the forum but arrived too late to get past security.
The group — affiliated with Black Lives Matter organizations in the Boston area — asked Clinton about “her and her family’s history with the war on drugs both at home and abroad, and how she felt about her involvement in that violence that has been perpetuated, especially against communities of color and against black folks,” member Daunasia Yancey said afterward. “We wanted to know her reflections on her involvement as first lady, as senator, and as secretary of state.”
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Clinton’s response, which members declined to detail, was not a reflection on “her part in perpetuating white supremacist violence,” Yancey said. “I heard a reflection on failed policy.”
“She did acknowledge that there have been policies that she has been part of promoting that have not worked,” Yancey added, without detailing which policies specifically she meant.
While the group was initially not let into the event — a community forum on substance abuse at Keene Middle School — the campaign let them into an overflow room, where they watched on live stream.
Reporters were not allowed into the group’s meeting with Clinton, but the activists said they had recorded the exchange and plan to publish it.
“What we got was a Hillary Clinton who was willing to delve into the issues given her platform constraints, but she was not willing to take responsibility for or give much voice to the anti-blackness current,” said Julius Jones of Worcester, Massachusetts. “She validated some of the points that we offered, but she didn’t offer many of her own. She was intentional about meeting us. She got something out of the meeting, that much is certain. What I feel like I got out of the meeting was to press her in a very real way and probably in a way that she hasn’t been pressed in a long time.”
The Black Lives Matter movement so far has primarily targeted Bernie Sanders, who has been drawing huge crowds as a surging candidate and has seen two of his events disrupted, including one last Saturday. But the grass-roots activists have said they plan to take on all the Democratic candidates, in an effort to have them more aggressively address institutional racism in housing, education and criminal justice.
The activists said Clinton understood their problems but that her answers were similar to what they’ve heard from other candidates.
“It rings similar in that it is a political response, right? They’re politicians, and that it’s a conversation about, again, policy and about drafting new legislation and those things, without, I think, the deep underlying conversation around how those policies were drafted in a way that supports white supremacist violence,” Yancey said, before clarifying later that she felt good about having had the exchange.
Tuesday was not the first time Clinton has been the focus of criticism.
While she’s made a point of saying “black lives matter” in recent months, she came under fire for saying “all lives matter” while telling a story about her mother’s rough upbringing at an event outside of Ferguson, Missouri in June. The comment sparked a social media backlash at the time.
The group had initially told The New Republic that they had planned to interrupt Clinton’s event and ask her about her drug platform, and campaign staffers inside the room were aware of those intentions due to the magazine’s publication.
Because the former secretary of state and first lady has Secret Service protection, her events are typically sealed once she enters the building — and the group of activists apparently did not make it to the event by that time. They were standing under a tent outside the school doors as the event began, but eventually made it into the building to watch in the side room.
Follow @politicoCalifornia's nonpartisan legislative analyst said Wednesday he's forecasting a $2.8 billion budget surplus next year and says California should be able to weather a mild recession without major budget cuts or tax increases over the next four years.
Legislative analyst Mac Taylor's annual budget outlook sets the stage for negotiations that begin in January when Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown releases his proposed spending plan.
Taylor's office said the forecast is subject to significant uncertainty, particularly in future years, but it is the best estimate based on available economic indicators.
The projected surplus signals a likely showdown between Brown, who prefers cautious spending growth to prepare for a recession, and Democratic legislators eager to expand state services for people in need.
Brown's administration urged caution in the face of sluggish state revenue in the summer and fall. October tax collections were $381 million, or 4.7 percent, below projections. Revenue is $1 billion below projections since the administration's most recent forecast in May.
"With what we know now, the outlook for the upcoming budget is concerning and will need to account for this declining revenue and the significant uncertainties that the analyst has identified today — including stock market performance, the potential for recession, and changes in federal policy," Michael Cohen, Brown's director of finance, said in a statement.
The legislative analyst said his projection accounts for ballot measures approved by voters, including the extension of a temporary tax increase on the wealthy. It does not reflect changes in federal spending that may come from President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.
If all spending commitments remain unchanged, Taylor projects that California would finish the next budget year in June 2018 with $11.5 billion in total reserves. Most of it would go to required deposits in the state's rainy-day fund, but about $2.8 billion would be available for the Legislature to spend or save as it chooses.
In future years, Taylor projected two scenarios. Assuming economic growth continues apace, he says California would likely have a budget surplus in each of the next four fiscal years. If there's a mild recession beginning in the middle of 2018, he estimates that the state's reserves would be sufficient to cover almost all deficits.Michael Duthie claimed £13,000 for two years after scooping a £250,000 lotto prize.
A man who won £250,000 on the National Lottery has been warned he could face jail after claiming £13,000 in benefits after his win.
Michael Duthie admitted receiving the payments between March 2010 and June 24 2012 after winning the prize earlier in 2010.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that benefits bosses received an anonymous tip off that jobless Duthie had not declared his jackpot to the Department of Work and Pensions or Dundee City Council.
Fiscal depute Donna Davidson said: "Inquiries were carried out and bank statements were obtained which showed that on March 1 2010 £250,000 had been deposited into the account by Camelot."
But when he was interviewed by DWP investigators Duthie said there was "no money left" and that it had "all gone on the bookies".
Duthie, 56, of Douglas Road, Dundee, pleaded guilty on summary complaint to charges that between March 1 2010 and March 26 2012 he failed to notify the Department of Work and Pensions that he had won £250,000 and therefore obtained £7,173.79 of Jobseekers Allowance he was not entitled to. He further admitted that between March 8 2010 and June 24 2012 he failed to declare the win to Dundee City Council and obtained £1391.82 of council tax benefit and £4825.52 of housing benefit.
Ian Reid, defending, said some money had been invested in bonds and all but £5000 of the benefits cash had been paid back.
He said: "There was a certain amount of difficulty in persuading Mr Duthie that what he did was wrong. His position is that it was a private matter and that had nothing to do with anyone else.
"He does now accept what he did was wrong. He is awaiting an appeal from the Benefits Agency regarding not receiving any benefits now."
Sheriff Elizabeth Munro deferred sentence until February for background reports.
She said: "You have a very odd attitude to public funds as far as I'm concerned. This is very serious and when you are talking about sums like this the sentencing guidelines suggest a custodial sentence is a definite possibility."NAGPUR: Superintendent of police, Government Railway Police (GRP), Nagpur, Anant Rokde will seek help from Railway Protection Force (RPF) and city police to rein in the unruly autorickshaw drives at Nagpur railway station.The autorickshaw drivers plying from the railway station have been targeting private cabs dropping or picking up clients. With Nagpur growing fast, outstation visitors have increased who prefer to use cabs-on-call services. While such services are gaining popularity, aggression by rickshaw drivers too has increased.Reacting to the menace, Rokde said the problem would be tackled phasewise as there was no immediate solution. Rokde said a meeting would be arranged for the agecies to come together and formulate a policy to ensure there were no untoward incidents involving the rickshaws. "We also need to accommodate rickshaw drivers' and owners' unions into the talks so pressure is built up from their side too," he said.Canadian carriers have been pleased with how the Lumia Windows Phones have been selling, according to a report by MobileSyrup. While carriers aren't known to reveal negative sales publicly often, TELUS and Rogers have both stated that they are happy with their Lumia handsets, and that customers share this satisfaction. Reade Barber, Senior Director Data Product Management at Rogers, had the following to say:
"Rogers is proud to have the widest selection of choice for our customers. The Lumia 710 is proving to be a customer favourite and has been a great addition to our Smartphone Lite lineup. We're also very excited to be the exclusive carrier of the Lumia 900, Canada’s first Windows Phone LTE smartphone."
Rogers packs the inexpensive, but highly rated Lumia 710. MobileSyrup spoke with a number of sale staff from Rogers and the majority were pleased with how the Windows Phone sold in-store. The carrier has the device priced at $29.99 on a 3-year contract, or $255 SIM-free. Brent Johnston, VP of Mobility Solutions at TELUS, mentioned the Lumia 800 (currently on sale for $25) has met the company's expectations:
"We are very pleased with the sales performance thus far, with Lumia sales meeting our expectations."Time for will probably be my last “interview review.” It’s taken me two months to collect myself and share this wonderful experience here (seriously, this was so bad it was beyond shocking)…
The job was for a presentation designer. I’ve seen this job repeatedly appear in the job boards numerous times over the past few years. That alone should have been a red flag (why the high turnover?). But I still applied, and was scheduled to come in for an interview.
Where to begin…first, let’s take a look at the reviews on Glassdoor. I try to take these with a grain of salt, as GD runs a scam similar to the BBB where companies can pay a special “fee” to have their reputations cleaned — I experienced this firsthand when I left a negative review of my former employer and that comment was automatically deleted. But it looks like this company isn’t paying for the premiere package (these are just from page one alone)…
First off they fake reviews everytime a new bad one is written. This is an unprofessional work place which leads to high paranoia in the office place. You will be blamed for making a mistake or losing accounts. Management does not actually know the work that’s being produced or anything about it especially time frames…Turnover here is between 50%-75% a year.
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.comBleeding Cool is lucky enough to have some kind friends around the world, and one of our chums in Sweden has regularly helped us find stories from their media that will be of interest to you guys.
In this latest case, it’s word on a couple of actresses who, according to Aftonbladet, have filmed screen tests for the upcoming Bond 24. This ties in entirely to the comments on a Scandinavian character that I related earlier in the Chiwetel Ejiofor story. It’s worth pointing out that it’s not new news either, with the report cited above coming in March and the same organ also reporting on the same actresses and same role back in February.
The two actresses named are Ida Engvoll And Disa Östrand. Here they are, in that order.
I will admit that, if I have ever seen either of them act, I can’t quite remember it now. Engvoll, Aftonbladet also tells us, has just won a role in Swedish film White Trash against Ola Rapace.
I dare say some non-Swedes also tested, or at least auditioned, but don’t be surprised to see one of the above take the stage when Eon hold their traditional start of production press conference later this year.
Thanks once again to Jonas for the pointer.
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None foundNo, the phones in Aliso Viejo City Hall are not ringing off the hooks, unanswered. And no, the people in Laguna Beach are not being waited on hand and foot.
At least, not by city staffers.
An Orange County Register analysis of city workers per city resident shows that these two little burgs, which exist cheek by jowl in South County, are at polar ends of the municipal staffing spectrum.
Aliso Viejo is the most circumspect, with just one employee for every 2,498 residents, while Laguna Beach is the most sumptuous, with one worker for every 92.5 residents. Everyone else falls somewhere in between.
This wild divergence illustrates the difference between old and new, between “full-service” grande dames (with their own police, fire, marine-safety, library, recreation, etc.) and newfangled “contract” cities (which hire third parties to do such work and thus have dramatically fewer staffers on the books).
One might turn the equation around and conclude that this also means that city services cost the most per resident in Laguna Beach and the least in Aliso Viejo, which is pretty much the case, give or take myriad mitigating factors.
We’ll note here that older cities hate per capita comparisons like this.
“Not just apples to oranges, but apples to oranges to grapes to watermelon to kiwi,” said Brea spokeswoman Cindie Ryan.
Also, new cities stress that it’s not always “you get what you pay for.”
But first – to get all philosophical on you – this does bring up larger issues of governing.
“Do people care whether their trash is collected by someone who works for the city or a private company? Or, as Mao said, ‘It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.’ Should they?” mused Fred Smoller, professor of political science and devoted local-government watcher at Chapman University.
“What happens to a community when citizens are seen and see themselves as customers, and cities are solely service providers? Would you feel comfortable being pulled over by a cop that works for a private firm? There’s good and bad about contracting,” Smoller said.
The whole concept of contracting out city services was born in unincorporated Lakewood in 1954, as it fought off a “hostile takeover” from neighboring Long Beach. Lakewood incorporated, then contracted out most services to Los Angeles County, which had been providing them before the ruckus.
The “Lakewood Plan,” as it has come to be known, has been embraced by most new cities that sprang up in its wake. The financial advantages of such an approach are most pronounced when looking at cities’ long-term liabilities:
Grande dame Anaheim faces a gap of $560 million between what city staffers have earned to date for future retirement benefits and what the city has stashed away. Aliso Viejo’s liability is just $597,851 – almost a thousandth of that amount.
‘NO DIFFERENCE’
Folks will tell you that both systems get the job done.
“If you’re a resident of this city or a customer at the front counter, you don’t notice any difference,” said Aliso Viejo City Manager David Doyle. “Things work extremely well in Aliso Viejo.”
Aliso Viejo has a newfangled partner furnishing parks and recreation services, thus relieving the city of that duty: the Aliso Viejo Community Association, a master homeowners association.
The city’s maintenance, building and safety duties are outsourced, as well as police and fire services (to the O.C. Sheriff’s Department and the O.C. Fire Authority).
“One of the benefits of using contractors is that, when you need additional staff – like we do right now, with a lot of building projects coming on line – we’re able to bring them in to handle the growth spurt,” Doyle said.
Contract cities must still pay folks to provide those services, of course. But not having those workers on the city payroll translates into savings, particularly in the benefits arena.
John Pietig, Laguna Beach’s city manager, cautioned that this exercise shouldn’t be used to draw conclusions. Millions of people swarm his city in the summer, and that requires a host of municipal services that other cities don’t have to provide.
“In addition to police and fire services, the City of Laguna Beach provides lifeguarding, sewage, transit, dispatching, jail, building inspection, and animal control services,” Pietig said by email.
The story is much the same for Newport Beach. Residents should understand that they’re not the only ones shouldering the costs of city services, said Newport City Manager Dave Kiff – visitors pump money into city coffers from parking meters, hotels, restaurants and retail sales taxes.
And the cities must be prepared to handle the tourist onslaughts. “I can’t staff up or down my police department to just serve the nighttime population,” Kiff said.
CRYSTAL BALL
Chapman’s Smoller suggests Aliso Viejo represents the future: Traditional city council-city manager systems morphing into public versions of homeowners associations, where all services are privatized.
“Electeds in full-service cities can’t pull this off – though I am sure they’d love to – because their public employee unions would be so in their face,” Smoller said.
Some might recall chaos in Costa Mesa after a new council majority issued pink slips to hundreds of city staffers in 2011, in an effort to outsource services and cut costs.
Labor sued. A recent settlement allows Costa Mesa to privatize some services in 2017, but blocks other outsourcing efforts for four years. The whole endeavor has cost the city some $2 million.
“The next stop is Sandy Hills, Georgia,” Smoller said. “The council hired a management company – CH2M-Hill – to run nearly everything. Cash-strapped cities find this very appealing.”
Contact the writer: tsforza@ocregister.comA long time request from diehard fans has finally seen fruition, as adidas has now released the UltraBOOST onto its bespoke mi adidas customization service.
The coveted shoe, which coincides with adidas‘s latest flagship location in New York City, receives a selection of options when it comes to upper colorway, cage, heel, laces and outsole, while users can also find variety in the side stripes and 3M tongue for extra detailing. The site’s layout stays consistent with the other mi adidas offerings, and provides customizers with a pleasant layout, easy to understand interface, zoom capabilities and help.
To commemorate the New York City Flagship opening, HYPEBEAST was granted a sneak peek and a preview at the mi UltraBOOST. Color options available at the time were limited to a bright Ice Green, a Light Grey, and a Dark Grey upper choice, all of which were reflective. Since the silhouette utilizes the UltraBOOST 2.0 model with the gradient toe, true customization for this area was unfortunately not yet available. The cage, heel and laces were also offered in the three primary upper palettes, while the stripes were given a reflective white and black option as well. Outsoles were offered in White, Grey and Black for clean complements to the un-optioned BOOST midsole, and mi adidas also granted an extra pair of laces with five color options that differ slightly from the reflective primaries. Note the only bit of color that was not modifiable was the torsion bar underneath the sole, locked in as Ice Green. Lastly, as a celebration for the new NYC location, an exclusive New York City sockliner design, with the new brick-and-mortar’s coordinates, was included with every order as standard.
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Staying true to the roots of adidas and its timelessness, HYPEBEAST created the monochromatic rendition seen above. It’s primarily black upper is contrasted only by its white midsole and outsole, and the classic white-on-black three stripes across its medial and lateral caging give the shoe a Gazelle-like makeover. A bit of gold along the heel’s “ultra boost” branding gives the shoe just the right amount of flair while subtly keeping things clean and coordinated.
Look for the UltraBOOST to hit the new adidas NYC Flagship Store on December 1 starting at 11 a.m. EST for $265 USD. Stay tuned for our pair to arrive soon for a closer look at its quality and rendering accuracy.
adidas NYC Flagship
565 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10017The Fathom One app is your one stop shop to adventure in the deep. Using the app you can stream live footage right to your screen while you control the Fathom One from the surface. The controls work just like flying a plane in a video game. Think of your left thumb as the throttle, and your right thumb as your direction. Push your left and right thumb forward to dive!
On screen feedback will help you become a better pilot. Your compass heading and depth are shown along the top of the dive screen while your current pitch angle is subtly shown on screen to help you understand if you're going up or down. We've also included some helpful features like automatic descent and ascent buttons that will move the Fathom One vertically in the water.By now, it should be clear that machine-learning is turning into big business for the biggest corporations. We learned back in September that Apple is on a hiring spree to bring in some good talent, and Amazon even leases out the fruits of its efforts for researchers to take advantage of. Even more recently, we learned that Google loves and trusts its TensorFlow machine-learning library so much, it's willing to share it with the world by making it open source.
Machine-learning can be used for a multitude of things, both serious and not-so-serious. Microsoft has shown us in the past some good examples of the not-so-serious side, including an age-detection platform it showed off back in May which makes use of its Azure cloud platform. Now, the company has gone a slightly different route and is attempting to guess emotions.
Detecting emotions isn't new, but it stands to reason that as time goes on, it'll become far more accurate. Way back in 2007, a company called OMRON released technology that could pretty accurately guess the intensity of someone's smile. Microsoft's solution takes things a step further, by rating someone's face based on eight different metrics. It's worth noting that just this past summer, a company called Affectiva showed off very similar software; the results are a bit different, but both involve machine-learning and the same end goal.
Nonetheless, in the example seen above, Microsoft's algorithm detected that without a benefit of a doubt, this little girl is completely happy. Variations can occur in some readings, though, such as with the man at the absolute right of the photo. His happiness is 0.99797, while minuscule amounts of other emotions were detected (you'll have to click the source link below to see the readings for each individual in the picture). Humans immediately know that this man is completely happy, but machines go on by only what they know.
Since Microsoft doesn't want to depress us, none of the supplied examples show anything but happy people. However, this is a live demo, so you're able to import your own images if you want to, and let the detection engine do its thing. In quick tests with the help of Google's image search, we found the detection to be very accurate. The only metric we couldn't get to be detected was "contempt"; all others emotions were easily identified.OREGON CITY, Ore. - A couple who prayed and rubbed olive oil on their sick infant rather than seek medical care for the dying boy was convicted Thursday of manslaughter, becoming the latest members of an Oregon faith-healing church to be blamed in their child's death.
Dale and Shannon Hickman, both 26, are members of the Followers of Christ Church, which has a history of rejecting medical care for congregants' children and relying instead on techniques such as prayer and anointing the sick with oils.
Five other church members have been convicted in Clackamas County for crimes related to the rejection of medical care for their children, said Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney.
The Hickmans' conviction on second-degree manslaughter charges typically requires a mandatory minimum sentence of six years in prison. But because of a religious exemption in state law at time of the crime, the couple likely will face no more than 18 months in prison and a $250,000 fine, The Oregonian reported.
Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Robert Herndon allowed the couple to remain free until they are sentenced Oct. 31.
Prosecutors claimed Shannon Hickman never sought prenatal care when she was pregnant with David, who was born two months early at his grandmother's home and died less than nine hours later when he had trouble breathing. He was born with a bacterial infection and underdeveloped lungs.
Medical experts for the prosecution testified that the baby had a 99 percent chance of survival if his parents had sought medical care. But prosecutors claimed the couple never considered taking the baby to the hospital.
Defense attorney Mark Cogan said his clients were the victims of religious persecution. He argued that the baby died quickly and said there was no evidence that medical care would have saved him.
Dale Hickman testified that he didn't call 911 once he realized his infant son was ailing "because I was praying." Shannon Hickman said that as a woman in the church, she must defer to her husband.
"That's not my decision anyway," she testified. "I think it's God's will whatever happens."
In response to deaths among Followers of Christ members, state lawmakers this year removed the religious defenses from criminal laws. Those exemptions had made it tougher to convict parents who shun a child's medical care for religious reasons than those who shun it for other reasons like neglect.
The change would allow prosecutors to seek stiffer manslaughter or murder charges in faith-healing cases.
Two other parents from the Followers of Christ church were convicted earlier this year for failing to seek medical care for their infant daughter, who had a growth that could have left her blind in one eye. They were sentenced to 90 days in jail.Presented by the Hamilton Film Festival in partnership with National Canadian Film Day!
"Lucky 7" is set in Hamilton where the Mob families that run the Province are jockeying for power in a changing landscape. Patrick Farley (Lucky 7) had left town years ago to keep a secret safe for the family, and no one could know anything about it. That's the way the Mob wanted it as part of the deal to keep Lucky's fathers name intact and the family still in control of The Emerald Isle Club.
Nine years later and thought to be dead, Lucky 7 has the money to set things right with mob boss Lucano, but when an old acquaintance, The Reverend, arranges a meeting for Lucky 7 to pay back his debt, things don't go quite according to plan.
His mob debt isn't the only one Lucky 7 has to pay when he gets back to town. The other debt is to his family for leaving them without a word. The family runs The Emerald Isle Club, the old pub Lucky's dad started in the 50's, and that's the first place Lucky heads to upon his return. His brothers Brian and Alan are quick to accept him back but an old love named Sharon isn't quite so ready. Neither is Frankie, Lucky's younger brother who has committed himself to a life of crime.
Below the Emerald Isle Club is a storefront church where Lucky 7 falls for Julia, a beautiful organist who plays there and a few other places in town. Julia doesn't care about his past and is only concerned about the here and now and she is willing to risk everything to help Lucky clear his name. The fire that burns within her helps light his way back home.
Can Lucky come to terms with choices he made in the past and build a better future?
DISTRIBUTED BY FACTORY FILM STUDIO
FILMED IN HAMILTON(CNN) A new round of United Nations sanctions against North Korea are an "act of war," Pyongyang said Sunday, adding that the US and other nations which supported the strict measures will pay a heavy price.
The UN Security Council unanimously adopted US-drafted sanctions against North Korea last week, following a November intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test experts said was Pyongyang's most advanced yet
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said the new sanctions will strangle North Korea's energy supplies and tighten restrictions on smuggling.
Around 100,000 North Koreans work overseas, according to the UN, many of them in "slave-like" conditions. Most of their wages are sent back home, raking in an estimated $500 million each year for Kim Jong Un's regime.
The new UN resolution also prohibits countries from smuggling North Korean coal and other prohibited commodities by sea and authorizes member states to inspect, seize and impound any vessels in their territorial waters found to be transporting prohibited items.
Earlier this month Washington asked the UN to ban 10 ships from entering ports across the world over alleged dealings with North Korea.
The latest round of sanctions come just three months after the UN passed a US-drafted resolution described by Haley at the time as "by far the strongest measures ever imposed on North Korea."
The previous measures, unanimously adopted in September, had been designed to accomplish six major goals: cap North Korea's oil imports, ban textile exports, end additional overseas laborer contracts, suppress smuggling efforts, stop joint ventures with other nations and sanction designated North Korean government entities, according to a US official familiar with negotiations.
JUST WATCHED North Korean soldier defects across the DMZ Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH North Korean soldier defects across the DMZ 00:54
'Complete economic blockade'
In a statement on its official KCNA news agency, North Korea's foreign ministry lashed out against the latest sanctions, saying the US is intimidated by the nation's nuclear power.
"The United States, completely terrified at our accomplishment... is getting more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country," the statement said.
North Korea warned that if the United States "wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy" toward North Korea.
"We define this'sanctions resolution' rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula," the statement said.
It described the new resolution as a "complete economic blockade" and threatened nations that helped pass it.
"Those countries that raised their hands in favor of this'sanctions resolution' shall be held completely responsible for all the consequences to be caused by the'resolution' and we will make sure for ever and ever that they pay heavy price for what they have done," the statement said.
It said the US should "wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons."
The US State Department said Sunday it had no comment on North Korea's latest rhetoric, citing its past condemnations of the regime. The White House and National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Photos released by North Korean state media show Wednesday's launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM.
November missile test
Last month, North Korea said it successfully tested a new type of ICBM, which it claimed was topped with a "super-large heavy warhead" and capable of striking the US mainland.
The Hwasong-15 missile reached the highest altitude ever recorded by a North Korean missile.
The country launched it despite repeated warnings from US President Donald Trump. Commenting on the missile test, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said it demonstrated North Korea had the ability to hit "everywhere in the world."
Photos of the weapon released by North Korean state media showed a large, tall missile that appeared to be significantly wider than the Hwasong-14, previously Pyongyang's most-advanced missile.
Experts said it seemed to be a significant advancement, adding North Korea's claims about the Hwasong-15's range and carrying capability should be taken seriously. Some even compared it to Titan II, the the largest and heaviest missile ever built by the US, during the Cold War.
Following the launch, a North Korean official told CNN Pyongyang was not interested in diplomacy with the US until it had fully demonstrated its nuclear capabilities.
Reiterating remarks made in the past, the official said one step in this process was to conduct an above-ground nuclear detonation or "large-scale hydrogen bomb" test. The other was the "testing of a long-range ICBM," the implication being this had been achieved with the most recent launch.
A government statement said the Hwasong-15 "is the most powerful ICBM which meets the goal of the completion of the rocket weaponry system development set by (North Korea)."GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead four Palestinians and wounded 150 others with live fire on Friday, medical officials said, as protests over U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital entered a second week.
Most of the casualties were on the Gaza Strip border, where thousands of Palestinians gathered to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers beyond the fortified fence. Medics said two protesters, one of them wheelchair-bound, were killed and 150 wounded.
In the occupied West Bank, another area where Palestinians are seeking statehood along with adjacent East Jerusalem, medics said two protesters were killed and 10 wounded by Israeli gunfire.
One of the dead was a man who Israeli police troopers said was shot after he stabbed a member of their unit. Reuters witnesses said the Palestinian held a knife and wore what looked like a bomb belt. A Palestinian medic who helped evacuate the man for treatment said the belt was fake.
Palestinians — and the wider Arab and Muslim world — were incensed at Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement, which reversed decades of U.S. policy reticence on Jerusalem, a city where both Israel and the Palestinians want sovereignty.
Washington’s European allies and Russia have also voiced worries about Trump’s decision.
Related Coverage Trump aide Greenblatt heads to Israel after Jerusalem announcement
Gaza’s dominant Hamas Islamists, which reject coexistence with Israel, called last week for a new Palestinian uprising, but any such mass-mobilisation has yet to be seen in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.
There have been almost nightly Gazan rocket launches into Israel, so far without casualties. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hamas facilities, one of which killed two gunmen.
The Israeli military said that, on Friday, about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated near the Gaza border fence.
“During the violent riots IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers fired selectively towards main instigators,” the military said in a statement.
A military spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the wheelchair-bound protestor, Ibrahim Abu Thuraya. Abu Thuraya, 29, was a regular at such demonstrations. In media interviews, he said he had lost both his legs in a 2008 Israeli missile strike in Gaza.
In the West Bank, the Israeli military said that about 2,500 Palestinians took part in riots, rolling flaming tires and throwing fire bombs and rocks at soldiers and border police.
Slideshow (19 Images)
Israel captured East Jerusalem, an area laden with Jewish, Muslim and Christian shrines, from Jordan in the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.
Palestinians hope that part of the city will be the capital of a future independent state and Palestinian leaders say Trump’s move is a serious blow to a moribund peace process.
Israel has welcomed Trump’s announcement as recognizing political reality and biblical Jewish roots in Jerusalem. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to visit Israel, as well as Egypt, next week.There are a few interesting things in software development that you’ll generally only learn about by working on “certain” types of applications. Take, for example, the HTTP 414 “Way Too F#%&ing Long” response: there’s no standardized upper limit and many web servers don’t even document how long GET requests may be.
While working with his company's service desk application, Ben noticed a similar type of error message come from SQL Server.
It was Error 191 — another error with no (seemingly) documented upper limit — and was triggered by the following query.
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't) that represents a problem. Because all these apps do is introduce us—and if we only wanted to sit awkwardly with strangers, we'd just ride around on public transport all day. The hard part of any new social situation is actually getting to know each other, and despite all our technology that's a process that's still stuck in the Stone Age: grunt, eat together, and see if you'll have sex.
And what's the designated fallback option for anyone looking to get that creaking wheel of intimacy rolling? The bar. Can't beat the bar. Classic social scene, the bar. Back when getting drunk was automatically better than anything else, because anything else was "work" or "being someone who wasn't comfortable in a small space with a load of drunks determined to have fun as fast as they can". Do they drink? Can they drink? Do they have work early tomorrow? Do they actually want to reduce their inhibitions and consume unguarded fluids with people they don't know yet?
Board games are the most effective non-pharmaceutical conversational accelerators ever invented.
Which is why board game cafés and bars are so much better than pubs and clubs without them. Board games are basically "how to get to know new people" in a box. They're an excuse to get together, with the bonus of having clear instructions for what to do next. Whether you're building a power grid, colonizing an alien world or betraying King Arthur and each other, what you're really doing is erecting a cardboard trellis along which conversation can grow. Pointless debates about gold coins and piss-takes about invading the Shire are perfectly pointless interactions that help genuine connections to grow. Board games are the most effective non-pharmaceutical conversational accelerators ever invented.
Sitting down to play a board game means that a clear line of interaction is established, with little need for awkward small talk. And this is way better than the usual implicit game of "conversational subject minefield", that chicken and egg situation where you want to find out what they like, so you have to first guess what they like, without admitting anything you like which might be seen as weird, sexual, or otherwise interesting. And everyone wonders why we so boringly talk about work and the weather upon meeting new people.
Building your own civilization is far more fun than discussing that jerk Gary in the office. ('Alien Frontier' photograph courtesy of the author.)
Board games are also the most accessible communal activity since breathing. Next to nobody is allergic to cardboard, certainly fewer people globally than alcohol. Nobody suffers religious restrictions against moving wooden counters. (At least, I don't think they do.) And if you want to partake of a boozy drink while moving your pieces around, in my experience that doesn't automatically put pressure on anyone else to join in with you—the same can't be said for pub-crawling your way to better relations.
These boxes are also personality tricorders: nerdy ways to find out what people are really like. Even asking someone to play with you tells you something important. Do they enjoy trying new things? Or do they ridicule them, based on preconceived notions of things they haven't tried? That's the best thing to find out first, before wasting any more time.
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The next stage is an effective intelligence test. Not IQ-counting MENSAbation, the anti-friendly intellijousting of someone actively trying to show how smart they are. Just a basic assessment to see if someone will cripple the night's play for half an hour if they ever need to make a decision. Do their blue eyes turn into blue screens when asked a question? Would it be faster to get a job in this café than waiting for them to accurately split the bill?
Finally, and most importantly: are they an utter arsehole? You need to know this. But you can't just ask. Arseholes lie! A friendly board game is litmus test for those human colons that get angry when they lose, berate others for making non-optimum choices, or otherwise prioritize an utterly pointless points-based victory over social interaction.
If anyone says, "I'm just really competitive," simply thank them for their time, and for saving yours.
Everyone should be made to play board games. Couples should have to play Space Alert before they're allowed to buy an engagement ring. You can just imagine the priest asking, "Any reason why they should not wed?" and the husband screaming, "WHY DIDN'T YOU FIRE THE LASER AT THAT ASTEROID, SHARON?"
And if anyone says, "I'm just really competitive," simply thank them for their time, and for saving yours.
Board games are also far better tuned than bars or apps for a target market of young single city dwellers. Unpaid overtime, long and grueling commutes and debt more crushing than being caught under a pile of stolen gold bars rule out any activities that are particularly expensive in terms of either money or time. But an hour around a table can be slotted into any gap a group finds. It's a Thing To Do, more motivating than asking (the easily trumped by tiredness) question of, "Do you wanna come around some time?"
And for that hour they can enjoy the most glorious fantasy. Not the fantasy of being a space pilot, frontier settler, or someone who's really into making roads connect around little wooden tokens. Fun as all those are. Board games bring the fantasy of a world that works. A world with clear objectives, where everyone starts with the same chance, plays by the same rules, and where making the right decisions really is enough to win. These days that's not just fun, it's an outright utopian heaven.
Follow Luke on Twitter.For Sam Mendes’ Spectre, the newest film in the 007 franchise, the effects requirements were, as with previous Bond films, diverse and complicated. Buildings had to be destroyed, helicopters crashed, cars raced around Rome, planes landed in the snow and a major location blown to smithereens. fxguide spoke to special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, visual effects supervisor Steve Begg and other members of the VFX team about how those massive effects were pulled off.
1. Mexican stand-off
The effect: After a lengthy continuous tracking shot following Bond (Daniel Craig) and a partner through Mexico City during a Day of the Dead festival parade, the secret agent attempts to take out assassin Marco Sciarra. Instead he causes an explosion that destroys the building that also topples down on top of him. Chasing Sciarra through the parade, Bond joins him on a waiting helicopter where a fist fight over Zócalo square occurs.
The opening one-shot sequence, and going into the helicopter fight, were some of the few shots previs’d for the film (by IO Entertainment). Begg used the previs to help the filmmakers work out how the passes - six in total - would marry up. “None of the elements were filmed motion control,” he says. “The end of the first pass had to be married up as best as we possibly can to the opening of the second pass. So I said to Sam and Hoyte van Hoytema, the DOP, whatever you commit to at the end of the first element you have to stick to that for the beginning of the second element, and then the second element has to match the same way. The previs helped a lot there. We’d previs the first segment coming to a halt and then we’d previs the second segment, and sometimes I’d get them to offset it slightly to show that if they do that and don’t follow through on the second segment these would be the problems you get.”
The Mexico plates were filmed in spherical rather than anamorphic to give ILM London, which worked on these opening sequences, more room top and bottom to do re-alignments. “For the one-shot, the joins were a combination of re-timing and re-projections,” explains ILM visual effects supervisor Mark Bakowski. “The first one comes on the door. We pause to look at a poster and they wonder up the stairs, up a lift. Then Bond goes into a hotel room and the hotel room is joining from Mexico City into Pinewood. We concentrated first on getting the performances to match because that’s what felt hardest to do. Everything was about getting Bond and his lady friend to feel like they flowed from one place to another. We were using people walking through as wipes to hide it. Then after that we massaged and warped and re-projected the geometric shapes so that they worked as well. When the doors open you’re looking from Mexico City through to Pinewood Studios and there’s a bluescreen window out to Mexico City again. So you’re seeing all three environments altogether."
“They enter the room and there’s a whip pan where they cut out a bit of time,” adds Bakowski. “In fact, a large part of the sequence was re-sped by about six per cent which was a joy of artifact painting to deal with. The next big join is exactly where you expect it to be, as the camera’s going out of the window and Bond steps out onto the window back into Mexico City and walks along the rooftops. On the left hand side of the screen we topped up the missing bit of geometry where the hotel room would have been, because the whole wall is missing. On the right hand side we did a lot of rig removal - he’s on a safety wire and there are cranes in the street. After that he did a little jump over a gap which was a re-projected generated gap - all one complete building in reality. Then we get to the end and there’s another plate. Although the building that eventually gets destroyed is there in Mexico City, it wasn’t tall enough so we extended it vertically and then the room where the villains are making their evil plans - for some reason it wasn’t suitable for shooting in Mexico City - so that was shot in Pinewood and inserted into the shot.”
In addition to the stitches, ILM performed extensive clean-up to parts of the Day of the Dead parade. “There were thousands of extras so you never really get the perfect shot because some guy is always looking at the camera or so,” notes Bakowski. “So beyond stitching everything together and adding crowds, there was a lot of work fixing faces and putting masks and sunglasses on people.”
Bond shoots at his target but ultimately causes the building to explode. The explosion was crafted at Pinewood Studios, although Corbould says the resulting knock-on effect of the falling building was the most complex aspect of the stunt. “The building itself was CG as it crumbled down towards Bond,” he says, “but where we took over is that we made a fascia front which we dropped from 30 foot above down a track which impact with the end of the building that Daniel was on. The roof Bond was on was divided into three sections; there was a breakaway section that was hit by this building piece. There was a second section which hydraulically dropped after the second impact and there was a third piece that hinged down hydraulically with Daniel and the stunt person running off it.”
ILM took that practical footage and incorporated its CG building, building extensions and CG debris, plus - as they did for other shots in the opening sequence - digital double and face replacement work for Daniel Craig. “For the big hero shot of Bond running towards camera and leaping and landing on sliding floor, we ended up just keeping the stuntman’s torso,” says Bakowski. “The rest was face replacement for Bond and CG environments which effects destruction. Then he goes through a series of slides within the building, which required face replacements, lots of effects augmentation. He was on a big platform on a lever that collapsed at various points and he would just leap from place to place - like a trapdoor - and we had to remove that and replace that with a crumbling floor and various debris falling past him.”
Unsuccessful in killing Sciarra, Bond chases him to the central plaza where a helicopter has landed. Both board and a fist fight ensues as the chopper takes off. Real helicopter stunt flying and backgrounds were combined with CG environments and crowds, with the fight scenes filmed on a helicopter gimbal. Begg had made an early request to the director and DOP for as little smoke to be used in the distance in order for crowds and digital buildings to be inserted into the plates. “I managed to get a fairly good rapport with Hoyte, to a point where I said is there any chance the smoke way in the background - can we kill that? I totally understand in the foreground. It’s more diaphanous, so believe it or not it’s probably easier to comp things through it, but further away it gets the more moving detail it gets in it. I felt it would compound the final shots. Particularly when we got into the square, Hoyte would completely kill the smoke and ILM would add it back in.”
Since the helicopter sequence would involve a frenetic airborne fight that would see views of the square and crowds, the production embarked on a major survey and scanning period before and after principal photography. “We used Propshop who have a surveying and photogrammetry setup,” says Begg. “That team went out ahead of us and surveyed and photographed the hell out of the square and the immediately surrounding buildings. They also used a drone camera to shoot the rooftops. At the end of the shoot, I stayed behind and went up in the copter and stopped it at different altitudes and got the pilot to spin the camera around slowly. It was a hand-o-matic to be used as tiles, basically.”
“With the drone,” says Bakowski, “we covered the area around the main square where the flight happens in quite an amount of detail and a couple of blocks back. Obviously in any built up area there’s aerials and flags, so it was a bit up and down in quality because the drone would have to be adjusting itself all the time. But in the end the results were still really amazing. That was brought back to ILM and with photogrammetry tools we re-modeled the area, touched it up and from that point onwards, sections we captured from there would be re-purposed for the middle distance, with variations applied. Beyond that we had a really nice library of aerials and flags and solar panels and all the things we needed to dress into places. It really helped us give more of a sense of danger and parallaxing. You’d be flying over a building and we found that if you can get something reaching up to the camera a little bit it made it more interesting to look at, gave it more visual interest and more parallax and depth and peril. We took a few liberties sprinkling bits of street furniture and other things on the rooftops.”
The scene involved real helicopter footage over the square, additional plates shot at an airfield for safety reasons, ILM’s digital helicopter and bluescreen photography of the aircraft. “We had three bucks mounted on different gimbals,” explains Corbould. One of those was a traditional 6-axis gimbal like you would see at a theme park. It was a motion base that let us spin it around, rotate it, very very fast on either axis.” Some extra pieces were also captured to help sell the spectacular barrel roll and somersaults performed by the real helicopter. “For those,” says Corbould, “we built almost like a spit roast. We had the fuselage of the helicopter mounted between two pivot points, one on the nose and one on the tail so we could actually rotate it 360 degrees. That gave us our barrel roll so we could keep spinning that round as long as we liked. Then we turned it 90 degrees and could turn it end over end, for the loop de loop part. Those few shots with these rigs made it all the more believable.”
ILM added a CG environment or plates outside the window and added lots of flicker and camera shake to the bluescreen helicopter shots. “Generally when doing the heli,” notes Bakowski, “everything would be shot without glass in the windows to avoid reflection issues from the studio lights. We’d then have to put in the glass, the rotor blades, the rigs from the rotisserie rig. Sometimes they’d be spinning around quite fast so the actors would have to have lots of restraints on them to stop them falling out. Then there’d be shadows coming in from everywhere so we’d be patching up sections of the heli and extending it. And smoke coming out the back when a flare gets shot out.”
Daniel Craig had earlier injured his knee during the production and could not perform every part of the sequence - this necessitated the use of stuntmen and therefore head replacements and digi-doubles. Begg and ILM approached the work with both 2D and 3D solutions. “I said to the production,” recalls Begg, “just realize that head replacement isn’t a science. Sometimes it can work really well, flat 2D ones in particular, but 3D ones are trickier ones because you want to avoid that dead look you get and the plastic finish on the textures. In some shots we’d start with a 2D Daniel Craig face shot against a bluescreen. It would then blend or wipe into a 3D head when it was a much more difficult position for him to mimic. There’s one shot where the helicopter is doing a barrel roll, and Bond is nearly thrown out the side door by gravity. The shot begins with Daniel looking directly at camera, you get a damn good look at him - that’s the 2D Daniel - and as his head turns down we go into the CG head. There were shifting lights and shadows meant we had to go 3D. I take my hat off to ILM for pulling that together.”
“It’s interesting,” notes Bakowski, “Daniel Craig is a very stoic actor - he’s not particularly expressive and he has this classic chiseled cheek look and slight pout, and when you see him doing it for real it looks like Daniel Craig. But when you see a digital double doing it, it can look dead. So then we got a lot of comments about bring him to life and adding in performance, but then the performance we added started to break him looking like Daniel Craig, so it was a vicious circle. That’s why we often went with the plate approach. The small and mid distant head replacements still used a digi-double but the hero close-ups were mostly plate - you couldn’t really argue with it and they had this essential Daniel Craig-ness about them. In some ways you can’t replicate reality because it’s not aesthetically pleasing all the time.”
On set, there were around 2,500 extras which were filmed in pockets for both use in the sequence and as reference, but the majority of crowds was achieved in Massive. “We did a big two-day mocap session at Centroid,” says Bakowski. “The first day was crowd mocap where we had rhythmic dancing to the parade for the crowd dancing. Then they’d do pointing at the helicopter or scattering and ducking, falling over. We did lots of little vignettes of people lifting others up or helping. Little bespoke motions that we could parachute into a scene at a hero point. The second motion capture session was all about the stunt fighting in the helicopter. We used much less of that than we thought. The physics of trying to pull that off were quite awkward, we were trying to do mocap of a fight in a helicopter that’s spinning round and round, and it’s upside down at some points so the people are spinning around inside there. The best we could do with our mocap actors was attach them to tug-o-war-like ropes and be padded up. People would pull them around within a cage to simulate gravity going up, down, left right as if the helicopter was rotating itself. That was used as a mimic of the actors within the heli.”
One signature shot - in which the crowd parts for the approaching helicopter - made use of only a small portion of real crowd and then ILM’s motion captured extras. “That shot is a great example of where we managed to collaborate with the DOP in getting the smoke switched off,” says Begg. “All the smoke has been added in in that shot. That is less than 25 per cent live action crowd and everyone else - we probably filled in 20 to 30 degrees of that circle with real people, and the rest of it was the motion captured ILM people. What even stunned me was on a big screen you can’t tell the difference. The movement, the performances, are so believable. It’s amazing. I’m very proud and pleased with that shot.”
“We got into heavy cloth sims as well because of the down draft of the chopper for that shot,” adds Bakowski. “But about 85 per cent of what you see there is CG crowds. That was one of our lookdev shots. At one point we had Wally from Where’s Wally in there with a stripey top, but then they didn’t take that to the final…”
2. When in Rome…drive fast and up walls
The effect: In Rome, Bond discovers the existence of a criminal organization called Spectre, and soon finds himself being chased in his gadget-fitted Aston Martin DB10 by one of its henchmen, Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) in a Jaguar C-X75 through city streets and along the banks of the Tiber River.
Corbould’s team worked closely with Aston Martin and Jaguar on producing action cars that were extensively tested for the chase sequence, which included moments in which the cars jump through the air, take the roof of an Alfa Romeo, drive down steps and zoom along sideways on the river bank wall. “Those tests,” says Corbould, “were almost to the point of destruction to find out any weak leaks. Our main priority is to ensure the safety of the stunt drivers and the camera crew, but also being in Rome, we were driving these cars around 2,000 year old buildings and if a wheel came off and we hit a building that would have been a disaster.”
Remote driving pods on the top of the Aston Martin and Jaguar were also constructed so that the cars could be driven by a stunt person on the roof while a camera focused on Craig or Bautista. “It meant we could do high speed shots through Rome looking like Daniel or David were driving,” notes Corbould. “Whereas in fact there was a world rally champion sitting on the roof driving the vehicle.”
The most elaborate stunts in the sequence involved the river bank wall shot and a drive down some steps. “We had rehearsals for the wall shot at Longcross Studios,” states Corbould. “They built a section of river bank wall that the stunt guys rehearsed going up. The steps were also rehearsed, but actually there in Rome on the actual steps. Construction had to do a lot of protection work on the steps because again these were 2,000 year old steps so the authorities didn’t want them damaged in any way. All credit to the construction crew in strengthening them up and covering them in such a way that we looked like we were going down the authentic steps, but actually they were heavily protected.”
Finally, Bond attempts to throw Mr Hinx off the chase with one of the newest gadgets in his Aston Martin - a flame thrower. “That was something we also did extensive testing for,” says Corbould. “We had to change all the exhaust system over because the flames came out of the exhaust.”
The Rome sequence featured some visual effects additions too, mostly completed by Cinesite. These included rear projections, rig removal, camera and light removal and a few matte paintings to “make Rome look more like Rome,” says Begg.
“One of Cinesite's earliest challenges was to prepare all of the Rome streets footage that was to be used on set during the shoot for the car interiors,” outlines Cinesite’s Zave Jackson. “DOP Hoyte Van Hoytema was keen to use a rear projection technique as it gives convincing interactive lighting on the actors and vehicles. Cinesite stabilized and graded almost 70 minutes of 3.5k Alexa footage. This was shot on nine separate cameras mounted on a custom camera vehicle that traveled the specific streets in Rome that made up the carefully choreographed car chase. In many ways the method proved successful, but as the Rome sequence was at night it was also often necessary for the final shots to have background adjustments made. This meant rotoscoping the foreground and re-compositing the relevant stabilized section of footage. This allowed us to adjust the look of the defocus, tweak perspective and correctly represent the intensity of the background city lights which, despite the power of the on set projection set-up where not captured on film correctly.”
During the chase itself, Cinesite added digital gun barrels to the Aston, car interior to the Alfa, debris, shattering glass and sparks to collisions and SFX flame elements to the Jaguar. “We also removed extensive production lighting set-ups, unwanted reflections, safety barriers, tyre marks, cranes, scaffolds, ramps, cameras and cables,” says Jackson. “In some shots we digitally extended the length of street, adjusted the distance between the chasing cars, face replaced stunt drivers, re-timed shots and added a CG ejector hatch to the Aston to ensure the action worked within the edit.”
3. Snow-planing
The effect: In Austria, Bond tracks down the daughter of former Spectre member Mr. White, Dr. Madeline Swann (Lea Seydoux). who is abruptly kidnapped by Mr. Hinx, starting a whole new chase sequence. This time Bond is in pursuit of Land Rovers by a plane, which he crash lands to dramatic effect through snow-covered trees and a barn.
As with all the film’s stunts and effects, Corbould discussed the plane sequence heavily with director Sam Mendes, Begg, stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell and second unit director Alexander Witt. “Our first task was to find somewhere where this could be filmed, and we did, a valley in Austria,” says Corbould. “We had to drop the plane down into this valley of trees with literally only three or four feet from the wingtips are trees. Obviously it would be very dangerous to fly a real plane there so we put a crane up at each end and did a 160 meter run of this plane coming down on a wire. It comes down the wire from the top, lowers down amongst the trees and carries on until its wings get cut off and then belly flops onto the ground.”
A photo posted by 007stunt (@007stunt) on Feb 17, 2015 at 11:01pm PST
Above: An image from stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell's Instagram page showing the crane, plane and Land Rovers in action.
After meticulous planning for one part of the effect where the plane hits and rips the top off one of the Land Rovers, the filmmakers struggled to make the stunt work - until they made a surprising finding. “We were pulling the plane backwards and forwards with glider winch which is used to help gliders take off. We brought the plane to the collision position and lined up the height of the plane with the height of the Land Rover, then we brought it all back to get the shot. Weirdly the plane was six foot above where we’d set the height. We deduced from this that we were getting the plane up to such a speed that it was trying to take off! So we actually had to slow down the plane to get the impact right.”
Once the plane landed, an array of stunt planes were used to show its wings coming off and then planing down the valley. “We crashed the planes into real trees but we changed the wing tips so that they were lightweight sections and added some pyrotechnics in there, so when they made contact you saw the wings sheer off and it bellies into the ground and we ploughs into a big pile of snow,” explains Corbould. We had two planes mounted on the wires with wings coming off. We had another two or three planes where we built into the plane fuselage a double track skidoo, so we mounted that in the plane with a ski out the front. That meant the stunt driver could drive it down the hill as if he’s driving a skidoo.”
Eventually the plane careens into a barn full of firewood, exiting out the other side. “For that shot we mounted our plane section on a nitrogen canon and literally fired it out the back end of the barn,” states Corbould. “It was quite a tricky sequence especially when you’re dealing with sub-zero conditions with snow storms going on. But everybody rallied around and it was an exhilarating time.”
Bond’s earlier visit to Swann’s medical clinic in the Austrian Alps involved filming at the Ice Q Restaurant, with a CG building then wrapping around the existing structure. “Inside,” notes Begg, “it’s all translight work. We did very minimal work, just some seam removals. But that also meant it was so hot in there! It was a massive 360 wrap around two to three storey translight and it had all these lights behind the translight and they generated a lot of heat - it was sweltering even though it was meant to be an alpine environment.”
In terms of visual effects for the sequence, MPC was called upon to add CG propellers, clean up the skidoo skis and work on some snow and environment fixes, but the studio also crafted a fully digital plane for shots seen once it drops below the tree line and does the ‘touch and go’ bounce. Their shots included, too, compositing on-set stage shots filmed with the plane on a gimbal. “Because it was a nice shiny black plane, I thought we would have a lot of problems with it on a stage if we filmed with the bluescreen around it,” notes Begg. “And then even before we put the screen up the plane was on the stage and you could see every light and everyone reflected in the surface. I suggested to Hoyte, why don’t you just light this with white everywhere? He loved that idea - most DOPs hate bluescreens. What you get is much more natural bounce light everywhere and MPC were going to replace the fuselage and what’s behind it a lot with CG anyway. What I loved too is that they also added reflections off moving trees and mountains into their CG fuselage, which gave the impression it was more of an air-to-air shot.”
3a. Mouse in the house
The effect: It might not be one of the film’s grand action scenes, but it’s certainly a key one. A curious mouse alerts Bond to the location of a secret room at the L'Americain. Cinesite crafted the mouse digitally.
“Our start point for the mouse were image selects made by Director Sam Mendes,” outlines Cinesite visual effects supervisor Zave Jackson. “These gave us initial direction on size, colour and the disheveled look required for the fur. The path taken by the mouse and its position in frame had been carefully considered by the films editor and a post viz sequence was provided for us to work to.”
Cinesite’s Director of Animation Eamonn Butler oversaw animation work on the mouse. “Although we had editorial marks for timing and position we were keen for its movement to seem spontaneous,” says Jackson. “Animator Sandra Guarda worked hard on this, incorporating a syncopated walk cycle and using extensive online video reference. The goal was to avoid any feeling of choreography and to get its behavior and movement feeling accurate and natural.”
Cinesite worked closely with VFX Supervisor Steve Begg throughout all the stages of the mouse development. “As the scene was in low light, Steve was keen to exaggerate certain features of the mouse so that the audience would spot it easily,” notes Jackson. “Sub-surface scattering in the lighting gives a partially transparent appearance to the thin, fleshy areas of a mouse such as ears, feet and snout. We paid particular attention to this in the lighting and at the comp stage. This gave a realistic look to these parts and created areas of the body that would catch highlights and stand out.”
For the mouse’s groom, creature FX artists Wiebke Sprenger worked to provide the appropriate level of clumping and root to tip texturing. Says Jackson: “The scruffy look created a detailed surface texture that once lit gave compositor Alex Webb more opportunities to accentuate the mouse even in the low light of the hotel room. Low light coupled with anamorphic footage shot at close proximity gave a very shallow depth of field and particular care was paid to matching this accurately. Alex also carefully balanced the CG renders into the footage with a lot of grading work, shadow interaction, even adding tiny footprints in the dust as the mouse runs through the hole in the wall.”
4. Hi-jinx on a train
The effect: Bond and Swann take a train trip through Morrocco to a secret lair. Here, Cinesite made CG carriage additions and completed head replacements and rig removals for a fight with Hinx.
“We created a full CG train for use in scenes after Bond and Madeleine leave Tangiers, the train available to production at the time of shooting did not have the correct number, or type of carriages,” explains Cinesite’s Zave Jackson. “In several exterior shots we extended the train from four to seven carriages with part of our full CG asset. We made sure the configuration and type of carriage matched that seen as the fight between Bond and Hinx passes from the restaurant car, into the bar and on into the kitchen and goods carriage. Particular attention was paid to the exterior texturing and displacement of the train as it is seen close to camera at one point, scratches, scuffs and dents and a subtle rippled effect to the coachwork panelling were added to make it feel as authentic as possible.”
“As the three sets for the different train carriage interiors where ultimately on different stages at Pinewood,” adds Jackson, “green screen back drops were hung where the view through to the next carriage would be visible. We used a 2.5D digital matte painting approach, projecting imagery based on HDRI photo reference taken on set. This was in order to recreate backgrounds for restaurant, bar and kitchen carriages that would move and parallax correctly with the dynamic hand held camera moves used during the fight.”
A frenetic fight takes place between Bond and Hinx (and Swann) on the train, in which Cinesite was called upon to produce head replacements for both 007 and the henchman. “I think the most impressive replacements were when Bond douses Hinx in some liquid from a lamp and sets him alight,” comments Begg. “We had Dave Bautista’s double on fire with a 3D head. We went for a 3D head because of the interactive light from the fire. We did shoot Dave going through the motions, but the light values and shifting light on him just didn’t match.”
“Cinesite’s team were supplied with 3D head scans and photographic reference of both actors in costume for the scene,” says Jackson. “These were used to build digital assets at a high level of detail, as required by the medium distance shots. This included a high quality groom for their hair and Hinx’s beard. Also accurate matching of skin textures using the cross polarized and parallel polarized reference images of the actors supplied by production. We also constructed a full facial rig so that we could create all the expressions required. However, we quickly learned that the animation of facial features required a subtle approach. More extreme facial poses would quickly detract from a convincing likeness to the viewers perception of how the real actors look.”
After Bond throws the oil lamp at Hinx, setting fire to his jacket, there were five shots where Cinesite created a full CG head replacement for Mr Hinx. Bond's head is also replaced in two of these. “The stunt double's head was carefully match moved and our CG Hinx or Bond head asset tracked in,” states Jackson. “Animation then took over using the stunt double's movement as reference for a first pass. In the case of Hinx the stunt double was understandably keeping his mouth closed so we then added to this base layer of animation. Using aspects of Hinx’s facial performance seen in surrounding shots as well as other reference shot on set we introduced open mouthed growls and grimace poses that would hopefully catch the eye in a midst the speed and energy of the scene.”
Cinesite relied on Arnold to render the CG heads, one of the first times the studio had utilized physically plausible shaders to ray trace both skin and hair. “This allowed us to take maximum benefit from the on set HDRI photo reference,” says Jackson. “Whilst we were extremely pleased with the look of our lit CG elements for these shots the final work done in the comp gave us the flexibility to really match the look of the lighting on the set and the play of the fire light on their skin. Rather than try to match the animation of the fire light in the lighting render we concentrated on matching the lighting direction. This was rendered as a separate constant layer. In the comp we where able to introduce the correct amount of fire light on the skin, adjusting and tweaking on a frame by frame basis to get an accurate match to the skin tones of Mr Hinx and Bond.”
5. Boom! Blowing a lair sky high
The effect: Bond and Swann are held at the Moroccan communications facility run by Spectre’s leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), but escape and destroy the buildings there in a dazzling wave of fireballs.
The explosion, crafted by Corbould in partnership with Event Horizon’s Charles Adcock, involved 8,140 litres of kerosene and 24 charges each with a kilogram of high explosives. It was recently awarded a Guinness World Records title for the largest film stunt explosion. In the planning stages, Corbould says he suggested to Mendes he could create an explosion that would ‘blow him away.’ “The explosion was all real, but the CGI guys did a great job putting in the whole complex there too. There was very little of that set that was there when we shot it.”
For the blast itself, the effects team looked to do something ‘different’. “We created this whole great arcing where it arcs around the outside and then it comes straight up the middle towards the actors,” outlines Corbould. “We had them right in the foreground on a helicopter pad. And that was very exhilarating. It went away from us first in a big circle and then came back towards us. The crescendo slowly builds and the shockwave comes towards us.”
The explosion was detonated using individual detonators each containing a computer chip that communicated to a central unit. “There were about 300 detonators involved in that whole thing,” says Corbould. “It’s quite extraordinary - they’re all linked by one wire. You program each one up to a 1,000th of a second. You program that all in and then you press the button and off they go. It’s quite eerie because after you press the button there’s a three second delay where all these initiators all talk to other to say they’re ready. We had to tie in with a line of dialogue from Daniel which was pretty funny because |
’m more than happy in many circumstances to use the Fujifilm JPEG files either directly, or with some minor tweaks. The D600 files, I always shoot RAW and have to process them as I’m not a fan of the Nikon JPEG processing. That’s a personal thing and really down to the individual though.
Where the D600 does shine is in the highlights. I was pleasantly surprised as to how much detail I could pull back from an over-exposed D600 RAW file. I’ve been so used to the Fujifilm files that if I wouldn’t normally have even bothered trying to pull back detail from what looks like a blown out image and I only actually did it out of desperation because it was an image I shot for a client that I really liked and wanted to see if I could rescue it! I can’t share that image yet, but some examples are below. Once the highlights are gone in an X-Trans file, they really are gone and you just get this messy goo!
On the flip-side, you can often pull out a huge amount of detail from the shadows from the Fujifilm X-Trans RAW file, so they simply have to be shot differently. You can still pull quite a bit out of under-exposed areas in the D600 files, but even at ISO 100 you tend to get quite a lot of colour noise that you don’t seem to get with the X-Trans.
You can see the colour noise in the Nikon file at ISO 100, where the Fujifilm file, whilst it does show noise, has far less colour noise and is therefore much easier to process and remove that noise. Yes ok, these may be extreme examples, but it does demonstrate quite clearly the difference between the two cameras and that is what I wanted to show here.
You can work around these things on both cameras by just shooting slightly differently. On the Nikon you shoot slightly overexposed and on the Fujifilm you shoot slightly underexposed to get the right balance for the final image.
The image quality out of both cameras is excellent. With 24Mpx the Nikon can perhaps pull out a bit more detail, but the Fujifilm JPEGs are superior in my opinion and I’ll happily use them where I’d want to edit the Nikon RAW files. This is quite subjective though. I’ll post up a couple of examples below and you can make your own mind up!
Nikon on the left, Fujifilm on the right.
Zoomed to 100%
Fujifilm on the left, Nikon on the right. Zoomed to 100% for both images – the difference in zoom is because of the 16/24Mpx files.
I don’t want to go into loads of detail here because frankly both cameras product excellent results, just slightly differently. I can’t honestly say one is significantly better than the other, you would be happy with both. They give a slightly different colour signature, but that isn’t a problem for me unless you’re shooting both on a job because then if colour is important, you have to get them to match otherwise you get two different ‘looks’. For me, the fact that I am happy with the JPEGs straight from the Fujifilm gives it the edge because it means less work in post.
OVF vs EVF
I’m sure this will run and run! When I first looked through the D600’s viewfinder I thought it looked amazing, very bright and useable. I liked it a lot. However as I began to use it more, I really started to miss the instant feedback of the EVF from the X-T1. The ability to set and check exposure before shooting has such an enormous benefit that I believe shooting with a mirrorless camera with an EVF is a far superior experience, not least of which is that it totally eliminates the need to ‘test’ shots and chimping. On the D600 I was finding that I’d have to shoot the same image 2 or 3 times before I had the exposure where I wanted it to be as you have no feedback at all as to how the camera has metered the scene. When you’re shooting a model for example, if you keep having to stop and check exposure then it really does break up the rhythm of the shoot.
The other thing about live view on mirrorless is that you can use the rear screen much more effectively, especially if it is tilting. You can shoot your subject without having to hide behind the camera. I much prefer this style of shooting these days. Yes, you can switch the D600 to live view and use the rear screen, but then unlike the X-T1 where nothing changes, the auto-focus suddenly becomes clunky and dim-witted.
For me the instant feedback on the screen/EVF is a huge plus point for the Fujifilm X-T1. I find it so much easier to shoot knowing I’ve got the exposure correct when you press the shutter button that it makes a shoot flow much better, and even more, I don’t have a load of test shots that I’ve got to delete when I import into my computer.
Autofocus
What really killed the D600 for me though was the very last thing I expected. AF performance. I expected the D600 to absolutely walk away from the X-T1 in AF performance.
In perfect light, the D600 with the right lens probably does just have the edge, but what I found amazing was just how much the mirrorless cameras have caught up, Fujifilm in particular. If you get the chance to try them side-by-side with similar lenses on then I think you will be surprised at just how good the X-T1 is now.
I recall when I started using my X-Pro1 how terribly slow it was compared to my D300S at the time, how many times I swore at it whilst trying to focus! How things have changed now though. In most situations I shoot in, the X-T1 actually out-performs an even a more modern dSLR than the one I was using back then when I first got the X-Pro1.
In low light, the X-T1 absolutely wipes the floor with the D600. I was asked to shoot an event in the early evening and into the night not long ago. By the end of the event I had totally given up using the D600 because it either struggled badly, or simply refused to focus on anything. To the point that it actually became embarrassing where I had people stationery in front of me and I could not get a shot even after 5-10 seconds of trying. This wasn’t with some cheap kit lens, this was with a 70-200 2.8 zoom. The X-T1 simply worked! I’m not saying the X-T1 is totally perfect, and it did miss focus on the odd shot, but for the most part it was absolutely spot on, and without that camera I would have come away with significantly fewer useable shots than if I had only taken the Nikon. Thank goodness I put it in my bag! My only frustration was that I only had the 35mm lens with me, which made getting wide shots near impossible. In the same situation again I would have absolutely no hesitation going and shooting the event with the X-T1 and the 16-55mm f/2.8 lens (even the 18-55 with OIS) and not even worry about it. I’d happily carry the X-T1 with a zoom and the X100T or X-T10 and a fast prime as a second camera.
Controls
Where the Nikon does perhaps lead is in the larger number of buttons and controls on the camera, and the ability to access far more from the rear of the camera without having to resort to the menu. Having said that, I have to say that I have not really found anything missing from the X-T1 that I actually need to access quickly on the move, and certainly nothing that I cannot assign to one of the customisable Fn buttons. I can’t find for my own use that there is anything extra on the D600 that I genuinely miss on the X-T1. Perhaps a dedicated control for changing the position of the AF, but even then, it’s pretty quick to do that on the X-T1 these days with improved usability brought in from firmware updates.
Durability
The D600 does feel like it would take more knocks than the X-T1, but personally I don’t feel this is an issue for me as I rarely use the camera in an environment where it would be knocked around.
Lenses
The Fujifilm X-Mount now has quite a solid selection of lenses, and aside from a long telephoto lens, which is coming later, there isn’t a lot missing. The Nikon has the advantage of a very long history and well-developed lens range with far more choice, and a strong selection of 3rd party lenses too. The advantage there has to go to the Nikon. I would say though that every lens in the Fujifilm line-up is spectacular and there isn’t a bad one amongst them, that cannot be said for the Nikon range! There are other obvious benefits of the Fujifilm lenses in that they are considerably smaller and lighter for the same equivalent in the Nikon range.
Conclusion
If you’ve got around £1000 to spend on a 2nd hand camera and good lens combination, the D600 seems like incredibly good value given what you’re getting, and it would surely be ‘better’ than an X-T1. Better AF, better image quality, better controls, more robust etc. I can think of many reasons it appears to trump the X-T1 on paper. However, having used them both side-by-side and individually over the course of a number of weeks, the X-T1 (& X-T10) both have so many advantages to me that towards the end I was starting to really dislike using the D600, the excitement of trying something new out soon faded.
So what about those friends who’d gone full into Fuji and then gone back to their dSLR? My own opinion here is two-fold. Some people just prefer the dSLR, they have been using it for so long they don’t want to change, or they need some very specific feature of a dSLR for their type of photography – that’s fine, I understand that. The other side is that I feel some people just don’t give it enough of a chance and try to keep shooting the way they did before. It does take time to learn to shoot a little differently with a mirrorless camera, but I 100% believe that for a large proportion of the things we shoot that a mirrorless camera can bring significant benefits if you take the time and make the effort to learn how to use them just that bit differently from a dSLR.
At the end of the day it is what works for you personally, but I see so many advantages of the Fujifilm system that I actually found it a difficult and awkward experience shooting with a dSLR again, and I am a Nikon fan believe me – I’d been shooting with them for nearly 20 years! When I first went to Fujifilm it was all about reducing weight, and at the time that was one of the few benefits, but as time has gone on I’ve really found that the experience with a mirrorless camera suits my way of shooting much better than a dSLR. On top of that, Fujifilm have now improved their cameras to such a point that I believe they are on a par with a modern dSLR for the majority of things that you will use them for in a day-to-day situation, and in some cases they are actually better. I didn’t think that was something I’d ever say having owned the original X100 and X-Pro1!
I can honestly say that I will probably never buy another dSLR again. The D600 and lenses are now sold and I’m back to a Fuji only camera system!
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comments1.19pm BST
The eurozone has slumped into its longest recession ever, after economic activity across the region fell for the sixth quarter in a row.
Economic output across the single currency area fell by 0.2% in the first three months of 2013, statistics body Eurostat reported today (see 10.10am).
France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands all saw their economies shrink as the economic crisis in the eurozone continued to hit its largest economies.
Eurostat’s figures showed that the eurozone economy has now contracted by 1% over the last year, putting further pressure on leaders as unemployment climbs to new record highs.
The 0.2% contraction in the first quarter of 2012 was an improvement on the 0.6% drop recorded between October and December, but analysts warned that the eurozone’s economic outlook is darkening.
Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities, commented:
What seems incontrovertible, on this evidence, is that the member-states of the euro zone are on the wrong track. The costs of the zone’s one-size-fits-all strategy are becoming brutally apparent.
France was dragged back into recession by a 0.2% drop in GDP, announced on the first anniversary of Francois Hollande being sworn in as president (see 6.44am)
Pierre Moscovici, French finance minister, denied that Paris’s forecast of 0.1% growth this year was too optimistic. “I’m sticking to the figures,” Moscovici told reporters, adding that the EU must prioritise growth over tackling budget deficits.
Photograph: Thomson Reuters (via the Financial Times)
There was also disappointment that Germany only eked out growth of 0.1%, worse than economists had expected. The Dutch economy shrank by 0.1%.
Nick Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy was also concerned:
The bottom line is that both the German and French economies, which together account for half the eurozone’s output, are in the doldrums. Add in the persistent recession in the Netherlands, which accounts for a further 6.5% of eurozone GDP, and the core and semi-core of the eurozone are in significantly worse shape than a year ago.
Italy’s new prime minister, Enrico Letta, was given an early reminder of the challenge he faces, with Italian GDP falling by 0.5%. Italy’s economy has now been shrinking for the last seven quarters, its longest recession since at least 1970.
Portugal's recession continues, with a 0.3% drop in GDP - a much smaller decline than the 1.8% slump recorded in the last quarter of 2012.
Beyond the eurozone, the Czech Republic suffered a 0.8% decline in GDP during the quarter. Eurostat’s figures also showed that the European Union shrank by 0.1% during the last quarter, despite the UK growing by 0.3%.
Figures released last week showed that Spain’s economy contracted by 0.5%.
......
Meanwhile, in the UK, the Bank of England has raised its growth forecasts for Britain's economic growth for the first time since the financial crisis began.
Sir Mervyn King, who steps down as governor this summer, said a modest recovery was in sight, but cautioned that the eurozone was a key risk.
King told reporters in London that:
This hasn’t been a typical recession and it won’t be a typical recovery. Nevertheless, a recovery is in sight.
King also attacked plans for a transaction tax in the eurozone, claiming that he wasn't anyone within the European central banking world who supported it.
You can track the highlights from the BoE press conference, from 10.36am.The Latest: Trump vows to ‘send in the Feds’ to help Chicago
White House press secretary Sean Spicer calls on a reporter during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017. Spicer answered questions about the Dakota Pipeline, infrastructure, jobs and other topics. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):
10 p.m.
President Donald Trump is offering to “send in the Feds” if Chicago can’t reduce its homicide figures.
Trump tweeted Tuesday night, “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!”
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson responded late Tuesday, saying: “The Chicago Police Department is more than willing to work with the federal government to build on our partnerships with DOJ (Department of Justice), FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and boost federal prosecution rates for gun crimes in Chicago.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel criticized Trump on Monday for worrying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Emanuel, a longtime political ally of former President Barack Obama, also acknowledged his own frustration with Chicago’s crime rate.
Trump isn’t offering specifics about how the federal government could help. The White House website says, “Our country needs more law enforcement, more community engagement and more effective policing.”
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8 p.m.
President Donald Trump will begin rolling out executive actions on immigration Wednesday, beginning with plans for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and other enforcement measures, according to two administration officials.
Trump is also expected to roll out plans for restricting refugee flows to the U.S. later in the week.
Trump campaigned on pledges to tighten U.S. immigration policies, including beefing up border security and stemming the flow of refugees. He also called for halting entry to the U.S. from Muslim countries, but later shifted to focus on “extreme vetting” of those coming from countries with terrorism ties.
The officials insisted on anonymity in order to confirm the plans ahead of Trump’s official announcement. The president is expected to sign the actions Wednesday during a trip to the Department of Homeland Security.
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6:20 p.m.
Three climate-related tweets sent out by Badlands National Park have been deleted after they went viral on Twitter, sparking debate over whether the park was defying the Trump administration.
The South Dakota park posted tweets Tuesday that accurately quoted climate science data, including the current record-setting high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax.
The tweets were shared thousands of times, and the Democratic National Committee circulated the message by email with the subject line “Resist.”
The tweets came just three days after the Interior Department briefly suspended its Twitter accounts after the park service retweeted photos about turnout at Trump’s inauguration. The accounts were reactivated the next day.
The park service could not be reached for comment.
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6:15 p.m.
The retired head of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. is joining President Donald Trump’s administration as an adviser on veterans issues.
The Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed Tuesday that Jake Leinenkugel had accepted a position as a senior White House adviser at the VA.
Leinenkugel served as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and is the father of two veterans. His brother, Dick, says the job will allow Jake Leinenkugel to make an impact on those who served their country.
Jake Leinenkugel ran the Wisconsin-based beer company for 25 years before retiring two years ago.
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6 p.m.
The Trump administration is moving to delay implementation of at least 30 environmental rules finalized in the closing months of President Barack Obama’s term. That could be a potential first step in seeking to kill the regulations.
A summary of actions published Tuesday in the Federal Register includes rulings that updated air pollution standards for several states, renewable fuel standards and limits on the amount of formaldehyde that can leach from wood products.
President Donald Trump signed a directive shortly after his inauguration Friday ordering a “regulatory freeze pending review” for all federal agency rules that had been finalized but have not yet taken effect.
The action sets the new effective date for all 30 regulations as March 21.
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5:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump says India is a “true friend” of the United States in addressing global challenges and has invited its prime minister to visit later in the year.
The White House says Trump spoke Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A statement says the two leaders discussed opportunities for cooperation in economy and defense, and security in South and Central Asia. They resolved that their nations “stand shoulder to shoulder in the global fight against terrorism.”
The U.S. and India are the world’s two largest democracies. They share concerns about militancy emanating from Pakistan and about the rise of China.
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5:50 p.m.
The acting deputy secretary of the Agriculture Department says he will ask officials at the Agricultural Research Service to rescind a memo that ordered employees not to release documents to the public.
Michael Young said on a call with reporters Tuesday evening that the memo did not reflect guidance asking agencies to route communications decisions and other matters through his office — standard procedure for new administrations.
Young says, “Frankly I don’t understand what the basis for the ARS email was.”
He says he will ask the agency to rescind the notice that banned news releases, photos, fact sheets and social media content.
President Donald Trump has nominated former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue as agriculture secretary. Young, a career official at USDA for three decades, is temporarily in charge.
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5:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump’s pick to be top U.S. diplomat is paying a visit to the State Department ahead of his expected confirmation.
The State Department says Rex Tillerson was in the building Tuesday for briefings. The former Exxon Mobil CEO is Trump’s nominee for secretary of state.
No additional details were released about Tillerson’s visit.
Tillerson won narrow approval Monday from the Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That vote all but assures the full Senate will confirm Trump’s pick for the key Cabinet post.
A career U.S. diplomat is serving as acting secretary until the Trump pick is confirmed.
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2 p.m.
A spokesman says President Donald Trump’s belief that there were millions of illegal votes cast in the November election is based on “studies and evidence.”
But spokesman Sean Spicer did not provide examples of that evidence.
Trump first made the false claim during the transition. He reiterated the statement in a meeting Monday night with lawmakers, blaming illegal ballots for his loss of the popular vote.
Spicer says Trump “continues to maintain that belief.” There has been no evidence to support the claims that there was widespread voter fraud in the election.
Spicer’s only attempt to support Trump’s assertion was to point a 2008 Pew Research survey that showed a need to update voter registration systems.
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1:55 p.m.
An Agriculture Department research agency has banned the release of news releases, photos and other material to the public.
In a memo to employees at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, chief of staff Sharon Drumm said the agency would immediately cease releasing any “public-facing” documents.
“This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” read the email memo obtained by The Associated Press.
A statement released by ARS spokesman Christopher Bentley said the agency “values and is committed to maintaining the free flow of information between our scientists and the American public as we strive to find solutions to agricultural problems affecting America.”
The statement said some material would still be available on the agency’s website.
Buzzfeed News first reported the memo.
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1:50 p.m.
The White House says President Donald Trump has accepted House Speaker Paul Ryan’s invitation to address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 28.
Ryan announced the invitation on Tuesday and informed reporters after a meeting with House Republicans. Ryan had met with Trump Monday night at the White House. Trump also met with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders on Monday.
Trump was meeting Tuesday at the White House with top Senate leaders.
The speech will be Trump’s first to Congress. He was sworn in to office on Friday.
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12:45 p.m.
The Trump administration has instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants.
Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.
The Trump administration has also ordered a “temporary suspension” of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors. The orders are expected to have a significant and immediate impact on EPA activities nationwide.
The EPA did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment Monday or Tuesday.
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12:25 p.m.
President Donald Trump is hanging up some new art in the White House press area — and it’s none too subtle.
The panoramic photo shows the crowds gathered near the U.S. Capitol for Trump’s inauguration on Friday. It’s a nod to the ongoing interest the president has in making it clear that his event was well-attended.
Trump tweeted: “A photo delivered yesterday that will be displayed in the upper/lower press hall. Thank you Abbas!” For emphasis, the official Twitter account of the president retweeted the @realDonaldTrump message. The photo was taken by Washington-area photographer Abbas Shirmohammadi, and it notes the wrong date — Jan. 21, although it does appear to depict the correct event.
Trump and press secretary Sean Spicer have taken pains to play up the crowd size, sometimes exaggerating the number in attendance. They’ve excoriated the media for what they said is an effort to downplay enthusiasm for Trump’s inauguration.
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11:50 a.m.
President Donald Trump has taken steps to streamline the permitting process for manufacturing.
He also wants pipelines to be made in the U.S., and an expedited process for environmental reviews and approvals.
The steps came as Trump signed executive actions to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. Former President Barack Obama blocked construction in late 2015 of the Keystone line from Canada to the U.S. Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers is studying alternative routes for the Dakota Access pipeline.
Trump describes the regulatory process as a “tangled up mess.” He says if the answer is no, it should be a quick no. If the answer is yes, Trump says “let’s start building.”
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11:35 a.m.
President Donald Trump says he will announce his pick to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat sometime next week.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he’ll be “making my decision this week” and “we’ll be announcing it next week.”
“We have some outstanding candidates,” the president said. “And we’ll pick a truly great Supreme Court justice.”
The Supreme Court has only had eight justices since Justice Antonin Scalia died last year. President Barack Obama nominated a replacement but Republicans in the Senate refused to bring the choice up for a vote.
During his campaign, Trump publicly identified nearly two dozen candidates for the vacancy.
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11:25 a.m.
President Donald Trump has signed executive actions to advance the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.
Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office that the moves on the pipelines will be subject to the terms and conditions being renegotiated by the U.S.
President Barack Obama killed the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in late 2015, saying it would hurt American efforts to reach a global climate change deal.
The pipeline would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in the Gulf Coast. The U.S. government needs to approve the pipeline because it crossed the border.
The Army decided last year to explore alternate routes for the Dakota pipeline after the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters said the pipeline threatened1 drinking water and Native American cultural sites.
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10:50 a.m.
FBI Director James Comey is staying in his job. A Justice Department memo lists him among officials remaining in their positions.
FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms intended to carry across presidential administrations, even when a new party takes over the White House.
President Donald Trump criticized the FBI during the campaign for its decision not to recommend charges against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. But he also appeared to warmly greet Comey at a law enforcement gathering over the weekend.
Comey is in his fourth year in the job.
The New York Times first reported that Comey would stay on.
The director’s job has been a 10-year term since 1976. Since then, only one has been removed prematurely — Reagan appointee William Sessions by Bill Clinton in 1993.
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9:48 a.m.
President Donald Trump is expected to take executive action Tuesday to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.
That’s according to a person with knowledge of the action. The president is scheduled to sign orders at the White House late Tuesday morning.
Former President Barack Obama killed the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in late 2015, declaring it would have undercut U.S. efforts to clinch a global climate change deal that was a centerpiece of his environmental legacy. The pipeline would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in the Gulf Coast. The U.S. government needed to approve the pipeline because it crossed the border.
The Army decided last year to explore alternate routes for the Dakota pipeline after the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters said the pipeline threatened drinking water and Native American cultural sites.
The person with knowledge of the decisions insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to confirm the moves ahead of a formal announcement.
-By Julie Pace
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9:45 a.m.
President Donald Trump says he’s an environmentalist.
The president made the comments Tuesday at a breakfast with auto industry executives.
He didn’t elaborate on why he sees himself as an environmentalist, but the comments came after urging companies from the auto industry and beyond to bring jobs back to the U.S.
On Monday, he made similar comments at a business breakfast, stating, again without elaborating, “I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment.”
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9:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump is spending the morning meeting with auto executives as part of his push to bring jobs back to the U.S.
Trump told his guests Tuesday at the White House that he’s looking to ease regulations to help auto companies and any other businesses wishing to do business in the U.S.
Among the attendees of the breakfast are Ford Motor Co. chief executive Mark Fields, Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne and General Motors chief executive Mary Barra.
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3:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to build bridges and push through his agenda have been overshadowed once again with his continued fixation on the election and more false claims.
During a bipartisan reception with lawmakers at the White House late Monday, Trump claimed the reason he’d lost the popular vote to his Democratic rival was that 3 million to 5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally had voted.
That’s according to a Democratic aide familiar with the exchange who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim.
Trump on Tuesday will continue his outreach efforts as he meets with executives from the auto industry and speaks by phone with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Hi everyone —
First and foremost, I'd like to thank all here for contributing to this topic and sharing your thoughts with us regarding your interest in Hairpin NAT. I'm excited to share that with eeroOS 3.3, Hairpin NAT is now officially supported on eero networks.
To use Hairpin NAT, all you will need to do is create a port forward. Once done, you will be able to access your devices from both in and out of your network.
If you are unsure what version your eero network is on, you can check by:
Opening the app. Tapping the menu button. Tapping on Network Settings.
Under the section Network software, you will either see Update available (needs to be updated) or Up-to-date (your network is on 3.3).
Again, we greatly appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we've worked on getting this feature out. As a company, we hold a high standard in any feature we implement, and it requires the necessary vetting to ensure that anything implemented both keeps your network secure and working as expected.
If you have any questions, please let us know.After a month's wait, RedditGifts started to threaten to ban me if I did not confirm getting a gift or not. I wanted to wait but I didn't want to get banned so I confirmed not receiving a gift. I also sent a note to my SS's throwaway, in case my SS got worried.
Just when I did, my dad comes in the room and handed me a note to claim my package at the post office! I quickly unconfirmed and went to get the package.
What did I get?
A Pac-Man heat change mug
Milk Chocolate coins
And a card
My Pac-Man stress ball finally has some company while I get some "pellets" to munch on. Much thanks! :D
Nice to know that my SS resisted using the mug, too! I probably would have tried it myself first if I was the one who gave it away. Hahaha!
Thanks again, whoever you are! :DPresident Trump’s executive order temporarily prohibiting entry into the United States for migrants from seven mostly Muslim countries and refugees from around the world fueled confusion, angst and a wave of protests across the country Sunday.
Even as administration officials tried to clarify the reach of Trump’s action — “This is not a Muslim ban,” the president said in a statement — the exact limits of its scope and legal questions over its constitutionality remained unresolved. So did the question of whether the administration would comply with orders from federal judges to temporarily halt the travel ban.
Raucous protests erupted in airport terminals from coast to coast. Tens of thousands of people protested outside the gates of the White House, in Boston’s Copley Square and in New York’s Battery Park, with its views over the Statue of Liberty.
Scenes of relief, anxiety and sorrow played out around the globe.
At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, a 70-year-old Iranian woman who recently received her green card was released after being detained overnight. In New York City, a graduate student contemplated whether he would quit his doctoral program to rejoin his wife in Iran after she was blocked from returning to the United States.
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
And in Iraq, a man who had risked his life working on behalf of the U.S. government bleakly wondered about his future and that of his wife and three children. Visas in hand, the family was due to fly Monday to the United States. “It’s like someone’s stabbed me in the heart with a dagger,” he said.
[Scholars: Many more legal challenges likely for Trump’s executive order on immigration]
Trump issued a statement late Sunday afternoon that offered little clarity, even as he defended his executive order as necessary to protect the United States from terrorism.
“To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,” Trump said in the statement. “This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order.”
The president reiterated that the country would resume issuing visas to all countries “once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies over the next 90 days.”
Still, barely 48 hours after Trump issued his order, confusion reigned over its reach and its implementation. Even as the president and other top advisers defended the ban, some Trump officials appeared on Sunday to walk back one of the most controversial elements of the action: its impact on green-card holders, who are permanent legal residents of the United States.
“As far as green-card holders going forward, it doesn’t affect them,” Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” contradicting what government officials had said only a day earlier.
1 of 23 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Photos from the scene of protest at New York’s JFK airport against Trump’s executive order halting refugee admissions View Photos Entry to the United States is being refused to legal residents, including green-card holders, from seven mostly Muslim countries who were abroad when the executive order was signed Friday by the president, and some travelers were detained at U.S. airports. Caption Entry to the United States is being refused to legal residents, including green-card holders, from seven mostly Muslim countries who were abroad when the executive order was signed Friday by the president. Jan. 28, 2017 People protest the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. President Trump signed an executive order that halted refugees and residents from certain predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
In a separate statement, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly was less definitive, suggesting that green-card holders’ status would help them gain entry to the country but that they nonetheless would be subject to a “case-by-case” review.
Meanwhile, Kelly’s department indicated separately Sunday that it would continue to implement Trump’s directive, even as it said it “will comply with judicial orders” issued by federal judges over the weekend, blocking enforcement of the ban to varying degrees.
“Prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety,” the agency said in a statement. “No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States.”
Trump’s virtually unprecedented executive action applies to migrants and U.S. legal residents from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and to refugees from around the world. People subject to the ban include dual nationals born in one of the seven countries who also hold passports from U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom.
As the legal questions surrounding the order remained unanswered Sunday, the uncertainty and resentment unleashed by the executive order he signed two days earlier showed few signs of waning.
At Dulles International Airport, lawyers seeking to represent people who had been detained failed to get information from Customs and Border Protection officials despite repeated attempts.
Even three Democratic members of Congress — Reps. Gerald E. Connolly and Don Beyer of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland — ran into similar roadblocks. Connolly pressed an airport police officer to get a Customs and Border Protection official to meet with the lawmakers to tell them how many people were detained and to see whether they had been able to communicate with their attorneys.
“Are people being detained?” Connolly asked the officer. “How can you enforce the law if you’re not enforcing a judge’s order?”
Connolly soon was on the phone with a CBP congressional affairs official. He and the other members pressed for information on possible detainees, including those traveling on a flight from Turkey. No one on site from the agency would meet with them.
“That is unacceptable. It is our understanding you are detaining people,” Connolly said. “Our understanding is you have not followed that [court] order.”
The president’s far-reaching action triggered a wave of criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who plan to assemble Monday on the steps of the Supreme Court in a show of solidarity with legal attempts to block Trump’s travel ban. In addition, at least one House member said he plans to introduce legislation to overturn Trump’s action by forcing him to comply with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which banned discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin.
Trump also encountered growing opposition Sunday |
game as the economy is starting out the year in a hole. Our guess is they will lay the blame for this squarely at Obama's door. Time will tell whether this is just a pot hole on the road to prosperity.”
The weak first-quarter growth numbers stand in sharp contrast to other “soft” economic data including sky-high business and consumer confidence numbers, which Trump has also cited as evidence that his policies of fewer regulations and plans for big corporate and individual tax breaks were lighting a fire under an economy that has averaged around two percent growth for the last decade.
The stock market also reflects fervent hope for faster growth under Trump with the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 all hitting new highs in the months after the presidential election. But the “hard” data, including GDP and job growth show that nothing has really changed so far under a new president who has yet to sign any major legislation and faces big hurdles to get his proposed tax cuts through Congress.
Republicans seized on the weak number Friday, blaming it on Obama and arguing it made the case for Trump’s agenda.
“This report underscores the urgent need for pro-growth tax reform. For eight years, the Obama Administration focused on growing the size and scope of the federal government” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said in a prepared statement. “President Trump proved again this week that he is focused on growing our economy and leading America in a new direction.”
The numbers showed that slower inventory growth subtracted 0.9 percentage points from the GDP number. The unexpectedly weak consumer spending growth of just 0.3 percent may have reflected late tax returns and unusually warm weather driving down spending on utilities.
But none of that will translate into headlines for a president obsessed by front-page media coverage.
“Politics isn’t about details, it’s about headlines,” said Shepherdson. “And these headlines are going to be awful.”As it turns out, there’s not much of a market for 41-year-old scale-tipping hurlers.
The Mets haven’t gotten “even a nibble” on veteran Bartolo Colon — all 285 pounds of him — as the July 31 trade deadline nears, according to the New York Post.
Colon, who was signed this offseason to a two-year deal, is considered one of the Mets’ most likely trade chips. He’s under contract for $11 million next season, and the organization is flush with young, live arms.
Earlier this month, the Post reported that general manager Sandy Alderson would entertain offers for Colon, and may even “actively” shop the veteran starter.
But Colon has lost his last three decisions (four starts) while seeing his ERA jump to 4.12. An 18-game winner for Oakland in 2013, Colon has gone 8-8 this season.
Mets manager Terry Collins said stomach and headache issues contributed to Colon giving up four earned runs over five innings Friday in San Diego.
“He didn’t feel very good,” Collins said. “The fifth inning wore him down a little bit. Usually as the game goes on he gets better.”
It’s believed the team could be looking to flip Colon for help at shortstop or left field.
You May Also Be Interested In These StoriesSo. With that in mind, here is a rough (and only partial) inventory of the stuff mankind has left on the moon:
• more than 70 spacecraft, including rovers, modules, and crashed orbiters
• 5 American flags
• 2 golf balls
• 12 pairs of boots
• TV cameras
• film magazines
• 96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit
• numerous Hasselbad cameras and accessories
• several improvised javelins
• various hammers, tongs, rakes, and shovels
• backpacks
• insulating blankets
• utility towels
• used wet wipes
• personal hygiene kits
• empty packages of space food
• a photograph of Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke's family
• a feather from Baggin, the Air Force Academy's mascot falcon, used to conduct Apollo 15's famous "hammer-feather drop" experiment
• a small aluminum sculpture, a tribute to the American and Soviet "fallen astronauts" who died in the space race -- left by the crew of Apollo 15
• a patch from the never-launched Apollo 1 mission, which ended prematurely when flames engulfed the command module during a 1967 training exercise, killing three U.S. astronauts
• a small silicon disk bearing goodwill messages from 73 world leaders, and left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11
• a silver pin, left by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean
• a medal honoring Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin
• a cast golden olive branch left by the crew of Apollo 11
It's easy to be a little bit appalled by this -- by the waste we have left on our pristine planetary neighbor, by our treatment of the moon as yet another landfill (lunefill?). After all, literally tons of garbage!
But the trash, in this case, is strategic -- the cost of returning to Earth being high, it is the price we pay for discovery. The items we've left on the moon are also members of an enormous ecosystem of space debris: At the moment, more than 21,000 pieces of space junk -- abandoned satellites, spent rocket stages, fragments of disintegrated spacecraft -- are orbiting the planet, shrouding Earth in a man-made mantle.
But jettisoned spacecraft aside, many of the objects that reside on the moon are there because humans have selected them, specifically, to be relics of the long history of human exploration. Swirled somewhere in the gray powder of Tranquility Base, there is an olive branch, wrought of gold and human industry. That item is technically space junk; junk, however, it is not. Space has its own way of merging loss and eternity. The location of NASA's most recently crashed lunar probes was selected specifically so as to be far away from Tranquility Base and other "lunar heritage sites." And the site of the vehicles' wreckage, the agency announced this week, will be named after Sally Ride.
This seems fitting. Not only did Ride dedicate her final years to the GRAIL mission; the lunar landscape is also a frontier that represents, to us frail humans, both proximity and eternity. Whatever remains there -- whatever we choose to leave there -- takes on, by default, a special kind of perpetuity. One other earthly object that resides on that landscape is an urn containing the ashes of Eugene Shoemaker, the famed planetary geologist who dreamed, during his life, of going to the moon. The container, composed of polycarbonate, is 1.75 inches long and 0.7 inches in diameter, and carried in a vacuum-sealed, aluminum sleeve. Around it is wrapped a piece of brass foil inscribed with this passage from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet":
And, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin leaves a Security Council meeting on Dec. 31 at the United Nations in New York. | Getty Russian ambassador to U.N. dies in New York City
Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, died in New York City on Monday at 64, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in a statement Monday.
"A prominent Russian diplomat has passed away while at work. We'd like to express our sincere condolences to Vitaly Churkin's family," the ministry said in the statement.
Story Continued Below
Vladimir Safronkov, Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, told The Associated Press that Churkin became ill in his office Monday and was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he passed away. The foreign ministry's official Facebook account said in a post that Churkin "died in harness" a day ahead of this 65th birthday.
They provided no further details of the circumstances surrounding his death. A cause of death was not immediately identified at the hospital.
The Russian embassy in the United States called his passing a "[t]remendous loss for Russian diplomacy" in a tweet Monday.
Numerous colleagues, both recent and past, lavished Churckin's diplomatic prowess and integrity after news of his passing spread. Many stressed that while they often opposed the views of Churkin and Russia, they held deep respect for his commitment to his country.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley touted Churkin as a "gracious colleague" in a statement released Monday.
"We did not always see things the same way, but he unquestionably advocated his country's positions with great skill," she said.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power tweeted Monday that she was "devastated" by his passing, calling Churkin a "diplomatic maestro & deeply caring man who did all he [could] to bridge US-RUS differences."
French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said Churkin "always worked together in a spirit of mutual respect and personal friendship," despite their political differences.
The U.N. held a moment of silence in remembrance of Churkin at their international headquarters in New York City Monday.
Churkin was born in Moscow in 1952. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1974 before joining the Soviet Union's foreign ministry that same year. He has served as Russia's representative to the U.N. since 2006 and was the longest-serving member on the United Nations Security Council, the most powerful body within the U.N.
Churkin previously served as an ambassador to Belgium and Canada, as well as a liaison to NATO.You demanded it! Thank You for Not Coaching is back in its usual Tuesday time slot to review the sprawling action of Week 13. Of course, while the NFL stretched out and played this week’s games over a five-day stretch, the most-discussed decisions of the past seven days both took place on Saturday, when Michigan and Alabama made calls that had an enormous impact on the college football season. There wasn’t a coaching decision quite as meaningful in the pro ranks this past week, but one team did critically injure its playoff hopes with a surprising misstep. As you might suspect, they’re at the very end of this week’s column, and as always, we’ll start on the positive side of things.
The Three Best Decisions of Week 13
3. The Vikings get aggressive on fourth down. Minnesota ticks off just about every box in terms of teams that should be hyperaggressive on fourth down. They have a great running back in Adrian Peterson, who is capable of pushing piles forward and finding the extra yard with his effort and vision. They have nothing to lose, as they’re a struggling football team with no reason to stay tied to conventional wisdom. On Sunday, they also had the benefit of a great matchup, since Chicago’s run defense is putrid, if only because its front seven is riddled with injuries.
After halftime, they got aggressive on fourth down. They converted a fourth-and-1 from the Chicago 35-yard line in the third quarter with a Peterson run for five yards on a drive that eventually produced a field goal. Two drives later, Peterson ran for 19 yards on fourth-and-1 from Chicago’s 31-yard line. That conversion eventually led to a touchdown. Minnesota needed those 10 points to get to overtime, where they eked out a win. But more on that later.
2. Jack Del Rio gets off a pair of low-risk, high-reward challenges. In his final game as interim Broncos head coach, Jack Del Rio actually did an excellent job of using the challenges he had left in situations with significant upsides. Nursing a lead in the fourth quarter, Del Rio threw his challenge flag out for two would-be Chiefs fumbles that were close enough to merit a replay. In both cases, winning the challenge would have essentially ended the game. The first would have given Denver the ball deep in Kansas City territory with a 35-21 lead and 12 minutes to go, while the second would have given Denver the ball inside the Kansas City 5-yard line with a seven-point lead and 3:27 left to go. With a lead and Peyton Manning in the fourth quarter, Del Rio was right to try to use those challenges (and the attached timeouts) to end the game on close calls.
1. The Dolphins go for it, fail, and end up taking the points anyway. Just as the Vikings and Broncos adapted their decision making to the situation at hand, Miami coach Joe Philbin made the right call by being aggressive at the end of the first half in his game against the Jets. With two timeouts and two minutes to go, the Dolphins faced a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line and chose to go for it, with Ryan Tannehill throwing an incomplete pass to Charles Clay. That’s the right decision in terms of your average point expectation, and given that the Jets have a very good run defense, throwing for the yard is probably the right play call. (Miami failed on a previous fourth-and-1 in no-man’s-land in the first quarter when Tannehill overthrew an open Brian Hartline for a would-be touchdown.)
What makes the call so great is that the Dolphins were in a 0-0 game against Geno Smith. A touchdown in that spot might be enough to win the game outright. Then, if the Dolphins fail, Smith is a turnover machine who is entirely capable of giving the ball right back if the Jets try anything remotely aggressive, meaning that Miami’s next drive is likely to begin with excellent field position. As it turned out, the Dolphins used their two timeouts after two Jets runs, and when a third-down pass fell incomplete, the ensuing punt saw Miami take over on the Jets’ 46-yard line with 1:35 left. Not only did the Dolphins have enough time to drive back downfield and get in range for another field goal, they even picked off Smith on the subsequent drive and kicked a second field goal before halftime. Miami was right to be aggressive and ended up with two field goals to show for its efforts, even if the touchdown attempt failed.
College Night
OK. For one week only, I’m sneaking a special college-football edition into TYFNC. The decisions were just too big to ignore. Don’t think this means that I’ll be analyzing every Hawaii fourth-down decision next year; there’s just too much football during the week to cover. But with the weird NFL week, there’s space to look at the big decisions from Saturday football.
Let’s start with the obvious one: Michigan–Ohio State. There, a Michigan touchdown brought the Wolverines within one point of their hated brethren, 42-41. With just 32 seconds left on the clock, Michigan head coach Brady Hoke reportedly conducted a quick poll of his seniors and asked them whether he should go for two to win the game. They all obliged, so Hoke sent out his offense, only for a Devin Gardner pass to be intercepted, ending the game.
Was Hoke’s decision the correct one? Absolutely, and it’s not even close. You’re weighing the probability of winning by converting from two yards out versus the probability of winning in one or more overtimes, and the former is clearly greater than the latter. Michigan were 17-point underdogs heading into the game, and if you’re a massive favorite, your advantage is more likely to show over a larger sample than it is over a very small one. Bringing the game down to a single play increases the variance of outcomes, which is of huge value to the underdog. Even if the pregame spread overstated the difference in play between the two teams, Michigan would have unquestionably been comfortable underdogs heading into overtime, which would likely take place over 15 plays or more.
When you compare that to the likelihood that Michigan would convert a two-pointer, it’s a no-brainer. Their chances of converting from two yards out (if we assume they don’t allow Ohio State to score in the subsequent 32 seconds) are far higher than their chances of winning an even game in overtime, especially given the relative strengths of their team. Michigan’s defense had basically been run over by the Ohio State rushing attack all day, with Carlos Hyde & Co. combining for 393 yards on 46 carries. Ohio State punted just three times all day. And Michigan’s offense had been brilliant, too, with Gardner going 32-of-45 for a staggering 451 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions (before the two-point play). The Michigan running game had even averaged 4.3 yards per carry, and the Wolverines had scored on each of their three final possessions of the game. Going for two played to Michigan’s strengths as a team, eliminated their weakness, and created a higher-variance opportunity for the team to win. It’s the right call in that situation every time. You can argue about the play call all you want, but the decision to send the offense out there was correct.
As for Alabama’s kick and the stunning touchdown return that ensued at the end of a classic matchup with Auburn in the Iron Bowl, well, that’s trickier. Alabama were 9.5-point favorites, so it doesn’t make quite as much sense that they would opt for the high-variance opportunity of a long field goal at the end of regulation. That being said, the downside was much lower, despite what this specific outcome might evince.
Start with the upside. If Alabama backup kicker Adam Griffith hits the 57-yard field goal, Alabama wins without having to go to overtime. The odds of that kick going through the uprights aren’t great at any level. Since 1999, pro kickers are 31-for-87 (35.6 percent) on field goals from between 56 and 58 yards out, and they’re obviously much better than your typical college kicker. The only argument in Griffith’s favor is that he, unlike some pro kickers in this situation, is not stuck kicking in a situation for which he lacks the leg. Nick Saban didn’t need to stick Griffith out there to try to win the game; he would only send out his backup kicker if he thought Griffith had a legitimate shot at making the kick. Given that Griffith nearly put the bomb through the uprights, Saban wasn’t wrong to believe in Griffith. Let’s throw a wild guess out there and suggest Griffith’s odds of making the kick were right around 18 percent.
Now, the downside. What if Griffith misses? Well, in most cases, the game goes to overtime anyway. Since we saw what happened, it’s been assumed that any failure on Griffith’s kick was going to result in a Auburn touchdown, which just isn’t remotely true. Think about everything that has to go right for Auburn to return that kick for a touchdown. Griffith has to miss the kick, but that’s not enough. He has to miss it short; he can’t push it to either side of the uprights and into the net. He can’t miss it too far wide, because if the kick is wildly to the left or the right, Auburn return man Chris Davis isn’t going to be able to field it cleanly (or at all) and won’t have a return play. So, Griffith has to miss it straight-on and come up just short of the uprights to set up a possible return. The odds of all of that in itself happening are already likely below 18 percent.
Then, of course, Davis has to return the kick 100-plus yards for a touchdown, as if that were some sort of assured likelihood from the moment he touched the football. The common logic has become that teams are naive for trying those long field goals because, in the case of a return, the big guys they have blocking are stuck trying to tackle a speedy return man. You know, like we’re playing NES Ice Hockey here or something. Adding a return man to the equation does put a smaller, faster player on the field, but the defense that lines up to block field goals and extra points has plenty of slow guys lining up across from the big offensive linemen, too. Watch the play again and you’ll notice that Alabama has several smaller players in pursuit of Davis, while Auburn has a number of enormous players blocking on Davis’s behalf. The problem was that Auburn’s players out-executed Alabama’s guys: Note 194-pound Ryan Smith pancaking star Alabama lineman Arie Kouandjio, who’s listed at 315 pounds. I don’t doubt that Auburn’s guys on the field were faster than Alabama’s group, but it’s not as cut-and-dry as has been reported.
The truth is that returning the kick for a touchdown is far from a sure thing, despite what selective memory tells us. From my count, there have been four such returns in the NFL since 2002, each of which came from a kick from a minimum of 52 yards. Even if we don’t consider the made field goals, that’s four touchdowns amid 389 missed field goals from that distance — a mere 1 percent rate of kicks returned for touchdowns. Even if you assume the odds are greater just by having a guy back there to return and you throw in the odds of a blocked field goal being returned for a touchdown, you’re never going to come to a number that’s higher than the odds of Alabama actually making the kick. Saban was right to try for the game winner. He played to win the game.
The Week in Riverboat Ron
He might want to be called Analytical Ron, but here, he’ll always be Riverboat Ron Rivera. And on Sunday, the Panthers added another fourth-down conversion to their long list of short-yardage successes. I’d call it another notch on the bedpost, but Steve Smith might sue me and then beat me up after winning the lawsuit.
Anyway, the Panthers just went through the usual steps. They were up 10-6 in the second quarter and faced a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line against the Buccaneers, who have the league’s eighth-best run defense. Riverboat Ron let the clock wind down before calling a timeout, which remains the only flaw in his fourth-down strategy; he does that more often than not, and it’s going to cost Carolina a meaningful timeout some day. When the Panthers came out of the timeout, they lined up to go for it and pulled the Cam Newton diving sneak out of their arsenal; Newton broke the plane of the goal line before the ball was knocked out of his hands, resulting in yet another Panthers touchdown. It was Carolina’s seventh successful fourth-and-short conversion of eight meaningful attempts this year, with a drop from Brandon LaFell blemishing the perfect record. Each of the seven conversions has either resulted in a touchdown or extended a drive that would eventually produce a touchdown.
I can’t even get angry at Rivera for kicking a field goal on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter; there, a 22-yarder from Graham Gano put Carolina up by 21 points with 6:43 to go. Tampa Bay was so interested in trying to mount a comeback after that, Greg Schiano’s men punted at the end of a three-and-out on the very next drive.
Halftime Draw Report
Demerits for four teams this week, and again, it’s often with running backs for whom pre-halftime handoffs seem like terrible ideas.
Why are the Broncos handing the ball to fumble-prone Montee Ball on their own 12-yard line with 25 seconds left in the first half against Kansas City? So they can gain the two yards Ball scrounged up? Denver was trailing at the time; a turnover and a cheap field goal for the Chiefs could have served as the margin of victory if things broke differently. And likewise, in a close game, did Minnesota really need to get six yards from Toby Gerhart on a one-play drive from their own 15-yard line with 12 seconds left? At least they gave Adrian Peterson a rest.
San Diego mounted little offense amid its loss to Cincinnati, but was Danny Woodhead really going to break a long gain with 22 seconds left and the ball on his own 26-yard line? Was he really going to outrun the Bengals defense? At least throw him a screen and try to get some misdirection going. He gained five yards. And while a 15-yard run from Kendall Hunter with 54 seconds left was nullified by a penalty, the 49ers could have just knelt on the ball and gone to halftime without handing the ball off again to Hunter, who is a year removed from Achilles surgery. Keep your backs healthy and avoid turnovers, guys.
The Three Worst Decisions of Week 13
3. The meaningless halftime draw to Montee Ball in Kansas City. That really gets me.
2. The Rams run a fake punt on fourth-and-8 deep inside their own territory. Last year, the Rams got away with a fake punt on their own side of the field just before halftime that I regarded as one of the stupidest plays of the year: It was all downside with virtually no upside, since the team wouldn’t be able to capitalize on the success of the fake, anyway.
Here, the logic didn’t make much more sense. Whether it was Jeff Fisher from the sidelines or punter Johnny Hekker making a call at the line of scrimmage, the move just didn’t pass the smell test. The Rams were down 16-6 with 14:42 to go in the contest, facing a fourth-and-8 on their own 22-yard line. You’re not desperate enough in that situation to go for it, given that you only need a touchdown and a field goal to tie, so why would you instead try a fake field goal, which puts out inferior personnel for running with and catching the football? The Rams didn’t have big guys out there moving the ball like the Alabama critics might have imagined, but they instead ended up with safety Matt Giordano taking a direct snap and trying to run up the middle for eight yards. That’s suboptimal when you consider the variety of weapons the Rams have on offense. If they wanted to try to convert, they just should have gone for it. Instead, they failed on the fake punt, lost yardage, and the 49ers scored a touchdown to seal the game on the next play.
1. Marc Trestman settles for a 47-yard field goal in overtime against the Vikings and loses. It pains me to criticize Trestman, who has been such a great in-game coach this year, but he blew this one. Even worse, he’s been so thoughtful in his answers to the media that we can pinpoint how he blew it. Trestman said after the game that his plan was to kick as soon as the team got in Robbie Gould’s field goal range, which ended up producing a field goal attempt on second down from 47 yards out, which Gould missed.
The problem in Trestman’s thinking is treating “field goal range” like a binary variable as opposed to, well, a range. You can’t just treat a kicker’s likelihood of success as either in-range or out-of-range, because that’s not the way kickers work, regardless of how good they are. Even if you think your kicker’s range is around 50 yards, which appears to be how Trestman regards Gould, your odds of successfully hitting that kick do not remain the same within that range. As Jason Lisk noted yesterday, Gould is 13-of-20 (65 percent) on kicks between 45 and 49 yards over the past five seasons, but that figure improves to 15-of-17 (88 percent) on kicks between 35 and 39 yards. Those are small samples, but it’s true that all kickers see their accuracy rise notably as the kicks become shorter over the broader NFL sample.
By immediately kicking when Gould gets “in his range,” Trestman could be suggesting that the probability of Gould succeeding from any spot in his range is roughly similar, which is patently false. He could alternately be suggesting that the likelihood of losing yardage (via a bad play or a penalty) or the ball altogether (via a turnover) is much greater than any improvement in Gould’s probability that would come by attempting to advance the ball further, but remember the range chart in the preseason TYFNC piece and how drastically a kicker’s odds of success can change by improving the field position even five yards. Trestman should have given his team two more chances at trying to convert and created an easier kick for Gould, as opposed to kicking from the moment he got inside Gould’s range.Henry Winkler: ‘Leather was associated with crime, so at first I had to wear a puce golf jacket. It did not look cool’
Henry Winkler, the Fonz
As a kid I was told I would never achieve anything, that I was a dumb dog. But I moved to LA in 1973 and two weeks later went to Paramount Studios for an audition – with hair down to my shoulders and a gigantic sweat patch because I was petrified. I walked in and said six lines. I guess I did them pretty well because I got the part of Arthur Fonzarelli.
Richie, Joanie, Potsy and Mrs Cunningham had been cast already, back in 1971, because Happy Days was a fleshed-out version of a vignette from another show, called Love, American Style. The network, ABC, thought I’d be associated with crime if I wore a leather jacket. At first, they had me put on a flimsy-collared golf jacket. It was unbelievably hard to be cool in puce. Garry Marshall, the show’s creator, struck a deal with ABC letting me wear leather. The first one I had got stolen from the costume department, so they made me five more and kept them in a vault.
Henry Winkler: 'The Fonz was everything I wanted to be' Read more
Everyone who’s ever played a Fonz-like cool character has always done the same things: combed their hair, stuck cigarette packets up the sleeve of their T-shirt. I swore I wouldn’t do any of that. Then, in the pilot, I had to look in a mirror. I told the director: “I can’t comb my hair, I made a deal with myself.” He replied: “It’s written. You have to.” So I walked up, held up my comb, then went: “Heeeey … that’s perfect, I don’t need to comb.” That moment defined the Fonz. I got the “Heeeey” and the “Whoaaa” from my favourite sport at the time: horse-riding.
The family Garry created made 255 episodes. We even had our own baseball team: we’d play against other shows, other networks. But the most important thing, besides lunch, was making a funny show from beginning to end. At first, we shot it like a movie, with one camera at a studio – Arnold’s diner was on the back lot. One day, Ron Howard and I saw Robert De Niro and Francis Ford Coppola filming – it turned out The Godfather Part II was being shot in our studio, too. As young actors, our mouths dropped open.
Then, in 1975, we started filming before a live audience. On Monday morning, we’d do a read of the new script. Being dyslexic, I would stumble and screw up everyone’s comic timing. It was humiliating. The next day, we could arrive to find the script had been entirely rewritten. At 4pm on Friday, they brought in an audience of 300 and we did the episode, foibles and all. The writers then feverishly rewrote the things that didn’t work, giving us notes over dinner, which we’d memorise while getting into costume and makeup. Then at 7pm, we filmed before a new audience, barrelling through until about 1am, by which time the crowd were falling asleep.
Robin Williams picked up a script and I realised I was in the presence of greatness
One Monday, there was a new character suggested by Garry’s seven-year-old son. He said the Fonz should meet an alien, so Garry wrote it. But they couldn’t cast him. It was two days before filming and the script supervisor was still reading Mork from Ork’s lines. Then in comes this young actor who hadn’t done a lot of TV, mostly standup, very shy. His name was Robin Williams. He picked up a script and I realised two things: I’m in the presence of greatness and my job here is to get out of his way.
All over the world, people still click their fingers at me like I did to women in the show. The advice I’ve always given about the Fonz’s sexism is this: “Never snap your fingers at a girl. They will break them off your hand.” And I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but if you hit a jukebox at the same time as a man named Fred plugs it in, you too can start a song playing. You too can make magic.
Garry Marshall, creator
In 1971, I was asked to make a show about flappers in the 1920s and 30s. I said I know nothing about that era, but I’ll do it if it’s set in the 50s. Back then, it would have been hard to do an honest depiction of teenagers without showing drugs and booze – and we didn’t want to do that. By making it nostalgic, we avoided all that.
When I did the original pilot, no one would buy it. The networks said who cares about the 50s? Luckily, along came a wonderful film called American Graffiti and ABC said: “We can have some of that.” Fonzie wasn’t in the original, but I soon realised I wanted a character from the other side of the tracks. I grew up in the Bronx and patented him off a guy in my neighbourhood called Anthony who could tie a rope to an ice truck and pull it along with his teeth. I always thought that was magical.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Back to 1974 … Happy Days with (seated, from left) Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Donny Most. Photograph: ABC via Getty Images
The furthest we took his “magic” was when the gang went camping in the woods. All the crickets and owls were making loads of noise and he says: “Cool it!” And they stop instantly. Mork was the craziest plot, though. My son was into Star Wars and moaned there wasn’t enough space in Happy Days. Robin Williams had only played one part before, a farmer, so it was me who gave him his big break.
One of our most popular episodes was when Fonzie pretended he had somewhere to spend Christmas, when really he was home alone. So Richie went round to take him for Christmas at the Cunninghams. For a lot of people, the Cunninghams were the ideal family. They always ate dinner together and would hug all the time. A lot of people who were abused growing up used to write to me and say they would watch Happy Days and think: “Maybe there’s a better family out there somewhere.”
I wanted the show to be called COOL, but test audiences thought it a brand of cigarette, so my producer said: “How about Happy Days? That’s what we’re going to show.”If people are forced to wear helmets they may give up cycling altogether and lose the health benefits of regular exercise, they warned.
More than two thirds of the respected journal's readers said they opposed compulsory helmets for adults.
One respondent in the poll of 1,427 people said: "It gives out the message that cycling is dangerous, which it is not. The evidence that cycling helmets work to reduce injury is not conclusive.
"What has, however, been shown is that laws that make wearing helmets compulsory decrease cycling activity. Cycling is a healthy activity and cyclists live longer on average than non-cyclists."
Another added: "Since nowhere with a helmet law can show any reduction in risk to cyclists, only a reduction in cyclists, why would anyone want to bring in a law for something which is clearly not effective at reducing the risk to cyclists?"
Australia made it illegal to not wear a helmet in 1991 but Sydney University researchers have called for the law to be repealed, arguing that the fall in head injuries was down to road safety improvements, rather than the new law.
They also cited figures from Western Australia which suggested that the legislation led to a 30 per cent drop in cycling rates.
Chris Rissell, one of the researchers, said: "I'd recommend a trial repeal in one city for two years to allow researchers to make observations and see if there's an increase in head injuries, and on the basis of that you could come to some informed policy decision."The story of DeKalb County’s racial evolution can largely be told in terms of black and white.
DeKalb became a “majority minority” county – that is, white people were no longer the predominant race – in 1991. This year, minorities make up 70 percent of the county.
» How do you experience race in Atlanta?
This is according to data from Woods & Poole Economics Inc., a Washington D.C. firm that specializes in economic and demographic data on counties. In 2017, DeKalb is 54 percent black, 30 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian, according to Woods & Poole.
Indeed, DeKalb’s white population has declined every year as a percentage of the total since 1990 and is expected to continue this annual decline through 2050, according to the data projections. Likewise the black population. It peaked at 55 percent of the total in 2007 and is expected to decline gradually through 2050 as Hispanics and Asians both increase.
The AJC compiled this information as part of its new RE: Race coverage. Coming on Thursday, you’ll be able to interact with a graphic that tracks actual or projected racial breakdowns of DeKalb and every other Georgia county from 1990 through 2050.
The inaugural story – about the extraordinary demographic transformation of Cobb County – of our RE: Race project will be posted on Thursday.
You are encouraged to comment on any aspect of the AJC’s race and ethnicity coverage. Commenting is moderated by AJC editors.If there was any reason to believe that the Green Bay Packers would entertain the possibility of signing Colin Kaepernick, head coach Mike McCarthy shut the door on that Monday.
One day after the Packers lost Aaron Rodgers to a broken collarbone, McCarthy addressed the media for his weekly press conference and grew agitated when asked about Kaepernick.
Don't think Mike McCarthy has any interest in answering questions about Colin Kaepernick. pic.twitter.com/CbMrLlBS7L — Steven Ruiz (@theStevenRuiz) October 16, 2017
McCarthy snapped back at a reporter:
“Did you just listen to that question I just answered? I got three years invested in Brett Hundley. Two years invested in Joe Callahan. The quarterback room is |
ari bent to the threats of Tellem and the will of a wary ownership. Instead, they went with the safer pick of Kerry Kittles. A run of big men (Samaki Walker to Dallas, Erick Dampier to Indiana, Todd Fuller to Golden State, and Vitaly Potapenko to Cleveland) created the dream scenario for Kobe, who was taken at No. 13 by Charlotte.
Everyone thought it was done. Almost miraculously, all the pieces had fallen into place. The Hornets were fully prepared to move Bryant to L.A. in exchange for Divac. The only problem? Divac, apparently, wasn't willing to be moved, and in fact threatened to retire if the deal went through.
From June 26 to July 11, the Lakers, Hornets and Divac were at a stalemate. Vlade didn't want to leave L.A. He'd worked hard to become entrenched in that organization and the fans had fallen in love with him. He didn't want to go to the other side of the country to play for a decent Charlotte team. This, obviously, was going to blow up West's plan. The trade for Kobe couldn't be completed without Hornets GM Bob Bass getting a guarantee Divac would play.
From the Charlotte Observer:
The morning of that draft we got a tip at the Observer that the Hornets were discussing a trade to acquire a center. Eventually, working with Scott Howard-Cooper, then of the Los Angeles Times, we figured out this was the deal: If Bryant lasted to the Hornets’ 13th pick, they would select him and deal him to the Lakers for Divac’s pre-existing contract. That gave West both Bryant and the cap space to pursue O’Neal. This got a little complicated when Divac threatened to retire, rather than report to the Hornets. I asked Bass what he’d do if Divac didn’t relent and Bass said he’d keep Bryant. That put Tellem in a nasty mood. Eighteen years later I remember him screaming at me over the phone from Southern California that Bryant would be a Laker no matter what. Divac gave in and the deal was completed in July. A few weeks into his rookie season I caught up with Bryant at Madison Square Garden before a Knicks game, and asked him what would have happened had Divac retired. He grinned and said he’d be a Hornet, that anything else was just a bluff.
Perhaps this is true. Perhaps Divac truly held the future of the Lakers, and in many ways the NBA as a whole, in his hands. If he doesn't relent and that deal never goes through, maybe Shaq stays in Orlando with Anfernee Hardaway, and maybe we're looking at a different kind of Disney dynasty. And Kobe as a Hornet? How long would that have lasted? It's hard to imagine him in any other jersey.
In the end, Divac loved the Lakers so much that he didn't want to ruin West's plans for the franchise. He agreed to give it a shot in Charlotte. The trade went through on July 11. Seven days later, Shaq and the Lakers inked a seven-year, $120 million contract, thus adding two of the greatest players of all time to a core that included Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, and Cedric Ceballos -- the latter of which the Lakers traded that same season for Robert Horry.
Just like that, a dynasty was forged thanks to the indecision and distrust of others, the threats of a camp steadfast on getting Kobe to the place he wanted to play, and the new, scary world of high school kids forgoing college for the opportunity to cash in on millions of dollars. Twelve teams -- actually 13 if you count the Hornets -- will forever be kicking themselves for not seeing what West saw in Bryant, or if they did, not having the gumption to act on it. That's no disrespect to Iverson, who was just elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame, or Allen, who will surely join him shortly. That's just a fact. Kobe Bryant was unquestionably the best player in that class, and arguably the best player of his generation.
The Lakers got him. And the NBA was never the same.It's perhaps an unfair narrative, one of many, that has attached itself to John Obi Mikel over the years. After all, one does not amass 365 appearances (that's NINETEENTH(!!) all-time in Chelsea history) without actually playing plenty of games rather than just sitting on the bench and collecting a fat paycheck.
Last season was in fact that first time in his Chelsea career that Mikel failed to make at least 30 appearances. This season was running along similar lines until Hiddink arrived, and drafted the midfielder back into the regular starting lineup. Chelsea's fortunes haven't really turned around to a great degree, but at least Mikel's been happy. And now, he wants to ensure that happiness — i.e. playing time — continues, even if that takes him away from Stamford Bridge.
"I have one more season with Chelsea but I know when this season ends, we will definitely sit down and try to sort out whatever needs to be sorted out." "If it means me leaving, fine. If it means me staying, then I have to play because one thing I don't want to do is to sit on the bench like I did before [...] especially now when you have kids you just want to do what you can to play." "Wherever it is I just want to play. When this season ends we will definitely sort out the contracts." -John Obi Mikel; source: Goal
The names ahead of Mikel in the top appearances chart are all undisputed legends: Bentley, Tambling, Cooke, Osgood, Drogba, just to name a few of the closest. Mikel's a month shy of his 29th birthday; if he stays, he has a real chance of surpassing them all. Alas, it's increasingly looking like he will join the summer exodus from SW6. After all these years of false rumors about him leaving, we might actually see one of them come true.
This, his tenth season, could very well be Mikel's last at Chelsea.In 2014 Conan O'Brien did a spoof of Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE's interview with Diane Sawyer about her lack of lingering health issues following her 2012 concussion. In an obviously photoshopped version Clinton's eyes are made to oscillate crazily.
It was a very funny piece. Now, it may not seem so funny.
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Hillary Clinton exhibited abnormal eye movements during her recent speech in Philadelphia and they were not photoshopped.
Her eyes did not always move in the same direction at the same time. It appears that she has a problem with her left sixth cranial nerve. That nerve serves only one function and that is to make the lateral rectus muscle contract. That muscle turns the eye in the direction away from the midline.
It comes out of the base of the brain and runs along the floor of the skull, immediately beneath the brain before coursing upward to the eye. Dysfunction of that muscle causes the striking picture of the eyes not aiming in the same direction and causes the patient to suffer double vision.
Like all things medical, there is a long list of potential causes but in my opinion the most likely one, based on Clinton's known medical history is an intermittent lateral rectus palsy caused by damage to or pressure on her sixth cranial nerve.
It is known that she suffered a traumatic brain injury in late 2012 when she fell and struck her head. What is also known is that she was diagnosed with a transverse sinus thrombosis — blood clot in the major vein at the base of the brain. Almost all patients with a transverse sinus thrombosis suffer swelling of the brain and increased intracranial pressure. Most have headaches, balance issues and visual disturbances — all of which Clinton was reported to have following that event.
Clinton's physician reported that she was placed on Coumadin (a blood thinner) to dissolve the blood clot. Actually, that is incorrect, because Coumadin has no effect on an existing clot. It serves only to decrease the chance of further clotting occurring Clinton's physician has also reported that on follow up exam, the clot had resolved. That is surprising since the majority of such clots do not dissolve. The way it was documented that the clot had resolved has not been reported.
If, as is statistically likely, Clinton's transverse sinus is still blocked, she would still have increased pressure and swelling and decreased blood flow to her brain. That swelling would place pressure on the exposed portion of the sixth cranial nerve at the base of her brain, explaining the apparent lateral rectus palsy. And such a deficit can be partial and/or intermittent.
Additionally, when patients who have decreased intracranial blood flow becoming volume depleted (dehydrated) or have a drop in blood pressure loss of consciousness can occur. That could explain her witnessed collapse in New York City on 9/11.
One thing that is taught early in medical school is that a patient's history, physical exam, signs and symptoms should usually lead to a single diagnosis.
Crudely put "when you itch, it is probably not lice and fleas but one or the other." More professionally put, in most cases the patient's symptoms can be explained by one unifying diagnosis, not a constellation of disparate ones. The admittedly speculative scenario I propose is an attempt to understand and rationally explain what is going on, based on known facts and the observable signs exhibited by Clinton.
Having previously written about this, I once again suggest that she undergo an independent neurologic exam and have proper studies to determine whether or not she still has a blood clot at the base of her brain, swelling of the brain, increased intracranial pressure and whether or not her 2012 traumatic brain injury was accompanied by a skull fracture with or without bleeding around or in the brain itself and if there are any residual areas of scarring of the brain.
Critics will rightly point out that I have not examined Clinton. They will point out that I am not ophthalmologist or a neurologist. But I am a physician and the concepts discussed above are taught to every medical student early in their education. Her traumatic brain injury, transverse sinus thrombosis, subsequent symptoms, falling, passing out and now the obvious problem with eye movement are all fact, not speculation.
It would be very helpful if Clinton agreed to an independent exam and to have the questions raised here answered. It is too important not to get this right.
John R. Coppedge, MD, FACS is a general surgeon from Texas.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.The University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Larry Ogunjobi recently acknowledged that he has been in communication with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ogunjobi, the son of two Nigerian immigrants, has taken the path less traveled on the way to becoming an intriguing prospect in the 2017 NFL Draft.
Larry Ogunjobi: Nose Tackle of the Future for the Pittsburgh Steelers?
Ogunjobi had absolutely no interest in playing football until his parents pleaded with him as a sophomore in high school to lose weight. At the time, Ogunjobi acknowledged during our recent interview that he was tipping the scales at 350 pounds and played his first season on junior varsity as a standing nose tackle because he was literally unable to get into a football stance.
“I just didn’t have enough upper-body strength to support myself at the time” Ogunjobi reminisced in a recent interview. He went on to emphasize just how important his sophomore year was, “at the end of the season we had a banquet, and I thought my best friend was going to receive the award for most improved JV player, but they ended up calling my name, and that was the first time in my life I felt like I got a reward for something that I really worked for.”
Still, his path to becoming an NFL prospect was far from normal. He signed on to play football at Charlotte the first year they offered a NCAA Division I football program after coming out of high school as a two-star recruit. When asked about attending Charlotte, Ogunjobi stated, “Being a first generation American, I didn’t understand how the system worked, I didn’t attend any camps, I had one official visit; to Charlotte and it felt like a good fit. I prayed on it, and decided that’s where I would play.”
Ogunjobi is listed as a redshirt senior going into the 2017 draft, but ironically never missed a game in his time with the Charlotte 49ers. When asked about his redshirt status Ogunjobi chuckled.
“When I got to Charlotte, they were still building the football stadium, on my official visit, there was nothing there,” he noted. “All I saw was dirt, even the fieldhouse wasn’t finished, but football was so new to me that I didn’t have any complaints. Ignorance is bliss, I was just happy to be a part of it.”
Even though it was far from a normal Division I football program when he signed on, Ogunjobi looked back on his time in Charlotte fondly.
“In 2012 we had a program but didn’t have a team, so everybody in that inaugural class redshirted,” Ogunjobi emphasized, “because all we did was practice. We practiced so much it was crazy, but it was a good thing though, none of us had ever played college football and we needed that time to get our bodies acclimated to what we were going to go into.”
The hard work paid off as Ogunjobi went on to start all 46 games in school history. Even more impressive, he is leaving Charlotte as the program’s all-time tackling leader. Graduating with 219 tackles even though he’s been a career nose tackle.
Ogunjobi is one of the few defensive line prospects in the 2017 NFL Draft that has experience playing as a true nose tackle commonly referred to as a one-technique. When I asked him about how he felt his talents translated to the NFL level his high football I.Q. quickly became evident.
“I feel like I’m a different type of nose guard than most people, like I played nose guard all throughout college and I was productive,” Ogunjobi said. “I just feel like the NFL is getting past the stage of space-eaters. The game is becoming too fast for that. If you have 11 guys on the field you want them all to be making progress towards the quarterback, so I stop the run, but while I’m on the way to the quarterback. That’s how a lot of team’s philosophies are nowadays and I feel like I fit that scheme and bring that versatility, whether it means playing a one-technique or a shade. I’m not the typical nose guard that’s going to sit there and latch on to blocks. I want to be disruptive. I want to make plays.”
It should come as no surprise that the Pittsburgh Steelers have some interest in seeing Ogunjobi wearing the black and gold. He has a plethora of experience playing as an interior defensive lineman, a high upside, an extremely high football I.Q. and comes across as a leader with a strong work ethic. With backup nose tackle Daniel McCullers’ rookie contract due to expire at the end of the 2017 season, the Steelers could continue to add young talent and depth behind Javon Hargrave, Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward if they decide to draft Ogunjobi.I agree with the headline of Jonathan Bernstein's column in Bloomberg today. I don't think Senator Professor Warren is "weak" for supporting the nomination of Ben Carson, a space alien, to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I just think she's mistaken because Carson has no more business running that agency than he does flying the space shuttle. But I can't go along with the general thrust of the piece, that a general opposition to the president*'s shoddy imitation of forming a government is wrongheaded because the Republicans will simply vote these people into the jobs anyway. From Bloomberg:
The reality is quite simple: The 48 Democratic senators cannot defeat Trump's cabinet picks. It takes a majority to do that, and so far at least Republicans appear ready to support whoever Trump picks. In all cases in which they do, Democrats aren't choosing between confirming and not confirming.
This, I would point out, is an argument that only Democrats ever have. Republicans don't have this sort of philosophical crisis. (Look how quickly people like Young Marco Rubio folded on Rex Tillerson.) Even Bernstein's basic formulation agrees that Republican support for even the most egregious nominees will be automatic and unanimous.
In the face of that, why shouldn't Democrats simply vote against these people? How will that make anything worse?
The former seems to be the case for liberals such as Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown, who are voting for secretary of Housing and Urban Development nominee Ben Carson. Indeed, Warren has explained that "in his written responses to me, he made good, detailed promises, on everything from protecting anti-homelessness programs to enforcing fair housing laws." If Democrats were simply knee-jerk opponents of all of Trump's nominees, Carson would have had no incentive to give Democrats any commitments at all. Of course (as Warren acknowledges) such promises aren't fully binding. But even if Carson only keeps some of his commitments, Democrats will have gained far more than an automatic symbolic "no" vote.
Ben Carson: bureaucratic rebel? Please to be stopping pulling my leg.
Nevertheless, it's a legitimate debate to have, even though it's the kind of debate that happens only among Democrats and liberals. Personally, I'd vote (maybe) for Mattis and (maybe) for Zinke, but I would vote against every other one of these nominees because I still haven't seen a good reason not to do so. I will concede that opinions may differ.
There is only one exception at this point. Any Democratic senator who votes to confirm Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as Attorney General should immediately be rendered dead to the party and to every Democratic voter in the country. The context of the immediate moment makes this imperative.
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If it isn't clear by now, there's a powerful new campaign of voter suppression coming down the road. It doesn't matter whether the sudden amplification of the "voter fraud" meme is due to the fact that the president* is delusional on the subject, or due to the fact that he needed a diversion from the stories about Russian ratfcking that were beginning to pile up on the South Lawn, or simply due to the fact that Republicans suppress votes because they're Republicans.
It could be for one of those reasons. It could be for all three of them. The motive isn't the point. The point is that we soon likely will be in the middle of the greatest political brawl over the franchise since 1965.
At a moment like this one, it simply will not do to have someone in the attorney general's office who was deemed too racist to be a federal judge 30 years ago. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general's office who launched a dirty-tricks prosecution of voting-rights activists when he was a U.S. Attorney in Alabama. It will not do to have someone in the attorney general's office who greeted the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by noting that it was "good for the South."
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions simply will not do.
It doesn't matter if the next nominee is worse. Beat that person, too. It doesn't matter how tough this may make your next re-election campaign; you didn't get elected to get re-elected. The issue of voting rights is too important to the country—and, god knows, to the party—for it to yield to any other consideration. It is an existential issue, for the republic and for the Democrats. There is no room for compromise or horse-trading. The Democratic Party should stand for the expansion of the franchise and for a greater ease in exercising it. Neither of these goals has a chance with Jefferson Beauregard Sessions running the Department of Justice.
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In the 1960s, the Democrats abandoned their Southern core leadership and threw its support behind the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act. This sea change fundamentally transformed American politics and, no matter what you may hear from conservatives trying to change the subject, it reversed forever the position of the two parties on the place of African-American citizens in the republic, an arrangement that had persisted, in fits and starts, since the election of Abraham Lincoln. From this rearrangement came the Southern Strategy and the modern conservative movement.
Any Democrat who votes for Sessions is voting against this history and is voting in such a way as to make all the political sacrifice therein a waste of time. Therefore, resistance to the Sessions nomination is a bright line in the sand beyond which should be found nothing but exile. Period, as prominent hostage Sean Spicer would say.
Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.As Islamic State propagandists set their sights on recruiting Western youths through slickly produced videos, newscasts, blogs and tweets, U.S. cities with large Muslim populations are reaching out to fight the threat in a variety of ways. In Columbus, leaders of the Somali community, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, meet frequently with law enforcement, and a mosque gives youngsters an outlet for their energies.
As Islamic State propagandists set their sights on recruiting Western youths through slickly produced videos, newscasts, blogs and tweets, U.S. cities with large Muslim populations are reaching out to fight the threat � and finding that one size does not fit all.
Two cities in Maine are mining their substantial Somali communities as they recruit police officers and teenage cadets.
In Columbus, leaders of the Somali community, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, meet frequently with law enforcement, and a mosque gives youngsters an outlet for their energies.
And in Jersey City, N.J., with a history of connections to terrorism and a mistrust of authorities among its large Muslim immigrant population, the city�s police department has formed an advisory council with local Arab-American leaders, and the recreation department will provide youths with sports, chess and other activities similar to the outreach used to combat street gangs.
�The goal on this is to really stay in front of it and have consistent outreach that reflects the community,� said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. �You have to talk to young people about what�s important to them on a cultural front, and the important thing is to do it on their terms, not yours.�
The threat of recruitment by extremist groups has come into sharp focus in recent months after a string of arrests, including ones in Minnesota and Ohio. Last week in Boston, authorities fatally shot a knife-wielding man they say wanted to kill police officers and had been recorded making a statement that the FBI interpreted as a reference to Islamic State propaganda videos.
Many cities are doing outreach to stem the threat, some with different motivations. Minneapolis, Boston and Los Angeles are participating in a federal pilot program to create opportunities for youths and those considered at risk of joining extremist groups.
Some activists worry that the program�s leadership by federal prosecutors means it could become a domestic intelligence-gathering mission.
But in Columbus, Jersey City and Portland, Maine, criticism is muted, perhaps because of authorities� low-key approach.
The challenge of steering youths away from the temptations of radical ideologues hits close to home in Jersey City. Some plotters of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing attended a mosque there, and the Sept. 11 attack across the Hudson River also reverberated.
�As law enforcement started casting around and trying to predict and interdict the next terrorist plot, by definition we damaged the relationship with that community because we saw that as the source of the threats, or at least the seeds that the threats were hiding in,� said James Shea, Jersey City�s director of public safety, who was with the New York City Police Department on Sept. 11.
Those bonds were restored over time, then frayed after revelations in 2011 that the New York Police Department spied on Muslims in northern New Jersey without telling local authorities. The city�s current outreach reflects an attempt to restore trust while at the same time addressing the recruitment efforts by extremist groups such as Islamic State in the Middle East and Al-Shabab in Somalia.
Immigrants often are reluctant to participate in government- or community-sponsored programs, making it crucial to engage their sons and daughters, Fulop said.
Shea added, �Absent the outreach at different levels, you could have the younger generations feeling alienated.�
Ahmed Shedeed, head of Jersey City�s Islamic Center, points to the lesson of Mohamed Alessa, one of two area youths arrested in 2010 and now in federal prison for seeking to join al-Shabab. Shedeed said the warning signs were there but weren�t acted on.
In Columbus, home to the nation�s second-largest Somali community, efforts are aimed at deterring the kind of radicalization alleged in a recent terrorism indictment.
Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, who grew up in central Ohio after arriving from Somalia as a child in 1999, has pleaded not guilty to plotting to kill Americans at a military base after receiving terrorism training in Syria.
A committee called the Law Enforcement Somali Advisory Group meets about every three months and brings together local police and federal law-enforcement agencies with Somali community leaders.
At Ibnu Taymiyah mosque on the North Side, a youth committee helps plan programming for congregants ages 13 to 23, aiming to keep them busy with language classes, basketball leagues, field trips and other activities.
The key is education, said Abshir Haji, 25, an Ohio University senior and adviser to the mosque�s youth committee.
�Everyone has Internet access in their house. Everybody can get on YouTube and watch whatever. We cannot control that,� Haji said. �But what we can control is teaching them or giving them the right tools for them to distinguish what is correct and what is not correct.�
In Maine, a haven for thousands of Somali immigrants, Portland police have hired Somali teens as summer cadets and worked with them through a leadership and esteem program, said acting City Manager Michael Sauschuck.
Such community policing, he said, is �is important for fighting day-to-day crime. It�s important for general, neighborhood problem-solving. And it�s important for dealing with terrorism.�
Most Somali elders, he said, have his cellphone number.
Not far away in Lewiston, where the population of 37,000 includes 3,000 to 4,000 Somalis, police are working to recruit their first Somali officers from the ranks of newly assimilated young people, Chief Michael Bussiere said.
Measuring the success of programs can be difficult. But Haji, of the Columbus mosque, pointed out that the large house of worship has never had a case of a member recruited into terror.
�Something must be working,� he said.A woman from Pittsburgh’s Upper Hill District lied about her income, address, employment and existence of three children in order to receive more than $100,000 in fraudulent welfare benefits, according to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office.
Sabrina Strothers, 23, is charged with two counts each of forgery and making false statements in a welfare investigation and one count of theft by deception, court records show.
According to a criminal complaint, Strothers reported the birth of triplets to the county Assistance Office in November 2008. Investigators wrote in the complaint that Social Security numbers provided for the children on the application came back to individuals born in 1887, 1980 and 1960. Strothers continued to list the children on applications for benefits through 2016.
Strothers also is accused of claiming a Pennsylvania address for more than a year when she was living in Baltimore, Md., according to the complaint. She also submitted a forged letter in 2013 alleging she was completing an internship in Philadelphia.
Investigators wrote that Strothers submitted employment verification for Community Psychiatric Centers, purporting she worked 20 to 24 hours a week with an hourly wage of $11.25, signed by Dr. Robert Lowenstein. According to the complaint, Strothers was working 40 hours a week at $13 an hour, and Lowenstein told police he did not sign the verification.
When she was contacted by an investigator with the Office of the Inspector General, Strothers claimed the triplets lived with their father in Georgia, and she sent her benefit card to the father to provide for the children, according to the complaint. She could provide neither an address nor telephone number for the father.
During an in-person interview, Strothers gave investigators a timeline of her pregnancy and the triplets’ lives that contradicted information she previously had given, according to the complaint. When pressed by investigators, Strothers admitted she falsified the information, the complaint states.
Investigators said Strothers fraudulently had obtained $37,269 in food-stamp benefits, nearly $90,000 in medical assistance and just more than $2,000 in benefits from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at mguza@tribweb.com.
Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff reporter. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, mguza@tribweb.com or via Twitter.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201702/2226/1155968404_5308086335001_5308076664001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump renews promise to roll back law limiting political activity by churches In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president also defended his combative phone calls with foreign leaders.
President Donald Trump used his address to the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to renew his campaign promise to undo the law that bars leaders of some tax-exempt organizations from endorsing political candidates under threat of losing that status.
During an at-times meandering speech at the annual event, Trump said he would "totally destroy" the Johnson Amendment, a portion of the tax code in place since 1954, that restricts political activity by tax-exempt churches. He said rolling back the rule would "allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution."
Story Continued Below
While the president touched on many of the themes one might expect from the event — he said he was “blessed” to have been raised in a “churched” home and cited Thomas Jefferson's assertion that freedom “is not a gift from government” but “a gift from God” — he also used the speech to offer reassurances about his relationships with foreign leaders and to take a dig at his reality-TV replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In a joking manner, Trump asked attendees to “just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings,” a reference to the former California governor, who took over for Trump as host of the NBC show, “The Celebrity Apprentice.” With Schwarzenegger as its star, Trump told the audience that the program has “been a total disaster” and that “the ratings went right down the tubes.”
With news reports swirling about separate, less than friendly phone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia, Trump also sought to assuage concerns that he might somehow damage relationships with longtime allies. In a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump called a refugee agreement “the worst deal ever” and abruptly ended the phone call.
A day earlier, in a phone call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump reportedly threatened to send U.S. troops to deal with the “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican government stops them itself.
Neither call, Trump said, should worry Americans much.
“The world is in trouble, but we're going to straighten it out, OK? That's what I do. I fix things. We're going to straighten it out. Believe me,” he said at the breakfast. “When you hear about the tough phone calls I'm having, don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. They're tough. We have to be tough. It's time we're going to be a little tough, folks. We're taken advantage of by every nation in the world, virtually. It's not going to happen anymore. It's not going to happen anymore.”
Trump also heaped praise on his newly sworn-in secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, as well as Defense Secretary James Mattis, who the president referred to as “Mad Dog,” even though Mattis has expressed a distaste for the nickname. Of his secretary of defense, Trump said, “Now, there’s a reason they call him Mad Dog Mattis: never lost a battle. Always wins them, and always wins them fast.”
“We have seen unimaginable violence carried out in the name of religion, acts of wanton abuse of minorities, horrors on a scale that defy description,” Trump said. “Terrorism is a fundamental threat to religious freedom. It must be stopped and it will be stopped. It may not be pretty for a little while. It will be stopped.”
View Trump's top moments at the National Prayer Breakfast President Trump delivers remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.
In an ironic turn, the famously ostentatious Trump, who is known for bragging about being wealthy, said, “America is a nation of believers” that too often emphasizes material wealth over spirituality.
“So easily we forget this, that the quality of our lives is not defined by our material success, but by our spiritual success. I will tell you that, and I tell you that from somebody that has had material success and knows tremendous numbers of people with great material success, the most material success,” Trump said.
“Many of those people are very, very miserable, unhappy people. And I know a lot of people without that, but they have great families, have great faith. They don't have money, at least not nearly to the extent, and they're happy. Those, to me, are the successful people, I have to tell you.”A few years ago, Sam Harris put on a contest, that awarded $2000 to the best essay critiquing his “moral landscape” theory of moral facts—and could have awarded them $20,000 had it convinced him. It didn’t. I agree it shouldn’t have. But he should have learned something from that critique. And he didn’t learn anything. And here, I’ll explain what I mean by that.
Nevertheless, someone won the two grand. And many of you who watched and discussed the contest announcement, might not have kept up with what resulted. And many might not have even known this contest happened! I think this is the kind of contest that can be extremely useful to progress in philosophy—if I were a multi-millionnaire I’d likely set up a whole institute devoted to a more rigorous application of the same contest procedure broadly across the whole spectrum of key philosophical debates. Just on a better model than Harris ended up deploying.
Here I’ll summarize the debate, what happened, and examine the contest winner’s case and Harris’s response to it. But first a little background to get you oriented…
The Backstory
I think Harris is correct in his thesis—moral facts are empirically discoverable facts and thus a proper object of scientific research (just, no one has ever done that research yet, in the sense required—so this science looks more like psychology did in the 19th century right now); and moral facts may indeed be describable as peaks on a moral landscape (I’ll explain that in a moment). The latter proposal is actually the less controversial of the two (albeit still “shocking”), and people usually ignore it to attack instead the first proposal. For how dare he say morality is a scientific question and scientists can tell us what’s morally right and morally wrong! They can’t, BTW. Any more than they could have told you how your brain works in 1830. Because the science actually hasn’t been done yet. But if it were, then yes, then scientists may, one day, be able to tell you what’s right and wrong, and they will have as much factual warrant to say that as they now have to say the earth is round and billions of years old.
The key piece missing right now is the normative values side of the equation. Most people who are at all informed know that science certainly does answer the question, “What are the actual consequences of doing A rather than not-A?” And that science is always the best means to answer that question (even if it hasn’t been tapped for that purpose yet in a given case). Where they founder is on the notion that science can answer the question, “What consequences should we value?” In other words, what consequences should we be preferring over others, such that the moral thing to do is to prefer those consequences? Harris (and other defenders of the same thesis, like Michael Shermer) have traditionally done a really poor job of answering this criticism. I suspect because they hold philosophy in contempt, and that serves as a barrier to their learning how to do it well, and then engage informedly with actual philosophers on this issue (see my discussion of the Shermer-Pigliucci debate as an example of what I mean; on the problem of this contempt for philosophy in general, see Is Philosophy Stupid?).
But that failure to articulate well the correct response to this is what the contest winner’s essay also reveals, once again. So it’s clearly the Achilles’ heel of Harris’s program to convince people of his thesis.
The second proposal, the “landscape” theory, is actually the more interesting, and where I think Harris contributed a new and valuable feature. (I had already defended the first proposal long before he did—it’s the central feature of my book Sense and Goodness without God, published in 2005, and the thesis of my peer reviewed chapter on the subject in The End of Christianity, published in 2011, soon to be back in stock at Amazon). His landscape notion is that value systems are interacting systems, and as such there may be multiple value systems that are equally good, but mutually incompatible, because of the coherence and effectiveness of their internal interaction, but individual pieces of one value system will only be good when placed in the correct system—move them over to the other system, and their interaction will cause problems. And science might well find that there are several “peak moral systems” on a “landscape” of moral systems of varying quality, and any one of those peak systems will do, as long as you stick with one whole coherent system and not try to mix and match.
A mundane example of the same principle is traffic law: there is no fact of the matter whether driving on the right (as in U.S.) or the left (as in the U.K.) is better; but each system only functions when it is internally consistent. So everyone does need to drive on the right in the U.S., and everyone does need to drive on the left in the U.K., for the system to work and maximize traffic safety and efficiency. And only systems that have one or the other are maximally safe and efficient. So there is a |
TV in high quality. The streaming links provided by Aspis Kodi addon are of great quality as they run seamlessly without crashing.
Aspis Kodi addon is present in the Supremacy Repository and we have to appreciate the act that Supremacy has been coming up with some great addons for Kodi users.
Crazy
Judging by its name, you should know that this add-on is crazy as in amazing. This add-on has a lot in its library like Movies, TV shows, Kids shows and cartoons, YouTube videos, and its own Crazy-utube etc. It has got a lot more for users in its sub-men sections and every category has some sub-categories, making it easy for the users to find their desired content.
Digibox
Digibox add-on is a treat especially for the users that have Trakt, Real Debrid accounts, and for users who do not have it can still enjoy this add-on through standard streaming links. Users can stream movies, TV shows and documentaries as well.
Chronos
Chronos is not just a Movie add-on; in fact, this add-on is for those users who wish to take their entertainment experience to a next level. Users can stream Live TV events, Watch Sports, Stream Concerts and even adult content. However, for adult content, users require a login password to access.
New Kodi Add-ons
Add-ons keep on coming and going every day. We aim to keep you updated with the New Kodi addons that have just entered the race, so that viewers keep on streaming and enjoying the Kodi experience without any hassle.
Magicality Kodi Addon
Magicality Kodi Addon was originally a fork of the Exodus Kodi Addon and The Resistance Kodi Addon. However, when Blamo Repository went down, a big gap was left behind because two great Kodi addons; Placenta and Neptune Rising, went down with it.
To fill this gap, the developer of Magicality Kodi addon updated it by using the source codings of Placenta and Neptune Rising. This is why Magicality Kodi addon provides the links through the same providers that were used by Placenta and Neptune Rising.
We can say that Magicality Kodi add-on is the new Neptune Rising or New Placenta Kodi addon because it provides all the best features like Movies and TV shows.
Deathstar Kodi Addon
DeathStar Kodi addon is one of a kind Kodi addon that was developed by six different development teams; UKODI1, DNA, OneNation, EzZeRmAn, Expose, and NoleNation. This addon has around 30 other addons, which is like add-ons within an add-on.
Deathstar Kodi Addon keeps on inviting more developers to join hands with them in this project and you can see that for yourself in news section.
Dubbed Anime
Great news for Anime fans all around the world as another new Dubbed Anime addon has come to the table of Kodi addons. There are quite few Anime addons and thus users face many issues with them. Under such circumstances, Dubbed Anime will surely be praised a lot by the Kodi users who use Kodi for streaming Anime content. Dubbed Anime is available in Blamo repository and the great thing about this add-on is that it has Anime categorized by Genre and episodes.
Yoda
Yoda is a new addition from the Supremacy Kodi Reposition. The addon gets you to enjoy Movie and TV Shows on HD and 4K quality. Yoda also manages to add sections like My Movies, My TV Shows, New Movies, New Episodes and much more. You can get this addon from http://supremacy.org.uk/zip/repo/.
Trepidation
If you want to enjoy the best Horror movies in the video quality, then Trepidation Kodi seems a perfect response. Trepidation lets you enjoy all kinds of horror movies dating back to the old ones too. The addon can be downloaded from http://www.tantrumtv.com/download/.
Pandora Box Kodi Addon
Pandoras Repository brings another new Kodi repository by the name Pandora Box. This addon contains a category called “Open Pandora Box” and inside that menu you will find three sub categories which includes Discovery ID Shows, Movies New/Old and TV Shows New/Old. You can download this addon from http://archive.org/download/repository.pandoras-1.0.1/.
Horizon
Team Pinoy Repository brings you a Movies and TV Show addon that goes by the name Horizon. The addon is based on Movies and TV shows with high quality content. Other than this, it includes sections like Spotlight, My Horizon and much more. You can get this addon from http://skymashi.eu/repo/.
Click Here
CLICK HERE is a Kodi addon for Movies and TV Shows. It is developed by Swiper, an independent developer, and available from Skydarks Repository. The addon contains categories for Movies, TVShows, New Movies, New TV Shows, and New Episodes and so on. You can download this repository from http://www.skydarks.com/skydarks/.
Griffs DOC Kodi Addon
There are times you have to take a break from Movies and TV Shows so that you would watch some historical happenings and documentaries. For that purpose, you should download Griffs Doc Kodi addon. You will find tons of popular documentaries that will be full of learning. You can download this addon from http://repo.mrblamo.xyz/.
Playlist Loader
Playlist Loader add-on enables the users to maintain their own playlists of Kodi add-ons by creating and customizing them. Kodi geeks prefer such add-ons because it helps them maintaining their favorite lists according to their needs. Users can easily download and install from Kodil Repository and for further assistance in installation procedure; refer to our blog.
Xbox One Kodi Addons
A large population of Kodi users opt Windows for using streaming with Kodi. However, streaming geeks know that the streaming experience provided by consoles is better than PCs. Using Kodi on its home platform Xbox one kodi is one of the best streaming experience one can ask for. The accessibility and ease are the two basic factors that make Kodi on Xbox exciting. Here are a few Xbox One Kodi addons that you can enjoy for steaming your favorite content on Xbox:
Firecat Kodi Addon
Everyone wants an all in one Kodi add-on to prevent the hassle of finding a different addon for everything. Firecat Kodi addon is an all in one Kodi add-on having content categories like Movies, TV Show, Live TV, Music, Documentaries, Settings, etc. Having Firecat Kodi addon on Xbox one will surely be great as it is one of the top Kodi addons and it has got great HD quality streams unlike other such add-ons that offer similar variety but have low quality streams.
Fireecat Kodi add-on is available in UK Kodi Repository, Click on the link to download Firecat Kodi addon: Download Firecat
Kratos Kodi Addon
Kratos was a mythological creature from the all-time famous video game “God of War”. Kratos Kodi addon might not be a God of Kodi addons but it surely is different from others due to the sections of content that it has. The categories it has include Movies, TV Shows, Collections, Tools and this addon has Trakt integration feature as well. No doubt, that Kratos Kodi addon is one of the top Kodi addons. You can download Kratos Kodi addon by clicking in the link below:
Download Kratos
Top Kodi Krypton Addons for Sports Fanatics
Why search for troublesome online streaming links for your favorite sports event when it is available on Kodi! Watch whichever sports you like by using the best Kodi addons for sports in HD quality without any problem.
Top 4 Sports Addons For Kodi
Deceit
Although its name might be a little questionable, yet Deceit Kodi add-on is an excellent choice for watching Live Sports and Live TV. The best thing about this add-on is that it has Trakt and Real Debrid integration availability that Kodi geeks highly appreciate. So far, Deceit add-on has been working great and no issues have been reported regarding it.
Deceit is available in the One Nation Repository.
GenieTv Kodi Utility and IPTV Sports
Genie TV Kodi Utility and Sports add-on is a complete package for the Kodi users who love streaming on Kodi regularly. GenieTV provides high quality sports and live TV streams. Above all, GenieTV has great maintenance tools as well for fixing Kodi issues. So that Kodi geeks and Noobs can keep streaming without any hassle. You can also reach out to the GenieTVKodi add-on developers through their official Facebook group. GenieTV Kodi add-on repository is available in the GenieTv Repository.
Supremacy Sports
Supremacy repository has been stealing the limelight from other major repositories for quite some time now, since it gave some great add-ons like Elektra vault and Yoda. However, this time Supremacy is back with another sports add-on and it has put forward its own Kodi add-on for sports, named as “Supremacy Sports”.
It is a complete add-on for sports that uses Sports Devil and Plexus plugins for providing live streams. The categories streaming categories it provides are Ace streams, Football Documentaries, Live events, Reddit Soccer streams, UKTV Sports, Sport Movies, WWE and many more. Supremacy is must-to-try for all the sports streaming addicts.
Joker Sports
How many times have you been able to find a good, one click playing Kodi add-on for Sports? Maybe a few times, right? We understand that Sports are a matter of serious concern and hence we have found the single-click steam playing add-on for you that will surely provide you the best of every sports stream that you want to watch.
Joker Sports Kodi add-on is available in the Maverick Kodi Repository. It has categories providing BT sports, 3pm Kick off Footy, Sports Channel Extra etc. Joker sports works best on Kodi Krypton V17.6 and it is being praised by the Kodi community because of the good quality streams it is providing.
Elektra Vault
Elektra Vault is among those Kodi add-ons that have left Exodus behind in competition of greatness. Reason being that it offers more features than Exodus Kodi add-on did. Another most prominent difference between Elektra Vault and exodus and even Covenant is that Elektra Vault offers Live Sports. Whereas, Exodus and Covenant did not offer any sports category.
Elektra Vault offers live sports, movies, TV shows, and documentaries. This is what describes this add-ons’ potential factors of popularity. Elektra Vault Kodi add-on can be installed through Supremacy Repository.
Download Elektra Vault.
SportsDevil
SportsDevil is the dedicated live streaming and catch up TV add-on for sports lovers. SportsDevil covers a huge variety of sports streaming channel for Cricket, Tennis, Football, Ice Hockey, Racing, Cycling and much more.
SportsDevil is a favorite amongst football & cricket fans for the long list of streaming channels available to watch live events, highlights, pre & post match shows and catch up TV. Sports Devil offers 12 beINSports channels for English Premier League fans to enjoy all the matches’ live. Amongst its vast list of channels SportsDevil offers: SkySports, Fox Sports, BT Sports and more.
Read our complete Sportsdevil installation guide here.
AceStream
Update: Ace Stream is no longer available on Fusion repository, but can be found in Adryan List Repository.
Adryan List Repo: http://repo.adryanlist.org/
Amongst the long list of Kodi addons for watching sports and various content, we have AceStream that functions on BitTorrent protocol. This is not your ordinary add-on per say. AceStream is a streaming platform, which runs through its own media player. To run AceStream on Kodi, you will need Plexus Player. Plexus is a program addon that is available on Fusion repository. Once you have added Plexus player, update its module, and run streams from AceStream onto Kodi.
BassFox
Bass fox Kodi add-on allows users to watch their favorite live sports action and that too in two languages; English and Spanish. Multi-lingual Kodi addons are very rare and the add-on providing live sports action is a cherry on the top.
Users can install Bass Fox Kodi addon by downloading the Vector Repository.
Best Addons to Stream English Premier League
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is one of the largest sports network in the world that has been around for more than 70 years now. Having its headquarters based in Stamford, United States, it is owned by the NBC sports group. NBC covers all the major sports events around the world like English Premier League, NFL, NHL, NASCAR, NBA, WGC and Olympics. The best thing for Kodi users is that they can watch live English Premier League action on their Kodi as there is a dedicated NBC Sports add-on for Kodi.
SmoothStreams.tv
SmoothStreams.TV is one of the best live sorts streaming Kodi add-on present on the shelf for sports streaming geeks. SmoothStreams.TV provides the best live soccer action from different major soccer events like English Premier League, La Liga, UEFA Champions league etc. This Kodi add-on has the best quality streams that have no lagging issues.
BOOM!
Being termed as the replacement of the all-time popular sports Kodi add-on Sports Devil, Boom Kodi add-on has a lot to offer to the users. Its quality streaming links and numerous providers make it a real contender in the Kodi community for the top Kodi sports add-on. Boom Kodi add-on provides streaming links for watching English Premier League matches live on Kodi and that is why this Kodi add-on has earned itself a name in the community.
Best Kodi Addons For FIFA World Cup 2018
FOX Sports GO
Fox Sports is the official broadcaster of the FIFA World Cup 2018. And fortunately it does have a Kodi addon for all the football fanatics looking to stream the football world cup. This addon is being considered as the best addon for kodi to stream football. The only thing you might not like is that this addon requires subscription. Fox Sports Go is the official kodi addon and can be found in the Kodi repository.
Download Fox Sports Go
Football Replays
There are tons of football fans who might not be able to watch the matches as they kick off live. Football Replays is the best addon for kodi that provides all the highlights of game competitions in the major leagues (EPL, La Liga, Bundes Liga). So if you are running late for the FIFA World Cup matches, worry not Football replays will provide all the highlights on your kodi.
Download Football Replays
Football Today
Football Today the top addon for Kodi has major categories like Premier League, Games, UEFA Champions League, Highlights, La Liga, Primeir Leagu and much more. This addon can be found in Colossus repository and even the Kodil repository. However Colossus is the most recommended to stream the FIFA World Cup 2018.
Download Football Today
Kick off Kodi Addon
A lot of football maniacs are hungry to watch their favorite team play. This best addon for kodi in the sports category will provide a lot of free chunks of amazing FIFA World Cup moments. Kick off kodi addon is greatly focused on the English Premier League. However you can stream the competitive world cup matches with the comfort of HD streaming.
Download Kick Off
DC Sports
DC Sports is quite similar to the top kodi addon Sports Devil. This third party kodi addon has a lot to offer to all the sports diehard fans. Since FIFA World Cup 2018 is round the corner, DC Sports is the must have to watch those amazing goals and cut throat rivalries among the best footballing sides in the world.
Download DC Sports
Kodi Android Addons
Using Kodi on Android and wondering which add-ons or how to setup kodi on android? Stop looking any further and choose from these Kodi Android Addons that work best on Android devices including smartphones, tablets and pcs.
Dogs Bollocks
Do not be fooled by its name, this add-on is an amazing one to have on Kodi. It has a wide range of categories like Movies, Catch up TV, Documentaries, Kids section, Music, Radio, Sports, and TV shows. This add-on can also be called a one in all Kodi add-on. There are not many add-ons providing such variety and quality of streams such as this add-on.
Night Terrors
Are you a fan of Horror content? If yes, then this add-on is highly recommended for you. Night Terror is an amazing Kodi add-on from the Illuminati repository that has a variety of content for Horror fans like Paranormal Movies, TV shows, Documentaries, True Crime Movies, Reality Shows and True Crime Documentaries.
Football is known to be the most beautiful game in the world and what better fact can describe it if not the number of viewers it has. Football is the only sport that is being searched for more than any other sports and football fans are present all around the world. We have listed some best Kodi addons for Football, make sure you give them a try!
Falcon Sports
Falcon sports is an amazing extension for sports lovers who want to watch live sports action. Falcon sports has some great links for users and that too in HD quality. Another great thing about this extension is that the speed of the links is very quick unlike other add-ons.
Download Falcon Sports.
DAZN
We can call DAZN (Da Zone) as the new Netflix for sports category in Kodi add-ons. It is a premium add-on that offers high quality sports event links to users for low fee of $20 only. Users can download, install and subscribe to this addon to enjoy seamless sports entertainment on Kodi. DAZZN has earned respect form the Kodi community in a very short time.
Eurosport Player
Eurosport Player Kodi addon is a great add-on for streaming Football events all around the globe. The best thing about this add-on is that it also has on-demand content availability. However, users have to sign-up to access this add-on. This add-on can be used on PC, Mac, Fire TV/Fire Stick, Android, or Raspberry Pi.
Download EuroSport Player Now!
Best Kodi Addons for PPV
PPV is the best thing to watch when you are into streaming and binge. However, users always face issues with it. That is why we have discussed some of the Best Kodi Addons for PPV.
Vader Streams
Vader Streams is a treat for all the PPV fans around the globe because it offers links of Pay per view events from all around the world. This is a paid add-on and users have to pay subscription fee before they access any links. Vader Streams has earned a great reputation amongst all other add-ons because of the quality it provides.
Download Vader Streams.
Best Kodi 4K Video Addons for Top Notch Streaming Quality
Watch your favorite movies, TV shows, documentaries, live sports, live events, programs, and much more in 4K quality. Download and install the best Kodi 4K video addons now and take your binge watching experience to completely new level. Grab a hold of these addons because there are not many xbmc addons that offer such high quality links.
Players Klub
Players Klub is one of the most famous IPTV Kodi add-on and it has been around for quite some time now. Players Klub has gained a lot of reputation due to its functionality and reliability. Users have to sign-up first in order to access this add-on. This is premium add-on and requires a subscription fee. Users can watch Live TV channels, videos on-demand, live sports events and Old TV shows through this ad-on very easily. So install Players Klub Kodi add-on now and keep your Binge watching game on the spot!
Nemesis
Nemesis is the newest induction in the Kodi world, but its features has the nag of surprising Kodi users. It offers 4k video resolution which is better than 1080p resolution. It enables viewers to watch movies and TV shows in 4K resolution with Nemesis Kodi add-on. However, this feature comes at a price. For Nemesis to work, it requires you to sign up with Real-Debrid that cost €16 for 6 months subscription.
Real Movies
Real Movies is a movie add-on that will show you movies in 4K, HD, and 3D video quality. Its main category section includes Boxsets (TV channels), Movies, Comedy section, and so much more. This Kodi add-on gets constantly updated and that is why it is loved by many.
Excellent Kodi Krypton Addons for MP3/Radio Streamers
Listen your favorite music bow on Kodi in MP3 format by installing these top MP3 Kodi addons.
The Music Source
This Kodi add-on undoubtedly amazes its users with something unique to offer other than music. Alongside a vast music library, The Music Source also feature live streaming of radio stations and Music IPTV Channels to entertain its users a little further. Apart from this, it has also designed a Music Quiz Section to expand the knowledge base of Kodi users and music lovers.
The People’s Choice Kodi Krypton Add-On for Live TV
Watching Live TV away from home or at work has never been easy but thanks to Kodi, that has a number of best kodi addons for Live TV. Now watch your favorite Live event on Kodi from anywhere at any time. Take a look at these addons listed by us below and choose the one that suits you the most.
Ever heard of Kodi CRACKDOWN? Yes, they are true & blocking millions from watching free content. A VPN will help you to stream free content and unblock kodi addons. Hence a VPN is your best solution to protect yourself from DMCA notices, copyright issues and unblocking of various addons.
Ustvnow
USTVNow is an official Kodi add-on that enables the Kodi users to watch all of their favorite content from American TV channels. It is very easy to use, all users have to do is just sign-up to the add-on and watch whatever they want to watch. You can Install this add-on by following our guide, for how to Install USTVNow Kodi Addon
Users can install this Kodi add-on on Windows PC and Amazon Fire Stick which also supports other top firestick apps. In addition, users who have the Jarvis version of Kodi can also install this add-on on their respective device.
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer is an official Kodi add-on available in the Official Kodi add-on repository. It allows users to watch their favorite Sports events, Entertainment channels, Live TV, New broadcasts and so much more. It is indeed one of the best Kodi add-on in UK. However, it is a geo-restricted Kodi add-on that does not work outside UK. Get to know more about this add-on and learn how to install this Kodi add-on by following our BBC iPlayer guide.
Ccloud
Ccloud TV is unarguably one of the oldest and best Kodi add-on for watching Live TV channels on Kodi. It offers hundreds of Live TV channels and the links that it provides are great in terms of quality and speed. Another great thing about this add-on is that it keeps on updating time to time. Users can watch anything like news, sports, entertainment etc. through this Kodi add-on. So what are you waiting for? Install the Ccloud on Kodi now!
SmoothStreams – Access 50+ Channels to Watch Live TV Shows & More
If you are looking for a Kodi addon that offers sports and other channels for entertainment, then SmoothStream is perfect for you. With over 50 live TV channels, you may stream live events along with numerous television shows using SmoothStreams. There are different qualities for stream available i.e. 540p, 720p, and 1080p.
IPTV Bonanza
All the Kodi users who like watching content from across the globe can refer to the IPTV Bonanza Kodi add-on as it provides live TV shows from different Regions like United Kingdom, United States, France, Spain, Germany etc. Not just TV shows but users can also watch live sports and music shows as well.
Download IPTV Bonanza
Salvazebul Italian IPTV
Salva59s and Baal Zebul from the Evil King family developed Salvazebul Italian IPTV Kodi Addon. This is an Italian live TV addon providing the online content from the channels broadcasted in Italy. This add-on is available in the Android Repository.
Download Salvazebul Italian IPTV
Best Kodi 3d Addons
Entertainment without 3D feels like wasting time, doesn’t it? Imagine using high quality streams but they are not 3D, it won’t be fun! We know that, and therefore we have lined up the best Kodi 3D addons for you.
Eyasses
For all the Kodi viewers looking for an add-on that offers content in 3D and 4K quality, Eyasses is a top option. This addon works very great, has high quality links, and works fast unlike other add-ons providing such links. Above all, the links provided by Eyasses are reliable and that is why it highly recommended by users globally.
Download Eyasses.
Best UFC Kodi Addons to Watch UFC Fights
Streaming the best of combat sports is no longer a problem. Watch your favorite UFC matches in HD quality with these best UFC Kodi addons.
UFC Finest/Planet MMA
UFC Finest/Planet MMA is probably the best fit amongst the list to view the UFC events on Kodi. In addition to the live events such as UFC fights, it also shows documentaries, TV shows, and past UFC events. This Kodi addon is designed specifically for UFC PPVs as it catches all the UFC related content directly on to your Kodi box or Kodi software.
Kodi Krypton Cartoon Addons That Are Endearingly Arresting Collection of Cartoons For Kids
Cartoons addons are something that are not just for kids entertainment but for adults too. Therefore, if you are an adult, you dive into the sea of nostalgia and binge your favorite cartoons from around the globe. Try these cartoons addons on Kodi now!
Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Jr – Your Obsession For Cartoons Until it Goes Haywire
If you need an add-on that shows both Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Jr. TV shows, then there is no better add-on than this. Your kids may be obsessed with Nickelodeon as it drives them to a point where they go haywire when they get hold of their favorite programs.
With an impressive content selection and easy-to-use navigation system, your kids can easily control this add-on and have their obsession drive them. It is much safer for kids because it only shows programs that is appropriate for under-age children.
Best Kodi Health and Workout Fitness Addons
Fitness geeks all around the world can access their favorite training lectures and other fitness tutorials on Kodi. Following are the best Kodi health Fitness and workout addons that provides the best videos for you.
Pulse Fitness
Amongst the list of best Kodi fitness and workout add-ons, Pulse Workout is probably the most famous of them. This add-on is a guide towards your fitness program as it informs readers about weight-lifting, yoga, diet tips, exercises, and so much more. A collection of motivational videos will also help you keep going and live a healthier life. It will further instruct its viewers on how to lose weight and be in good shape. This add-on can be found on Kodil Repo.
Physicality
Physicality add-on is all about offering videos of motivation and workout programs which is good for individuals who are in their initial workout stage. It has a separate section for UFC where streamers get all information on UFC fights and stay updated to what’s happening in the life of athletes. Therefore, it is a great add-on for UFC lovers as well. It can be found on Dandy Media and Kodil Repo.
Maverick TV
Maverick TV is probably the best live TV add-on, but many people might be unaware of its secret section ‘Fitness TV’ where viewers can find many tutorial fitness videos from athletes. To many people’s amazement, it also offers fitness videos from celebrities including Beyoncé. So there’s always a chance that you might want to consider this add-on. It can be found on Maverick official repository.
Best Geo-Restricted Kodi Addons
There are numerous addons that will only work in specific locations. If you want to bypass geo-restrictions and enjoy unlimited streaming on Kodi, make sure to use a VPN. Here are some VPN services to choose from:
Ultimate IPTV
Ultimate IPTV add-on is relatively a new addition to the IPTV add-ons family but remains to be geo-restricted. This add-on requires a Kodi VPN to unblock geographical restrictions to air many IPTV channels across the globe. Its videos are HD quality, but the user-interface seems a bit complicated with no specific categories mentioned. It can be found in Kodil Repository and TK Norris Repo.
Best Legal/Paid Kodi Addons
You will always find the outwit of everything when you use the premium add-ons. Official add-ons are safe to use and they have the good quality of streaming links to offer. Choose your desired ones from these best legal/paid Kodi addons, pay for its subscription and enjoy seamless streaming experience.
Buzz Feed Video
Buzzfeed earned a great reputation worldwide through its news and entertainment content shared on its website and on social media. Buzzfeed is an internet media company that has a network of great content producers, showcasing their journalism qualities in a great manner.
It has a great fanbase form all around the globe and the best break through it has earned is that now Netflix will be hosting a season of short stoies made by Buzzfeed journalists. Make sure you do not miss the great content shared by them, so install the official Buzzfeed Kodi add-on from the official Kodi add-on repository and enjoy daily Buzzfeed videos.
CollegeHumor
If you are a social media junkie that loves humor and sarcasm on the go, then you would have surely heard about CollegeHumor. This comedy website is famous on social media because of the humorous and satirical content they produce themselves and the content they share made by others. CollegeHumor content is eye candy and we know that you will love to watch it on Kodi. So, install CollegeHumor Kodi add-on from the official Kodi add-on repository and start watching the funniest videos and the best spoofs available online.
ACE IPTV
ACE IPTV is a premium addon for Kodi that offers wide variety of content. Watch popular sports such as NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and much more. ACE IPTV brings streams from popular channels such as BT Sport and Sky Sports. Furthermore, viewers can enjoy thousands of movies and TV shows using ACE IPTV. By adding this addon to Kodi, you have access to channels such as BBC, ABC, Fox, HBO, Sky Movies, and more. Therefore, an ultimate premium Kodi addon has everything for everyone.
SportsAccess
SportsAccess is a premium Kodi addon that offers sports from across the globe. By subscribing to the service, streamers can access their favorite matches from NBA, NHL, football (soccer), and much more. The addon brings content from numerous channels such as SkySports. As mode of payment, SportsAccess only accepts Bitcoin. This may sound inconvenient for many, but it’s better for your privacy.
Mania HD
Mania HD is another paid streaming service that is available as a Kodi addon. The monthly subscription costs £12.00, which is roughly $16.09 per month. The yearly package offers more savings as it is available for £50.00 (that’s almost $67.00) per year. Watch just about any sport on Mania HD after subscription. From soccer to American football, you name it; Mania HD offers thousands of content to stream online.
Best Kodi Game Addons
Kodi offers everything that others cannot! Install the best Kodi Game Addons listed below and enjoy your favorite games on Kodi.
Twitch Gaming
Twitch gaming add-on lets you watch streams of people playing games across the globe. These are the professional gamers who play marathon gaming events and their games are interesting to watch. This add-on can be found in the official repository of Kodi and is a good choice spending your free time and watch the professionals play.
Youtube Gaming
YouTube Gaming is similar to Twitch where Kodi users can watch other people play out the game and complete entire gaming marathon. This add-on can be found in the YouTube add-on which is inside official Kodi repository. There is a separate section for gaming and the streams will be available for the gaming videos.
Best Kodi Weather Addons
Stay up to date with all the latest weather forecasts from around the world with Kodi. Install these best Kodi weather addons and keep an out on weather on the go.
Met Office
Met Office is a Kodi add-on that provides weather information by fetching data from thousands of U.K locations. Having features like 5-day prediction, auto-location, minimal response time and reliable observations helped this add-on develop a good reputation.
Download: Met Office Zip File
However, limitation of selecting only one location at a time is a drawback in this add-on. Overall, this add-on is one among the Best Kodi weather add-ons.
OpenWeatherMap Extended
This add-on has somewhat literal meaning to it; just like any map, it provides detailed information about the weather.
Download: OpenWeatherMap Zip File
This add-on provides accurate weather forecasts and weather maps from 36 hours to 14 days. Another difference in this add-on is that it requires a personal API key. This helps in frequent updates.
Yahoo Weather
Who hasn’t heard of Yahoo? Everyone has, right! Yahoo used to be the most popular web service provider back in the day. Yahoo believed in ease and usage, and same goes for its weather add-on.
Download: Yahoo! Weather Zip File
Easy to set-up, use and understand, Yahoo weather add-on is without a doubt a strong recommendation. Kodi users should definitely give it a try as it is one great Kodi addons. No such login requirements, no hassle in installation and a user-friendly interface define its quality.
Best Kodi Wrestling Addons
Kodi is an amazing place for millions of wrestling fans all around the world, enabling them to binge their favorite wrestling contests. Choose your favorite addon from these best Kodi wrestling addons and watch your favorite wrestling competitions.
Wrestling on Demand – Watch the Latest from the World of WWE
Now if you are a fan of wrestling and want to catch all the action from WWE, then WWE on Demand is the perfect Kodi addon for you. With popular pay-per-views such as Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, the addon offers thrilling action from World Wrestling Entertainment. Likewise, its easy to stream old matches by accessing the archive section.
Download this addon : https://www.kodivpn.co/repo/kodil.zip
Kodi Addons for Indian Channels
It would be a matter of luck if you were able to find any working link online for Indian channels and Bollywood content. However, Kodi users are lucky that they can watch their favorite Bollywood content by using these Kodi addons for Indian Channels.
Viewster
Viewster is an official Kodi add-on for steaming Movies and TV shows online. It has got a variety of categories like Action, Romance, Drama and separate sections for movies and TV shows in each category. It is available in the video add-ons section in the official Kodi Add-on repository.
Browse for your favorite Bollywood movies through the search option easily.
Einthusan
Einthusan is without a doubt the most amazing Bollywood movies add-on for all the Bollywood fans. The main reason behind is that it has content in eight different languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, and Punjabi. Isn’t that great?
In addition, this add-on has movies well categories according to the gene, year etc. This is not an official Kodi add-on and we recommend that you use a good Kodi VPN service to protect your online privacy. This add-on is available in the SuperRepo Kodi add-on repository.
Download Einthusan
TV on Desi Zone
TV on Desi Zone is a TC add-on for all the Indian content/TV shows lovers. It has a got a variety of TV channels and TV shows. Users can easily browse and play whatever they wish to, as the add-on has a very good layout. Users get access to all the biggest channels like Sony, NDTV, IBN, Sahara etc.
This add-on is available through SuperRepo Repository; users can download the repository from here: SuperRepo
SnagFilms
SnagFilms is an official Kodi add-on with a huge library of content from all around the world. Having around 30 categories of Movies and TV shows, this add-on is a one for all package. It has a dedicated section for Bollywood Movies and TV shows. It can be easily found in the official Kodi add-on repository’s video add-ons section.
Bollywood Movies
Bollywood Movies is Kodi add-on specially focused Bollywood movies and Indian content. This add-on can be downloaded and installed via Super Repo. It has a good collection of Tamil and Hindi movies.
Download Bollywood Movies
Kodi Addons for MAC
The best thing about Kodi is that it runs on almost every devices and if it does not then the geeks always find a way to run it. You can setup Kodi on iPad, Kodi on Apple TV and more. Kodi runs great on Mac and the iOS viewers all over the world have been enjoying the Kodi experience. We thought of sharing some best Kodi addons for Mac so all the Mac streamers could have an enhanced entertainment experience.
Best Kodi Addons for Canada
Canadian viewers residing abroad can access their favorite Canadian content easily by choosing from any of these best Kodi addons for Canada. These addons are for local news, local TV shows and other events. There are not many dedicated addons around but this one surely is a reliable one.
CanTV Live
CanTV Live is a live TV add-on for Canadian streamers who are residing abroad rare living in Canada but are not able to access local news channels. It allows viewers to watch local news and other live TV shows and sports. This addon provides reliable and good quality links to users and another great feature of CaTV is its user-friendly interface that attracts the streamers.
Made in Canada
Made in Canada IPTV is one if the most popular IPTV Kodi add-on, not just amongst the Canadian audience but also globally. Despite being named Made in Canada, it doesn’t only provide Canadian content, rather it has a wide variety of American and English content steams as well. This is why this add-on has been appreciated worldwide through the Kodi community.
Nevertheless, this add-on has been a top choice for the Canadian Audience. This add-on is available in the Kodi Israel Repository.
Canada on Demand
Canada on Demand is an amazing add-on for users who wish to watch their favorite shows and TV channels. Canada on demand add-on offers streams for more than 30 Canadian TV channels and the quality of streams provided is great. This add-on is highly recommended for users who wish to stream Canadian content.
Kodi Spanish Addons
Pelisalacarta Kodi Add-on
Pelisalacarta is a Spanish Kodi add-on for watching all the Spanish Movies and TV Shows. It is available in the Super Repo. Pelisalacarta has a great variety of Spanish content and it is often referred to as the treasure of Spanish content.
The greatest feature of this add-on, which can be called its USP, is that this add-on does not only stream the content but it also allows the users to download their favorite content. |
ling out an African-American man attending one of his rallies, calling him "my African American."
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired on Friday, Trump doubled down on his racially charged accusations against U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is handling two class-action lawsuits against Trump University in San Diego. Curiel was born in Indiana but his parents are from Mexico, which Trump has repeatedly said keeps Curiel from rendering unbiased decisions.
"If you are saying: He can't do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?" Tapper asked, according to a clip on CNN's website.
"No," Trump responded. "I don't think so at all."
"No?" Tapper said.
"No, he's proud of his heritage," Trump said. "I respect him for that."
"But you're saying he can't do his job because of it," Tapper said.
"Look, he's proud of his heritage, okay?" Trump said. "I'm building a wall. Now, I think I'm going to do very well with Hispanics."
Tapper cut in: "He's a legal citizen."
Trump explained that he will win the votes of Hispanics during the general election because he's going to create jobs.
"But we're building a wall," Trump said. "He's a Mexican. We're building a wall between here and Mexico."
Trump continued: "The answer is: He is giving us very unfair rulings, rulings that people can't even believe. This case should have ended years ago on summary judgement. The best lawyers -- I have spoken to so many lawyers, they said: This is not a case. This is a case that should have ended. This judge is giving us unfair rulings. Now, I say: Why? Well, I'm building a wall, okay? And it's a wall between Mexico, not another country."
"But he's not from Mexico," Tapper said. "He's from Indiana."
"He's of Mexican heritage," Trump said, "and he's very proud of it."
Later in the day at a campaign rally in an airplane hangar in northern California, Trump commented on the "thugs" who protested at his rally the night before in San Jose, attacking several of his supporters, and began to fondly tell the story of an African-American supporter who punched a protester. He then paused mid-sentence to single out a black man in the audience before him.
"Oh, look at my African American over here -- look at him," Trump said as he pointed. "Are you the greatest? Do you know what I'm talking about?"
He then resumed telling the story about the other black man at a different rally: "Okay, so we have an African-American guy at one of the rallies a month ago. And he's sitting there, behaving. And we had protesters inside the arena and they were dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. Okay?"
Trump said that his crowd booed these protesters and their costumes started falling apart.
"This African American gets up and, man, he slugged these guys," Trump said, as the crowd cheered. "He slugged 'em... So when the African American cold-cocked this guy, this guy never knew what happened. Everybody thought the African American was against me and it was the opposite. He was like this great guy, military guy."
Trump said that the "sleazy people" in media tried to make it look like "the white guy was on my side" when really it was the African-American guy who supported him. And just as Trump pledged earlier in the day to win over Hispanic voters with the promise of jobs, he vowed to do the same for black voters.
"We have tremendous African-American support," Trump said. "The reason is: I'm going to bring jobs back to our country. We're going to bring jobs back."
Sullivan reported from Redding. Johnson reported from Washington.LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia — A brazen thief targeting firehouses broke into cars outside several Georgia stations as firefighters were off battling a blaze.
Gwinnett County fire officials say the Sunday night robbery spree was the second time this year a crook had waited until firefighters were off on a call to break into their vehicles and make off with their belongings.
“Whether they occur at a fire station, shopping center or private residence, these nefarious acts have no place in our society. Those responsible demonstrate a lack of respect for the personal property of others, especially those who are serving and protecting our community,” said Gwinnett Fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge.
In one of the break-ins, the thief was spotted by a Gwinnett County cop but the suspect fled on foot and was able to get away. Authorities said the male suspect was wearing dark jeans and a hoodie.
County police said they plan to increase patrols around area firehouse, especially when firefighters are out on calls.
(Visited 179 times, 1 visits today)The 2014 IJA Festival is set to be held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, July 28 – August 3, 2014. The news of this location has started to spread, and jugglers are already getting excited to congregate for a fabulous week of juggling, shows, workshops, competitions, and more. All that is needed now is a key person to orchestrate the magic – the 2014 IJA Festival Director.
The IJA board is looking to find a dedicated individual to fill this important role, and has approved a $5,000 stipend for the position. Ideal candidates will have strong organizational skills, good rapport with jugglers and knowledge of the juggling community, budgeting skills, a substantial amount of time to commit to the project, and the overall desire to create a fabulous IJA Festival experience.
Interested in stepping into this position? We’d love to hear from you! Please contact Erin Stephens at stephens@juggle.org with further questions, or to discuss the position in greater detail.
Find out more information about the position by reading the Festival Director Job Description.
The IJA board is currently accepting “Letters of Interest” from interested parties, and hopes to have the position filled by the beginning of September. Letters can be e-mailed to board@juggle.org, and should contain the following information:
Why you are interested in the role;
Qualifications for the position;
A basic outline of your ideas and plans for festival organization;
Any other information you feel is important for the board to know.
The board is open to the option of festival “co-directors,” should a plan for this option be presented.
Thank you in advance to all parties interested in rendering a great service to the IJA and your fellow jugglers, by filling the role of 2014 IJA Festival Director!Yeah I mean we're roomies.I certainly try to be the type of person who has a plan. The effectiveness of such remains to be seen.Shit, that's like, a real question. The femmy thing is hot so keep it up for now, but based on what I've seen, don't worry about getting old, you'll probably still attract somebody anyway. I've met a enough uggos who had a charming enough personality to date.Granted, I don't play many new games, but I thought the junk in Undertale was really painfully shoehorned in. I really like the game otherwise.I haven't played it in years but I think Mother 3 was the most effective for me.It's like GameGrumps, the ones on the channel were commissioned by Chris. I've been meaning to do one for a while, hope to start soon.You tell me!Mother 4, I guess, I think I built too high of an expectation for myself though.Vore is fine! Not my favorite, personally, but I can work with it.. Chris just likes bringing it up because it's sillyDon't worry man, you don't have to care! Honestly you probably shouldn't, I feel roughly the same way. I hope you like Trigger Treat when it's done!We actually tried to record it and had massive technical issues, everybody went home frustrated after a whole day in futility. I don't think we're gonna try again, sorry.I also agree here, try to treat celebrities like humans. I dread the day when I might get a swelled head.Anyway, the sun is rising, I should try sleeping again. Thanks for entertaining me all night, this was a lot of fun. Bye errbody!Abstract Egypt has the highest prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the world, estimated nationally at 14.7%. An estimated 9.8% are chronically infected. Numerous HCV prevalence studies in Egypt have published various estimates from different Egyptian communities, suggesting that Egypt, relative to the other nations of the world, might be experiencing intense ongoing HCV transmission. More importantly, a new national study provided an opportunity to apply established epidemiologic models to estimate incidence. Validated mathematical models for estimating incidence from age-specific prevalence were used. All previous prevalence studies of HCV in Egypt were reviewed and used to estimate incidence provided that there was sufficient age-specific data required by the models. All reports of anti-HCV antibody prevalence were much higher than any single other national estimate. Age was the strongest and most consistently associated factor to HCV prevalence and HCV RNA positivity. It was not possible to establish a prior reference point for HCV prevalence or incidence to compare with the 2009 incidence estimates. The modeled incidence from the national study and collectively from the modeled incidence from the previous community studies was 6.9/1,000 [95% confidence interval (CI), 5.5–7.4] per person per year and 6.6/1,000 (95% CI, 5.1–7.0) per person per year, respectively. Projected to the age structure of the Egyptian population, more than 500,000 new HCV infections per year were estimated. Iatrogenic transmission is the most likely, underlining exposure to the ongoing transmission. The study demonstrates the urgency to reduce HCV transmission in Egypt.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV), first identified in 1989, is strictly a blood-borne RNA viral infection in the family Flaviviridae. Humans are the only reservoir for this viral infection. HCV infection most often leads to an asymptomatic chronic state, which can later progress to active liver disease, liver failure, or primary hepatocellular carcinoma. Treatment of HCV is costly, beyond the reach of most patients in less-developed countries, requires 48 or more weeks to complete, and has serious adverse effects and low efficiency. HCV in a family member can be socially and economically detrimental. There is no vaccine for HCV.
The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) suffers from high prevalence of unnecessary medical injections and transfusions, reuse of needles and syringes, needle-stick injuries among health care workers, and skin scarifications (1–9). Public health systems are overstretched in several countries, leading to some careless attitudes toward safety measures (6). Standard precautions are not routinely implemented in public and even less so in private practices, such as among dentists (10–12). Injections are the preferred mode of therapy even when alternative modes are equally effective (13, 14). At 4.3 per year, MENA has the highest rate of injections per person per year of all regions (15). MENA has also the highest levels of all regions in the proportions of incident hepatitis B virus (58.3%), HCV (81.7%), and HIV (7.2%) infections attributable to contaminated injections (15). Blood transfusions are performed even when not medically indicated (16). The first documented HIV outbreak in renal dialysis centers in the history of the HIV epidemic occurred in Egypt (17), which has witnessed yet a second outbreak in recent years (18).
HCV currently infects ≈2% of the world's population (19). Collectively, among all nations, the percentage positive for HCV ranges from 0.01% in Scandinavia to 3% in North Africa, with a single unique exception, Egypt (19). In 1992, when HCV antibody testing became widely available, the prevalence of HCV in Egypt was reported to be 10.8% among first-time blood donors (20). Since this discovery, many prevalence estimates of HCV have been reported, mostly from rural communities located in the northern Nile Delta. Two more recent prospective studies estimating the incidence rate of new HCV cases have also been published, suggesting ongoing transmission in their respective communities (21, 22). For more than a decade, Egypt has been widely regarded as having an epidemic, with the highest recorded prevalence of HCV in the world (19). HCV is currently the most significant public health problem in Egypt.
Explanations for this unique epidemic in Egypt have been an ongoing subject of controversy. The iatrogenic role of parenteral antischistosomal therapy campaigns to control endemic schistosomiasis, which ceased some decades ago, is a widely held hypothesis (23). There may have been considerable other concurrent iatrogenic exposures at the time. More recent evidence suggests a continuation of iatrogenic exposures that is contributing to ongoing HCV transmission (24, 25).
The recently published Egyptian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) in 2009 was a national probability sample of the resident Egyptian population. This report estimated an overall anti-HCV antibody prevalence of 14.7% (26). The number of Egyptians estimated to be chronically infected was 9.8%. This report provides a precise national prevalence estimate and includes additional data on patterns of HCV prevalence by gender, age, urban vs. rural, and between different regions of the country.
The primary objective of this study was to use the past and now current estimates of HCV prevalence in Egypt to characterize the magnitude of HCV infection transmission.
Methods HCV Data. A search of all published peer-reviewed literature (English language) from 1992 to 2010 on HCV and Egypt was made using the National Library of Medicine, PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Biological Abstracts, manual review of citations in search-identified publications, and in Egypt for reports available only locally. Studies that (i) reported HCV prevalence or incidence, (ii) described the serologic methods, (iii) were of cross-sectional or prospective epidemiologic design, and (iv) could be abstracted for the purposes of the study were included. In addition, age or 5-y age group–specific prevalence data were required for estimating age-specific incidence. Publications based on clinical populations were not included. Modeling Incidence Estimates. Prevalence in a given population was defined as the total number of persons identified as positive for anti-HCV antibody divided by all tested-negative plus all tested-positive persons in the population. Prevalence times 100 is often reported as a percentage. Prevalence is a proportion, at a given point in time, of a defined condition in a defined population. The magnitude of prevalence is a direct function of incidence and increases with the number of new incidence cases (27). Detecting new HCV infections is problematic. Soon after infection, HCV RNA viremia can be detected using nucleic acid testing (28), but rarely does this result in an acute symptomatic clinical illness. Symptoms, if and when they appear, may not be associated with disease onset, undermining the use of classic case–control studies to identify exposures. Direct estimation of incidence proportion or incidence rate requires prospective studies, which take considerable resources, large sample sizes, and time measured in years. National prospective studies would be impractical and doubtfully cost-effective. The method used in this study for estimating incidence from prevalence was published by Leske et al. (29), Zou et al. (28), and others (30, 31). Zou et al. adapted the method for estimating HCV incidence from HCV prevalence in first-time blood donors. Using the notation of Leske et al. (29), incidence risk (∏) is a cumulative probability, which ranges from 0 to 1, of new HCV infections in a given time period, in this case either within a 5-y age group or single age group, and is estimated by: where ∏ x is the cumulative probability of incidence cases for the age interval x, and x + 1 is the age interval in the next older age group, P is the prevalence proportion, and D x is the age difference in the age group. For example, in 5-y age groups, D x would equal 5. There are several strict assumptions necessary to avoid distorted incidence estimates using this method: Once positive for the anti-HCV antibody marker, an individual does not revert to anti-HCV antibody negative. Positive HCV antibody status is essentially irreversible and remains for the lifetime of the individual (30). Incidence within an age interval is relatively stable. Age or ≤5-y age groups are sufficiently short periods for this assumption (30). The biomarker of infection should appear shortly after infection. In HCV, there is a rather short delay from infection to the appearance of antibody, the so-called “window period,” usually considered to be approximately 50 days. The sensitivity and specificity of anti-HCV antibody assays should not change significantly over time. Third-generation ELISA tests have replaced second-generation assays over the time period of this study. When incidence estimates were compared between studies using second-generation ELISA and studies using current third-generation assays, adjustments to second-generation were made using published sensitivity and specificity estimates for the two assays (32). The demographic structure of the target population should be stable over time. The Egyptian population has grown over the study period, from 1992 to 2009, with only minor changes in the population age structure. This is a concern when there is significant migration, which is not the case in Egypt. In general, when HCV prevalence is measured in Egyptian communities, it varies across 5-y age groups. Regression models were tested and used to smooth prevalence over age groups as described by Leske et al. (29) and in turn used the estimated prevalence for the beginning of each age interval. The SAS (SAS Institute) procedure FREQ with RISK DIFF included in the statement was used to calculate 95% confidence intervals (CI), as described by Zou et al. (28). Incidence was estimated and tabulated from each report that met the criteria listed above. Data from the national sample (26) were used to generate an overall national estimate of ∏ (total population), ∏ x,, and an overall estimate of the total population that would become infected with HCV in 1 y. Total population estimates for Egypt were obtained from the Center for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) (33) and related sources (34). Given the importance of the EDHS nationally representative sample, needed for making a national representative estimate of incidence, the study design, sampling methods, and laboratory determination of HCV antibody and HCV RNA were scrutinized. The study design and sampling methods followed the strict guidelines set forward by the parent international Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) organization founded in 1984. DHS has since completed more than 240 studies in more than 85 countries, providing national representative data on health and population trends in developing countries (35). Laboratory methods for the detection of HCV antibody and HCV RNA were detailed in the EDHS report (26). Positive third-generation ELISA results were retested, and all dual-positives were confirmed by chemiluminescent microplate immunoassay. Quantitative real-time PCR was used at the Central Laboratory for the detection of HCV RNA. A stringent quality-control system was carried out in a separate government laboratory. The methodology used in the EDHS serology is robust, and it is unlikely that a known or unknown cross-reacting Flavivirus circulating in Egypt would have affected the prevalence measures. An additional method to estimate incidence, given prevalence, was made using the data from each of the publications reviewed by study, whereby incidence was plotted against prevalence using each report as an observation. In this ecologic model, incidence was estimated for a given prevalence. Regression models were used to estimate the magnitude of association and curve fitting as described by Morgenstern (36).
Results In total, 752 titles were found by using “hepatitis C” and “Egypt” as search words. There were 400 publications identified from searching individual references starting from the most recent studies that met all criteria and working back to 1992. Including the Internet databases, another 352 titles were screened. Only four reports were unique in addition to those identified manually. One report that met criteria for inclusion had to be obtained in Egypt. Fig. 1 shows the search results. Four study designs emerged from the reviewed literature that were included: blood donation studies, cross-sectional studies of rural communities, two national studies, and two prospective cohort studies. The reports that met the study criteria are listed by year, location, sample size, prevalence, incidence, and citation in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1. Anti-HCV antibody screening in blood donors at various locations and times in Egypt Table 2. Studies of HCV in different communities, including the results of the EDHS study on a representative national sample Fig. 1. Publication search results for HCV epidemiologic studies in Egypt. Journal articles were screened for hepatitis C in Egypt, from which those that suggested clinical, treatment-related, or laboratory-based studies were excluded. Additional criteria for selection that were used included (i) reported HCV prevalence or incidence, (ii) described the serologic methods, (iii) were of cross-sectional or prospective epidemiologic design, and (iv) could be abstracted for the purposes of this study. As shown in Table 1, the earliest report of anti-HCV antibody prevalence (10.8%) in Egypt was in 1992 (20). This study examined a large number of healthy first-time volunteer blood donors in Cairo. HCV prevalence in these blood donors increased monotonically with age (Fig. 2). For example, at age 20 y the prevalence was 7.5% and increased steadily to 20% at age 40 y. Fig. 2. Prevalence for anti-HCV antibody by age in 17,286 first-time healthy blood donors in 1992 by age (20). Logistic regression (solid line) demonstrates a monotonic increase of prevalence with age. Prevalence in ages 50 y and older had fewer data, causing statistical instability. Logistic regression: χ2 = 571.96, SE = 0.0025, df = 1, P = 0.000, r2 = 0.81, and 1/e(– α – β x), where α = −3.8063 and β = 0.0627. HCV prevalence varied considerably, from 8.8% to 26.6%, in the reports of blood donors, owing primarily to differences in the age structure of the blood donors tested, as shown in Table 1. Blood donor studies were reported from 1992 to 2009. In a 2009 study on a large number of first-time volunteer blood donors in a central urban area in the Nile Delta, a trend in HCV prevalence over time was reported (37). In this study, the prevalence of HCV using third-generation assay in 2000 was 17.7%. Each year after 2000, the prevalence of HCV declined until the study completion in 2007, when 7.4% of donors were HCV positive. As shown in Table 2, prevalence ranged from 8.7% to 40% between cross-sectional studies reported from 1993 to 2008. With two exceptions, all studies were conducted in different rural villages, mostly in the Nile Delta. All reports showed a similar age-specific increase, with HCV prevalence as shown in Fig. 2. Some differences between studies therefore could be explained by the different range of ages included in the respective studies, given the strong association of age with HCV prevalence. Collectively, the Nile Delta communities had a higher prevalence than the single estimate from Upper Egypt (the region of Egypt south of the Nile Delta), which suggested that Upper Egypt had a lower HCV prevalence than the Nile Delta. The 1996 report of 13.5% HCV prevalence as a national estimate was from a secondary publication of data and incompletely documented (38). For example, estimates were given without SEs or CIs. Only 10 of the 26 governorates of Egypt were included. Age-specific prevalence data could not be abstracted from this report. The EDHS data were based on a representative national sample, completed in 2008 and published in 2009 (26). As shown in Table 2, the overall country HCV prevalence was 0.147 ± 0.005. Fig. 3 shows the 5-y age group–specific HCV prevalence from the national study. Prevalence increased with each 5-y age group. The 2008 study also included the prevalence of HCV RNA, also shown in Fig. 2, which also increased sharply with age. Note, however, that HCV RNA prevalence, as expected, was consistently lower than HCV prevalence in every age group but that this difference increased slightly by age. Fig. 3. Prevalence of anti-HCV antibody positive and the prevalence of HCV RNA positive by 5-y age groups from the EDHS national sample (26). This graph was prepared from data abstracted from the EDHS national sample (26). The line was fitted by logistic regression for anti-HCV antibody prevalence. Logistic regression: χ2 = 1177.97, df = 1, SE = 0.0024, P = 0.000, r2 = 0.96, and 1/e(– α – β x), where α = −4.4 β = 0.0758. The data in Fig. 3 represent both urban and rural populations; the prevalence in the 20–24-y age group was 0.05, which is less than the blood donor data for the same age group more than a decade previously, 0.078 (Fig. 2). Prevalence also increased by age. Comparing the regression lines in Figs. 2 and 3, HCV prevalence increased more sharply with age in the national survey. SEs are provided in the EDHS report (26). Two prospective studies were completed in 2005 and 2008 (21, 22). The incidence reported from both studies demonstrated ongoing transmission of HCV. However, there were large differences in incidence reported, as shown in Table 2. This can be best explained by differences in study design and the respective target populations. The 2005 study started as a cross-sectional design in two rural communities, one in the Nile Delta and the other in Upper Egypt. The incidence from this report was 3.1/1,000 and 0.8/1,000 for the Nile Delta site and Upper Egypt site, respectively. Intrafamilial transmission was suggested by the authors. The 2008 study was a prospective study of pregnant females at a large urban medical center in the Nile Delta. The incidence was 5.2/1,000, and iatrogenic transmission was reported. Incidence Estimates from HCV Prevalence. Incidence among the first-time blood donors in 1992 was estimated to be 3.7/1,000 (95% CI, 3.66–4.4). The lack of age-specific prevalence data provided in the other reports of blood donors prevented incidence estimation. Among the studies shown in Table 2, modeled incidence estimates are given for all prevalence studies that published age-specific data. In all cases, a logistic regression was found to fit the age-specific data best. The derived incidence estimates also varied among these studies, ranging from 5.2/1,000 to 15/1,000 persons per year. A logistic regression was found to be the best fit for age-specific HCV prevalence, as shown in Fig. 3. The logistic regression coefficients (where α = −4.4 and β = 0.0758) were used to estimate the incidence from the 2008 national sample. The overall HCV incidence estimated by this model was 6.9/1,000 persons per year. As shown in Table 2, this estimate was lower compared with most of the other cross-sectional prevalence studies but slightly higher than incidence estimates from the two prospective studies. The variation of incidence derived from the individual cross-sectional studies can be best explained by their respective prevalence (given control for age). This is demonstrated in Fig. 4, which plots incidence as a function of prevalence for each cross-sectional study for which incidence could be estimated (n = 7). A linear regression with coefficients of α = 1.2 and β = 0.36 was found to have the best fit. Note that the r2 = 0.85 or 85% of the variation in incidence was due to variation in prevalence. The estimated incidence using this relationship for a prevalence of 14.7%, the national estimate, was 6.5/1,000 persons per year. Fig. 4. Relationship between estimated incidence and overall HCV prevalence from six community cross-sectional studies (44–49). The age-specific prevalence was abstracted from each of six cross-sectional reports. Prevalence from the EDHS (26) was also included as a seventh observation. In turn, these data were used as described in Methods to generate an estimate of report-specific incidence, which can be seen in Table 2. Report-specific prevalence and incidence points were plotted on a linear x-y graph with percentage prevalence on the x axis and incidence per 1,000 per year on the y axis. Linear regression: α + βx, where α = 1.23 and β = 0.363, r2 = 0.85 was the best fit and demonstrates an internal validation of the model used to generate a national incidence estimate. At the time of this study, CAPMAS (33) reported the current Egyptian population to be 77,156,000 million. The number of new HCV infections, using the EDHS age structure estimated from the national study sample, would be 537,066 (95% CI, 512,372–577,782) persons per year. This estimation is shown in Table 3. Of these, ≈70,000 would be pediatric infections or in those aged <20 y. Table 3. Estimation of HCV incidence The 2008 prevalence data for HCV RNA can also be used to estimate the number of persons who are HCV RNA positive in each age group. Combined, this is 4,458,691 persons. This is an underestimated human reservoir of HCV in Egypt, because those aged <15 y and >55 y were not included.
Discussion The major conclusion of this study is that the incidence of HCV in Egypt seems to be continuing at a rate of ≈6.9/1,000 persons per year, indicative of possibly ongoing hyperepidemic transmission. This estimate was modeled from the 2008 national HCV survey, which has a well-documented representative sample design with small SEs (26). A similar estimate of incidence was made using an ecologic model from the available, mostly rural, community studies. This result is, in part, due to the classic relationship between prevalence and incidence (27) and provides a measure of internal validly to the study. Results from the two published prospective studies confirm ongoing transmission at these levels, at least in the Nile Delta. However, estimates from these reports cannot be inferred to the general population. Increasing HCV prevalence was consistently found to be associated with age in all reports. Because of this strong association, the differences in prevalence in most studies could be explained by differences in the age ranges included and location of study. All cross-sectional results including reports on blood donors had higher HCV prevalences than any single other country in the world. It bears notice that the EDHS study showed the age-specific relationship between HCV prevalence and HCV RNA prevalence. This in turn was used to estimate the number of Egyptians positive for HCV RNA, or essentially infectious. Because the younger and older age groups were not included, this is an underestimate of the human HCV reservoir in Egypt. This also delineates the potential magnitude of the future disease burden due to chronic liver disease and its squelae. The temptation to infer temporal changes between the first report in 1992 or other previous studies and the 2008 national prevalence should be discouraged. No report was discovered in the search of literature that was designed to demonstrate temporal trends, with the possible exception of the 2009 blood donor study (37). This study included a large number of first-time volunteer blood donors in the Mansoura area (Dakahlia) recruited over a period of 8 y. During this time HCV prevalence among these donors declined from 17.7% to 7.4%. There was no analysis in this study for age structure changes that may have occurred over time. Increasing numbers of younger donors would have reduced prevalence. Nor was urban/rural residence assessed. Increasing numbers of urban residences could also have reduced prevalence. It is not possible to know whether there were changes in attitudes among the self-selected volunteers over time or whether recruitment methods of blood donors became more discerning given that better recruitment methods would reduce collection costs. As in all cross-sectional designs, the time of infection by HCV cannot be known from serology. Finally, self-selected volunteer blood donors in Mansoura are not representative of any other group or community in the Nile Delta or the whole of the country. The EDHS HCV prevalence estimate for the Mansoura was 17.8%, which is larger than the 7.4% HCV prevalence of these blood donors in 2008. The only report to date based on a national representative sample was EDHS (26). This study was limited by design to report only cross-sectional prevalence estimates at a point in time from which no temporal inferences can be made. In conclusion, no other suitable historical estimate for HCV prevalence for Egypt could be found for which valid historical comparisons could be made. Given the natural history of HCV, an estimate of 6.9/1,000 per person per year, and the limits of epidemiologic study designs, demonstrating changes in HCV incidence over time would be challenging and costly. The issue of how to demonstrate the efficacy of prevention interventions to reduce HCV incidence in light of this should be urgently studied. Our modeling of the EDHS age-specific data to obtain a broad national estimate of incidence is based on stated assumptions. These were the same assumptions used by Lehman and Wilson (30), who published age group–specific HCV incidence using data from a single rural community in the Nile Delta. Others have validated this model to estimate HIV incidence (31). Because our estimate of HCV incidence is based on a representative national sample, inference can be made to the entire Egyptian population. Moreover, the number of new cases, using the current population estimate from CAPMAS and the population age structure of the EDHS sample, is based on low sampling errors. The number of new HCV infections per person per year is large and is likely the highest in the world for a national population. Moreover, the inability to include newly infected persons who were in the “window” period before the development of HCV-specific antibodies at the time that the blood specimens were taken, results in ascertainment bias and, accordingly, underestimation of the true incidence (28). Regardless of the stated strict assumptions, the results in this study should serve as a strong rationale for recognizing that HCV transmission is ongoing and supports the justification to confirm and validate the estimated 6.9/1,000 new cases of HCV per year at the national level. Currently it is not possible, owing to the study design limits of the available EDHS data, to make firm causal inferences regarding the current principal mode of HCV transmission in Egypt or historical trends of HCV prevalence. For now, it is prudent for policy makers and public health professionals to target prevention measures at all HCV transmission routes. This is especially true for current and ongoing iatrogenic transmission of HCV in Egypt. The latter is emphasized on the basis of a significant body of literature available on current iatrogenic routes of HCV transmission in Egypt (39–42). For example, this includes excessive numbers of nontherapeutic injections (24), poor or nonexistent infection control in health and dental care facilities (25), and unacceptable HCV seroconversion rates in hemodialysis units (17, 43). Considering the size of estimated new cases of HCV and the current overwhelming demand by Egyptian patients seeking treatment for HCV infection, reduction of HCV transmission, specifically iatrogenic transmission, should be given a higher public health priority.
Acknowledgments We thank Dr. Shimian Zou (Transmissible Disease Department, Jerome H. Holland Laboratory for the Biomedical Sciences, American Red Cross, Rockville, MD) for invaluable comments, discussions, and encouragement; and anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions. This study was supported by the William Fulbright Scholarship program and Qatar National Research Fund.
Footnotes 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dewolfe{at}hawaii.edu.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:. Author contributions: F.D.M. designed research; F.D.M. and L.J.A-R. performed research; F.D.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; F.D.M. and L.J.A-R. analyzed data; and F.D.M. and L.J.A-R. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.I will start with this: I don’t know Zach Braff, and I have no idea if he’s a nice guy or a heel. I saw Garden State and wasn’t nuts about it, and I’m not a huge Scrubs fan. I’m also jealous of his New York apartment which I once saw in maybe the New York Times? It was beautiful. So basically overall I’m the kind of guy who is complaining a lot about Zach Braff right now.
But seriously, people like me: quit complaining about Zach Braff. Especially his Kickstarter. You’re being dicks.
As someone who does a lot of work that’s supported by its consumers, I have strong feelings about this. And frankly, those feelings are pro-Braff.
Here is the transaction that Zach Braff offered fans of his work in the Kickstarter for Wish I Was Here: you put up some money, I will make a movie you want to see. Why is that bad?
He didn’t even ask people to put up all the money. He managed to secure financing for a significant portion of the budget, and a loan to keep things moving, but needed a final piece. Which his fans were happy to provide him. Because they wanted to see the movie.
In fact, his fans so wanted to see it, that they kept giving to the project even after the goal was met, to the tune of over a million bucks. Because they wanted to directly support a guy whose work they loved.
Look - I don’t love his work. Maybe you don’t either. But why shouldn’t people who like something pay to |
less talented but scrappy teams).
Wall is becoming amazing before our eyes. Intangibles, parables, hyperbole, and the Gospel of the Game Changer. There’s always a next step to believe in, and Wall is showing basketball fans in D.C. the way. Wall’s Wizards have proven themselves as competitors with top-notch talent, now they need to make consistent effort more of a habit.
Wall dazzled on Tuesday, duping T-wolves transition D like a savvy QB running a screen pass. He got Zach LaVine’s stick-figure legs dancing with shimmies. Wall spun Mo Williams into an endless hover within Flip Saunders’ hyperbolic paraboloid transitional floating zone. He touched the ball 101 times, passed the ball 74 times, and collected 17 traditional assists, four hockey assists, and two free throw assists; Wall shot the ball 17 times and turned it over just three times.
Not a “true” point guard, Gary Payton? As, if.
There was a play against Minnesota that epitomizes what Wall has become. Sure, the game plan of most coaches will continue to dictate that they’d rather let Wall beat them with his jumper. But Minny gave him a ton of space, like, much more than usual, like Gheorghe Muresan could have laid down in that space. From his very first game in the league, Wall had to get used to defenders going under screens, and he had to learn how to counter that in more ways than just improving his jump shot. That play:
‘Want to go around screen, Zach LaVine? Please do. Why don’t you keep moving, let Gortat use his footwork to craftily spin and reset the screen? Maybe even try to go over the top this time, isolate me toward the sideline. I’ll drive, got my gloves on. I’ll tap the breaks, only need a millisecond of hesitation in the paint from Gorgui Deng—and the spacing with Gortat is nice. Do I throw the lob to Marcin? Toss the floater softly off the top of the glass? Doesn’t matter, I got you anyway.’ —J.W.
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Hailing it as an effort to protect the principles of net neutrality, Congressman Steve Knight co-sponsored a bill Tuesday to address the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the Obama-era policy last week. Referred to as the Open Internet Preservation Act, the bill prohibits broadband Internet providers from blocking lawful content or service and creates a formal complaint procedure for the FCC to address alleged violations. However, the bill prohibits states from enacting their own net neutrality laws. Knight, R-Palmdale, promised to pursue legislation that would address concerns with the FCC’s repeal, he said on social media last week. “An equal and open Internet is vital to protect small business, foster innovation and deliver the best quality products and services to consumers,” Knight, who serves as a co-sponsor for the bill, said in a statement. “If you pay for a specific Internet speed, you should be able to use that data transfer rate how you best see fit.” The bill, written by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Texas, addresses many of Knight’s issues with the repeal, he said. Internet rules should not be “political ping pong” from one administration to another, according to Blackburn, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. “This bill will ensure there is no blocking and no throttling on the Internet and will make sure the Internet is an open and fair marketplace,” Blackburn said in a statement. “We need light-touch regulation and stability for the Internet.” The internet industry wants a lasting solution to net neutrality protections for consumers, The Internet Association’s Internet Association President and CEO Michael Beckerman said in a statement. In its current form, this legislation is not that solution, but it is a commendable way to move the net neutrality conversation forward, Beckerman said. “The proposal circulated today does not meet the criteria for basic net neutrality protections – including bright-line rules and a ban on paid prioritization – and will not provide consumers the protections they need to have guaranteed access to the entire internet,” Beckerman said in a statement. “Real net neutrality legislation should be bipartisan and have input from other stakeholders, including the user community, public interest groups and industry.” The Internet Association, which includes Amazon, Google and Microsoft among others, will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure consumer protection, Beckerman said. Santa Clarita Valley resident and eBay software engineer Brett Haddock said while the bill appears at face value to address net neutrality concerns, it is “awful” and allows poor service as a baseline and costlier premium service. “It sounds good on paper, but has a huge loophole in the guise of ‘specialized services,’ which basically allows ISPs to offer ‘fast lanes,’” Haddock said. “This bill isn’t about net neutrality, don’t let it fool you.”Forza Horizon 3 releases tomorrow (for Ultimate Edition owners), while the rest of us mere mortals who’ve purchased the standard, or other editions will gain access to the title on the 27th. Today, NVIDIA has released its Game Ready drivers for GeForce graphics cards, which are optimized specifically for Microsoft’s new open-world racer. You can grab them at this link or automatically via the GeForce Experience client’s driver update function.
Forza Horizon 3 System Requirements
If you’re curious as to whether your system is up to the task of running the game, the developers of Forza Horizon 3 also recently released the minimum and recommended system requirements for the title, which are as follows:
Minimum Specs:
CPU Intel Core i5 3570 @ 3.4GHz GPU NVIDIA: GTX 750 Ti AMD: Radeon R7 250X RAM 8GB Hard Drive Type HDD Available Space 55 GB Resolution 1920 x 1080 Windows Version Windows Anniversary Edition 64-bit 14393.101
Recommended Specs:
CPU Intel Core i7 3820 @ 3.6GHz GPU NVIDIA: GTX 970 or NVIDIA GTX 1060 AMD: R9 290X or AMD RX 480 VRAM 4GB RAM 12GB Hard Drive Type HDD Available Space 55 GB Resolution 1920 x 1080 Windows Version Windows Anniversary Edition 64-bit 14393.101
Pre-loads for the title are available now for Windows 10 devices via the game’s Windows Store page. AMD users shouldn’t be too worried, as the developer announced yesterday via Twitter that game ready drivers from both NVIDIA and AMD would be available today, so it is possible that we’ll see an update from Team Red soon.
Additionally, if you have an AMD CPU, the minimum and recommended requirements may seem to indicate that you’ll have trouble running the title, however it is entirely possible that the lack of information is just an oversight on the developers behalf. Of course, we’ll update you as we have more information.
Pre-load is now available for #ForzaHorizon3 on Windows 10! Also, look for game-ready drivers coming from @NVIDIA and @AMDGaming tomorrow! — Forza Motorsport (@ForzaMotorsport) September 20, 2016Following on from Thursday’s piece, which featured Evans, Ntcham, Zuculini, Yeboah, Horsfield and Byrne, I’ve taken a closer look at the seven remaining loan players. Brandon Barker, Jason Denayer, Shay Facey, Angelino, Seko Fofana, Ian Lawlor and Enes Unal are all featured. As ever, it’s been a mixed bag, which is the norm for loans, regardless of the player’s ability. There’s seemingly an underlying train of thought from most that would lead you to believe that for a loan to have been successful, a player must have excelled during their temporary move. This, in general, isn’t necessarily fair or true. Successful loans, on the surface at least, are a rarity. Given the nature of the move, the chances of a player becoming one of the star players almost immediately is highly unlikely, even if they are exceptionally talented. That’s the case for players of any age, be it 18, 25 or 34. There are countless examples of players taking several months to adapt to a new team or environment. It took months before Yaya Toure found his feet in Mancini’s team initially for example. It’s only natural.
Now bear in mind that these are young men, most hugely inexperienced, and it’s only reasonable to expect that things will be a little tricky. A youth loan isn’t about being the key man, creating goals or being a match-winner. That’s great, obviously, and it will happen sometimes, but it isn’t always about that. These moves are designed to test whether the player can adapt to the increased physicality and pressure that comes with professional football. If they’re a little quiet in terms of their influence, so be it, but the important thing is that they don’t look out of place. A club can tell if a young player can handle themselves amongst adults, but perhaps isn’t necessarily connecting with the team through various reasons, be it stylistically or tactically. The players are at Manchester City, so they’re certainly already very capable footballers, technically speaking. The performances will come later when the player has found their feet in the right setup around them. It’s all too easy to dismiss a low-key move as a failure, when it often isn’t the case at all. A young David Silva would most certainly struggle in League One, with his teammates likely on a different wavelength entirely, but the club will know and understand that. Elite prospects develop best alongside elite players with elite coaches, not out on loan. Loans are temporary, designed to test them in a certain way. These moves need to be viewed with those thoughts in mind. With that in mind, on to the players.
Brandon Barker
A curious one, and a perfect example of how depressingly bleak the loan system can be. Exceptionally talented, and arguably the star of last season’s EDS team, it was perhaps surprising that Barker didn’t get the slightly more glamorous loan that his talents deserved – Byrne went to Cambuur, Ntcham joined Genoa, and Angelino left to the glitzy world of the MLS. Barker ended up in a relegation dogfight at Rotherham United. So be it. Even more surprising was the outcome. The winger was named in the starting XI immediately by Neil Redfearn and though Rotherham lost 5-2, he left the pitch as their MOTM having scored a stunning long range strike. Promising, and enough to whet the appetites of the Rotherham faithful. And then he disappeared. He was benched for four games in a row before City recalled him. Hugely baffling and most certainly undeserving, it showed just how unpredictable loans can be – ones to the Championship in particular. There was rumours that club politics came into it; their left midfielder met with Redfearn, bemoaned his lack of an appearance fee and just like that, he was back in the team. It wouldn’t be surprising, and it won’t be the last time a loan move will turn sour through no fault of a player’s own. Either it way, it happened. For now, Barker is back at City. Perhaps January will be kinder to the hugely talented winger and he can pick up a move where he can test himself in a better environment. He deserves it.
Jason Denayer
It’s been a stop-start move so for the exceptionally talented defender. He joined Galatasaray at the start of the season and he was initially thrust into the team at centre-back, before moving over to right-back as their usual choice picked up an injury. He was good, performing with the same assured brilliance that those who’ve watched him closely had come to expect. Technically magnificent, intelligent and composed, he used all his skills to great effect as he slotted in naturally. He was by no means the star man, yet he was performing more than admirably in a position he had no prior experience in. It was encouraging, yet, typically, misfortune struck and his progress slowed. The curse of the Etihad’s injury list seemingly struck the young defender down from a distance and a spell on the sidelines followed. He’s had a couple of niggling setbacks and so far his appearances have been limited. 2016 should hopefully see him free of any knocks and he’s expected to return to full training any time now. There was calls from some quarters for City to recall him as Kompany broke down once again, though I’d be surprised if this an option. Only in exceptional circumstances can clubs recall players from a season long loan. It has to be written into a contract prior, and this is extremely rare. With a little luck, a strong run of games will perhaps be the platform he needs, and deserves, to convince those in charge that he can be a huge part of City’s squad rehabilitation over the summer, especially with the ageing Demichelis surely on his way.
Enes Unal
The eighteen-year-old Turkish striker has found life a little testing in Belgium. He moved to Genk after work permit problems meant he couldn’t kick-start his career over in Manchester. He’s been a regular in the squad, but mainly as an impact sub. There’s been twelve appearances in total, which is a decent amount, yet he’s only managed three starts so far. He has however scored a couple of times, despite mostly being introduced late on to freshen things up. It’s a little hard to gauge his performances, what with the paucity of information available online, but one thing that is for certain is that time is still on his side. He doesn’t turn nineteen until May and he’s an intelligent, considered player if his interviews are anything to go by. He’ll hope for more in the new year.
Ian Lawlor
Life has been good to the Irish u21 keeper so far this season. He spent the vast majority of last season out injured in what proved to be a hugely frustrating campaign. A small twist of fate saw him back in goal for the EDS as his main rival, the hugely talented Angus Gunn, picked up a small knock of his own. He impressed as City’s u21s beat Chelsea 2-0 in a televised game on Sky Sports, and that display, plus his already good reputation gained from representing Ireland’s u21s, saw him join Barnet a couple of weeks back as an emergency loan move. He’s done well so far, with the scorelines perhaps unfairly representative of his performances. He made a whole host of saves as Barnet claimed a 4-2 victory at Shrewsbury, and he pulled off a stunning save too as Barnet beat Newport 2-0. It hasn’t been all perfect, however. There’s been some slight hesitancy – the kind that plagues any youngster as he makes his professional league bow, but in general its been a promising move and his confidence has visibly grown with each game. He’s warmed himself to Barnet’s fans and its a move that will act as a nice starting point to his career.
Helluva double save from @ianlawlor 🙌🏼 …Ireland and City u21 on loan at Barnet. https://t.co/ijrhIEWdku — In Esteemed Kompany (@EsteemedKompany) January 3, 2016
Seko Fofana
Fofana’s done well so far at Bastia. Whether it’ll be enough to further his career at City remains to be seen, but he’s clearly improved as a player. His time at Fulham last year was hit and miss, in and out of the team as Fulham fought relegation. He was likeable, all energy and full of boundless, powerful runs, but it often wasn’t enough to rely on as the Cottagers craved more experienced heads and consequently he spent a lot of time on the bench. Bastia seem to be caught up in a similar predicament, yet Fofana’s been a mainstay, encouragingly praised for his tactical awareness and calm displays at the heart of midfield. He’s always had raw talent, plenty of it in fact. Yet it was his composure that often let him down, but the signs are good. I’ve caught a couple of games and he’s playing with considerably more intelligence, positioning himself well, sitting far deeper than he ever did for City’s EDS and Fulham. A little more Yaya-like, if you like, dictating play from deep. He’s becoming a key figure at Bastia and that will surely only help his development as he gains a sense of seniority and belief in his own abilities. With 17 starts already, and still only aged twenty, he’ll surely continue to improve. He’ll have to reach a high level if he’s to succeed at City, but there’s time yet.
Angelino & Shay Facey
Angelino and Shay Facey returned to City from New York in November as their loan spells ended. It was a curious move for Angelino. It started well, yet it ended on a relatively lower note. His initial energy gave way to some uncharacteristically conservative displays, with his all-action approach seemingly fading a little as the weeks passed. Given his age, it was no surprise, and it could have been entirely circumstantial too. The MLS is a tough league, in the sense that it’s a crazy one. There’s very little organisation over there and games often resembled a basketball match. Free for alls, with little cohesion or sense. He’s surely learned something, though it’s unlikely to be defensively – those around him offered little in that field and he looked far too naive around his own area at times. It’s a shame as it is the one side of his game that he needs to work on. He’s clearly a very good footballer – his four assists being clear proof. He shuttled forward well, adding a huge amount of skill and intelligence to New York’s attacks, yet we knew that already. The next move will be crucial. He’ll be physically stronger than he was, at very least, but you can’t help but think what he would have learned playing in a settled, organised back four for a few months. A lesson learned perhaps.
As it stands Angelino’s back training with City’s first team as he’s currently ineligible to play until January due to the stipulations of his loan. I’d suspect Angelino will move again, and rightly so. Facey already has. He confirmed a loan move to Rotherham until the end of season on Saturday morning and he was immediately thrust into the starting eleven at right-back. Though Rotherham lost 2-1, going down to a last minute own goal, he drew praise from Neil Redfearn for his energy, reading of the game and tenacity. It’s an interesting move, especially considering how Barker’s loan panned out there, but I guess there’s enough trust from City to allow Neil Redfearn a second player. How he develops in the Championship will be fascinating. He was functional at NYCFC, usually played at centre-back, where he went through a similar run of form to Angelino. He started well, then struggled a little as his inexperience showed, clearly in dire need of a composed, wiser head alongside him. Facey was good when played at right-back for the EDS, and it was heartening to see him start there for Rotherham. He seems to have all the attributes to excel out wide. Fast, tenacious and good on the ball, perhaps a little Trippier-esque. The Championship is a tough league, and Rotherham are struggling too, so it’ll be a baptism of fire so to speak, but his debut showed some promising signs and he’ll learn a lot. I had initially suspected Vieira may have decided to bring him back to NYCFC but for now that won’t be the case. He’s still only twenty and he signed a two-year contract when he returned to City, so the door clearly isn’t closed on him yet at the Etihad. Time will tell.
Elsewhere, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vieira takes another one or two with him – there’s rumours that Pablo Maffeo has been lined up to make the move. That’d be a tad disappointing from a personal perspective. I don’t mind then MLS, but I think he deserves better, even a shot in the first team given his excellent EDS form, or perhaps a move to a strong European league. Hopefully under close watch from City the move could run a lot smoother. If that comes to fruition, don’t be surprised to see another of his EDS teammates join him come the start of the season. NYCFC, though a team in its own right, will clearly be used as a sort of finishing school for City. The ties with Girona in Spain are intriguing too, especially given Pere Guardiola’s involvement at the club. Pep’s brother, of course.
If injuries subside, expect loan moves for a few of the EDS’s stalwarts. Ambrose, Aleix Garcia and Kean Bryan are all out injured, so they won’t be going anywhere, and that may also put on hold any temporary moves for the likes of Celina and Glendon, even Bytiqi who has now recovered from his injury problems. There simply isn’t the numbers in reserve otherwise. Still, do expect more to move on over the next couple of months. Barker will likely move out again. Roberts, too, has spent far too much time watching from the sidelines and his game has stagnated recently which is understandable given his lack of competitive football. The experience is necessary, and they will surely get it in due course. If, and when, it happens, there will be reports on here following their progress.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
A police officer was ambushed and left in critical condition after being shot while conducting a traffic stop in western St. Louis County Friday, and the suspected gunman was taken into custody, authorities said.
The shooting occurred in Ballwin, a city of about 30,000, according to KTLA sister station KTVI in St. Louis.
The officer was returning to his vehicle to do followup paperwork after pulling another car over when the driver got out, "advanced quickly," and fired three shots, Ballwin Police Department Chief Kevin B. Scott said.
The nine-year veteran officer was hospitalized and was in critical but stable condition, Scott said.
The suspect was taken into custody after he fled in his vehicle and then on foot.
He was later identified as Antonio Taylor, 31, of St. Louis, KTVI reported. He was charged with first-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, armed criminal action, and being a felon in possession of a weapon.
There was a large multi-agency response to the shooting, Scott said.
The shooting came a day after five officers were killed when sniper fire struck a police working a protest in downtown Dallas over the recent killings of two black men by police in Minnesota and Louisiana.
"Sad day for law enforcement, indeed," St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said at a news conference with Scott.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the officer was shot in the neck and was in critical condition.
"Make no mistake, we believe... that Ballwin officer was ambushed. Period," Belmar said. "It is an unfortunate state of events."
Investigators do not know the shooter's motive.
The shooter was taken into custody several miles from the scene of the shooting after fleeing in his vehicle and then on foot, Belmar said. An officer took the individual into custody without incident, he said.
A handgun was recovered, Belmar said.
The suspected shooter is on probation for a weapons violation in St. Louis, Belmar said.
He stole a vehicle in Oklahoma and was picked up with a firearm in California, the county chief said. He was paroled last year.
Oklahoma records indicate Antonio Taylor served two years and two months for robbery and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He was released in January 2009.
Taylor had a tattoo on each arm, according to Oklahoma corrections data. The tattoos read "life is God" and "God I trust."
Police say Antonio Taylor, 31, shot a Ballwin police officer in the neck Friday morning pic.twitter.com/Ql0HGyQVCv — FOX2now (@FOX2now) July 8, 2016
This release was handed out to media at the news conference regarding the Ballwin Police shooting. pic.twitter.com/acDyaE7agb — FOX2now (@FOX2now) July 8, 2016
Sources tell us a Ballwin officer was shot in neck during traffic stop. Suspect in custody after foot chase. Story TK @stltoday — Christine Byers (@ChristineDByers) July 8, 2016
Police presence growing outside Mercy Hospital emergency room after reports a police officer was shot in Ballwin, MO pic.twitter.com/su3ruIIZr4 — Mike Colombo (@Mike_Colombo) July 8, 2016
Man believed to wounded police officer just arrived via ambulance to Mercy Hospital. Taken on stretcher into ER. pic.twitter.com/y446dTrO3n — Mike Colombo (@Mike_Colombo) July 8, 2016
Police presence continues to grow outside Mercy Hospital when wounded Ballwin officer was taken. pic.twitter.com/DTFdzoa1Gh — Mike Colombo (@Mike_Colombo) July 8, 2016Dear Pablo, I am in the market for a new car. I see that there are some very fuel efficient diesel models available. Should I consider diesel over hybrid?
News of Volkswagen’s 71 mile per gallon Polo Bluemotion sure got some attention. Several other diesel models have recently also made the question of diesel vs. hybrid more relevant. While hybrid technology is relatively new, and relies on heavy and expensive batteries, diesel technology has been around since its invention by Rudolf Diesel in 1893. With new hybrid and diesel models coming out constantly, now is a good time to examine the relative benefits of each.
Diesel: Reputation vs. Reality
Diesel engines work differently than gasoline engines. Rather than relying on spark-ignition to ignite highly flammable gasoline, the diesel engine uses compression-ignition, basically compressing a mixture of air and diesel fuel until its combustion is induced with the help of a glow plug. Diesel engines have a very high compression ratio and therefore have the highest thermal efficiency of any internal combustion engine.
You would be forgiven for associating diesel engines with plumes of black smoke pouring out of mufflers. Recent legislative advances have drastically improved the fuel standards for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD), cutting down exhaust emissions (non-greenhouse gas emissions like SO x ) by 90%. New pollution control technology also helps reduce emissions from the tailpipe. The engine that was once associated with poor air quality and smog is now approaching the emissions levels of gasoline engines. Diesel fuel does have a higher carbon content that gasoline and results in 22.2 pounds of CO 2 per gallon compared to 19.4 for gasoline.
Hybrid: Reputation vs. Reality
Hybrid vehicles have gained an aura of “greenness” and the popularity of the Toyota Prius has been fueled by conspicuous consumption. Car commercials promoting hybrids have tried to give the impression that driving a hybrid is equal to doing something good for the planet, when in reality it just amounts to doing something less bad. Driving an SUV is still consuming a lot more gasoline and emitting a lot more greenhouse gasses than is really needed to transport its solitary occupant from point A to Point B, even if that SUV is a hybrid. So let’s be clear, hybrid cars are a step in the right direction but they are not the solution to the challenge posed by climate change.
What about Electric?
Plug in hybrid electric vehicles ( 2012 Prius Plug-In ), range-extended electric vehicles ( Chevrolet Volt ), and pure electric vehicles ( Nissan Leaf Tesla Roadster) have only recently become serious participants in the market and it is estimated that 10% of vehicles on the road by 2020 will be powered by batteries instead of petroleum fuels. Obvious limitations in range will keep purely electric cars in the realm of commuting and getting around town, but that is what most cars are used for anyway. Range-extended electric vehicles use a backup motor to charge the batteries when they get low, allowing a much longer range and making them feasible for road trips longer commutes as well. The problem with all these vehicles is that they rely on lithium batteries, which are quite expensive, making the cars themselves fairly pricey.
What's The Verdict? Is Diesel Better Than Hybrid?
When looking at fuel economy and base price of several currently-available diesel and hybrid models we find that hybrid vehicles cost more than their gasoline counterparts but don't always get impressive fuel economy, which is especially evident with hybrid SUVs. We also find that diesel vehicles can be almost as efficient as comparably-sized hybrids, mainly because of their efficient engines and lighter weight. An additional consideration is that newer diesel vehicles can consume biodiesel without modifications, making their carbon dioxide emissions "carbon neutral."
The ideal choice in vehicle is obviously based on many personal variables but the advantage of modern diesel cars is quite clear. Their ability to match the fuel economy of sometimes more expensive hybrid vehicles and their comparatively lower curb weigh (due to the absence of batteries) make diesel vehicles a great alternative to hybrids. Of course no fossil fuel-powered car, no matter how efficient, can be a solution to climate change. Eventually cars powered by electricity from renewable sources or by fuel cells using sustainably generated hydrogen will provide the next step forward, especially if they are manufactured using renewable energy as well. Ultimately though, trip avoidance (telecommuting, online shopping, etc.) as well as user-friendly and accessible mass transit are the true solutions to sustainable mobility.
Pablo Päster is a weekly columnist for TreeHugger.com and Principal Environmental Consultant at Hara Software. Send your questions to Pablo(at)TreeHugger.com or submit via this form and connect to his RSS feed.CLOSE Cost considerations have delayed a planned pier on the Delaware River in New Castle.
Buy Photo Remnants of the dock in Battery Park in New Castle are shown on May 21. (Photo: KYLE GRANTHAM/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo
New Castle's plan to build a Delaware River pier has been sidetracked by higher-than-expected costs.
City officials had hoped to have a contractor starting construction this year, but offers to build the project came in about three times higher than what the city can afford. City Administrator William Barthel said the long-discussed plan will be nearly dead if more affordable bids don't come in this month.
Late last year, the city solicited bids to build the lighted pier extending 170 feet onto the river from the concrete wharf at the foot of Delaware Street. But the city received only one offer to build the project for approximately $3 million. A design firm hired by the city projected the cost would be $800,000.
Bill Barthel (Photo: PROVIDED)
"We had one bid come in that was just not acceptable. Part of the reason that we didn't have anyone come it was the time frame on it," Barthel said.
City officials had hoped to have a contractor driving piling for the pier's foundation into the shallows of the river in January because construction work in the river is barred by federal officials from spring until July.
"A lot of companies said they just didn't feel comfortable that they could get in the water and meet the time requirements to start in early January," Barthel said.
The city recently put out another request for bids from contractors with the aim to start work in July.
"Bids are due back by the end of March and we will find out that we can do it for $800,000," Barthel said.
The city was given about $800,000 from the state and expects to receive another $145,00 from federal emergency response officials.
The city’s previous pier was destroyed during Superstorm Sandy. Part of that money has already been spent on engineering and design. If the new bids reflect costs the city can pay, the project will move forward this year, Barthel said.
CRIME MAP: View a map of where most crimes occur in the state
"The intent would start around July and hopefully have it completed in the October, November time-frame," Barthel said.
Barthel said if the current round of bids do not come in closer to what the city expects, the project will be all but dead. He added that the city continues to look for outside funds to help the project. No city money is being used.
Buy Photo Tall ships sail the Delaware River near New Castle on June 24. City officials hope to build a pier for ships to dock. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
The project has been discussed for years and has at times been controversial. Some neighbors fear the pier is the next step toward the hyper-commercialization that would turn the city into the Rehoboth Beach of New Castle County. Others point out that the city had a pier for decades without affecting the historic city's character. As of now, there are no plans to have day slips for private boaters.
Businesses and city officials see it is as another attraction to New Castle's riverfront.
"I think it is a necessity. It would be very good to bring more tourists into town. The businesses need it," said Caroline Dempsey, owner of Caroline's, a restaurant on Delaware Street in old New Castle.
Barthel said the main intent is to attract tall ships like the Kalmar Nyckel. There has also been talk on either side of the river about re-establishing ferry traffic between the city and Pennsville, New Jersey.
Such a ferry was one of the primary routes of travel for Delawareans heading to Wildwood, New Jersey, and the Jersey Shore before the completion of the Delaware Memorial Bridge in the 1950s.
A ferry departs from the New Castle Ferry Terminal at Chestnut Street in the 1940s. The ferry connected Pennsville, New Jersey, to New Castle until the Delaware Memorial Bridge spanned the Delaware River. The city is moving forward with construction of a new pier which could spur more activity on the city's riverfront. (Photo: PROVIDED BY NEW CASTLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY)
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.
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NSA takes surveillance fact sheets off website
Following a complaint from two senators, the National Security Agency has removed from its website two fact sheets designed to shed light on and defend a pair of surveillance programs. Users now trying to access the documents detailing surveillance under legal authorities known as Section 215 and Section 702 receive an error message when they try to load the fact sheets.
On Monday, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) wrote to the head of the spy agency alleging that one of the documents was misleading and inaccurate. The senators claimed, without elaborating, that a fact sheet “contains an inaccurate statement about how the section 702 authority has been interpreted by the U.S. government.”
NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander responded to the two lawmakers Tuesday, and while he didn't admit inaccuracy, he said the documents could have been clearer.
"After reviewing your letter, I agree that the fact sheet that the National Security Agency posted on its website on 18 June 2013 could have more precisely described the requirements for collection under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act," Alexander said in a letter of his own (posted here).
Separately Tuesday, another NSA official said the removal of the fact sheets and letter from the senators were unrelated.
“Given the intense interest from the media, the public, and Congress, we believe the precision of the source document (the statute) is the best possible representation of applicable authorities,” NSA spokesperson Judith Emmel said in a statement.
The documents, still available here, were published in the wake of revelations about the extent of the NSA’s surveillance programs. They sought to highlight the safeguards the NSA uses to make sure American communications aren’t caught up in its surveillance — or if they are, what the NSA does to remove identifying information about U.S. citizens. Wyden and Udall, both of whom sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have long called for more transparency on how the NSA protects Americans’ privacy -- but said the NSA's fact sheets gave the wrong impression.
“The Senator has received the letter and appreciates that the misleading fact sheet has been taken down," Wyden spokesman Tom Caiazza said.
The NSA procedures for targeting foreigners and minimizing American communications were further unveiled last Thursday when The Guardian and Washington Post posted detailed copies of the guidelines. Many privacy advocates were not satisfied with the procedures, arguing that they give the government too much leeway when determining if a potential target is foreign or American. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had no comment on the procedures after they were disclosed.What, exactly, is a city? Technically, cities are legal designations that, under state laws, have specific public powers and functions. But many of the largest American cities — especially in the South and West — don’t feel like cities, at least not in the high-rise-and-subways, “Sesame Street” sense. Large swaths of many big cities are residential neighborhoods of single-family homes, as car-dependent as any suburb.
Cities like Austin and Fort Worth in Texas and Charlotte, North Carolina, are big and growing quickly, but largely suburban. According to Census Bureau data released Thursday, the population of the country’s biggest cities (the 34 with at least 500,000 residents) grew 0.99 percent in 2014 — versus 0.88 percent for all metropolitan areas and 0.75 percent for the U.S. overall. But city growth isn’t the same as urban growth. Three cities of the largest 10 are more suburban than urban, based on our analysis of how people describe the neighborhoods where they live.
Official government data obscures how suburban America really is. There’s no definition of “suburb” or “suburban” in the census’s otherwise exhaustive list of geographic terms and concepts. The census definition of urban areas amounts to the 81 percent of the U.S. population that is not rural, but this definition, as we’ll see below, lumps together urban and suburban neighborhoods.
Researchers and official data sources sometimes treat the portion of a metropolitan area outside its largest city or cities as the suburbs, but this gets many neighborhoods wrong in both directions. Just as big cities contain neighborhoods that feel suburban, some areas outside big-city boundaries — such as Hoboken, New Jersey, and West Hollywood, California — feel more urban than parts of their neighboring big cities.
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Related Deals: Amazon Coupons, SuperHeroStuff Promo CodesSince The Daily Beast’s original “Lost Girls” investigation last summer, additional evidence and archives have been unearthed in the case. More than two dozen other victims were also reported in the same region of Panama, including a young woman from the United States found murdered earlier this year. Now a return trip to the scene of events—as well as renewed sleuthing by best-selling author Dr. Kathy Reichs and other forensic specialists—provide a fresh take on this cold case.
BOQUETE, Panama—Everyone knows everyone in a town this small. And that should make it hard to keep a secret for long. Or so you'd think.
From the quaint two-story courthouse to the outlying villages on the slopes of the Baru Volcano, the Boquete rumor mill runs all day, every day. The local buzz can make it difficult to separate genuine fact from tropical fiction, although the town boasts just a single paved street and fewer than 10,000 residents.
On my last trip here, as part of an earlier investigation into the unsolved deaths of two young Dutch women, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, I tried to track down a local guide—a well-known and controversial figure in Boquete with close ties to the case. It’s been almost a full year now, yet this source remains a gossip-clouded enigma.
Some call him the “best guide in town,” while others suggest he might be Panama’s most-wanted serial killer. I’d like to sit down with him, give him the benefit of every doubt, and get his side of the story. But it seems he doesn’t want to talk; or at least not to me, as I’ve been trying to contact him since last summer.
According to a police report leaked to The Daily Beast, this tour leader told authorities he had met with Dutch tourists Kris and Lisanne the same day they disappeared from Boquete, on April 1, 2014. He claimed to have scheduled a hike with them for the following day, and that he went looking when they never showed up.
As for the women, their fragmented remains were found about two months later, near a trail called the Pianista—victims of what the same report refers to as “homicidio.”
In a strange twist, one of the last people to see the women alive, was also the man who led the search party that found their fragmented bones. That alone makes him one of the most important sources in this case.
A contact close to the victims’ families in Holland has indicated they’re still searching for answers or new clues. The uncovered police record gives some fresh insights, such as the assertion that the cause of death was considered a “crime,” as opposed to an accident. But a palaver with the guide could help break new ground in this investigation, and perhaps give some measure of closure to grieving loved ones.
Since my return to town I’ve been hunting him again, but his phone keeps rolling straight to voicemail. I’m told he hasn’t been seen for days in any of the tour shops or hotels where guides often hang around, hoping to drum up clients.
Multiple media outlets have linked this guide to the case, although the exact role he played remains unclear. What we do know, based on the leaked police report and the guide’s own account therein, is that he was scheduled to take the Holandesas—as they’ve come to be known throughout Panama—to visit a nearby farm on April 2, the day after they vanished.
He’s also been accused by Panamanian prosecutors of entering the room where the women stayed ahead of authorities, and possibly tampering with evidence. Based on the original maps made by the searchers, and interviews with team members, we now know the victims’ fragmented remains were discovered just a few miles from this same guide’s ranch house.
Conflicting reports in the Dutch and Panamanian press offer wildly different perspectives on these events. Some accounts name him as complicit in a crime against the women—but other sources describe his own attempts to find the lost tourists and assist authorities in the search. So who’s to be believed?
Guide Espied
Since The Daily Beast profiled this enigmatic guide, in Part Two of our first series, other former clients have come forward to say they were threatened by him.
“He is a mountain guide who speaks a little English, and even a little German,” says Nina von Rönne, who lives in Paris and recently rented a vacation property from that Boquete native.
“We always saw him with women,” von Rönne says, after initially contacting me over social media. She’s also sent a picture of herself with the man in question, her former landlord. And I’ve spoken with another traveler who was with the Sorbonne grad in Panama, and who independently corroborates the details of her story.
“He works only with female tourists … from Europe and a little bit from Canada,” von Rönne says. “He has a preference for German, Dutch, and all people coming from northern and eastern Europe,” but he “doesn’t like Americans.”
Ms. von Rönne, a photographer is in her mid-twenties, describes the suspect as about 65, although she “never dared ask him” how old he was.
“He is physically very strong for his age,” she says. “I saw him carry super heavy bags of coffee beans and fruit from his garden, as if it were absolutely nothing. He is a true force of nature.
He is able to walk quickly and for long distances in the mountains and without getting tired.”
After renting a small cottage on his isolated farm for several weeks, she began to feel trapped, as if “he was spying on me.”
When von Rönne spurned his romantic advances, she claims, he became “like a panther. He literally jumped on my neck... He even tried to lift me up as if to see how much I weighed. It really bothered me because although we had been living there for two months, [yet] I still had so many difficulties with his physical relationship being too close.”
Asking around Boquete turns up other, similar accounts.
“[This guide] is not allowed on our property,” says a receptionist at one of the largest hostels in town. “The owner doesn’t let us book tours with him anymore,” the receptionist says, because of his “impertinent” habits with female clients.
It’s widely known in town, and self-published on sites like Trip Advisor, that the guide specializes in taking hikers on long, three-day treks from Boquete out to the Bocas coast via the Pianista trailthe same route taken by Kremers and Froon just before their disappearance.
The Bocas region is also where U.S. citizen Catherine Johannet and others have turned up dead or gone missing.—including at least six victims in the last two years, according to reports in the national press.
Corinna Epp, a German citizen who lives half the year in Panama, and who works as a tour organizer, says the aforementioned guide is “hated” for “sexually harassing” clients.
“I’ve never seen our owner react to any of the other guides like that,” Epp adds.
None of these allegations makes him a murderer, however.
The guiding community itself seems split on his reputation. In the past I’ve heard from some guides that he was AWOL when the other outfitters went up into the high country above Boquete to hunt for Kremers and Froon—yet another local trailmaster I speak to describes him as “a hero” who has “inspired many of us.”
Von Rönne isn’t surprised by the competing narratives:
“He has a double face,” says his former client, who says she finally left Boquete out of fear for her own safety. “There is one aspect of his personality that can be very nice, but another that’s a real demon.”
The Unusual Suspects
An escaped convict, Frank Pardo, who broke out of a Panamanian prison in March of 2013, is another possible perp with a past in the vicinity. A former sicario, or assassin, with the Mexican cartels, Pardo was convicted of the “Satanic” murder of a woman in 1996, who showed signs of torture. Pardo has been known to frequent the northern Chiriqui area around Boquete, and remains at large as of this writing.
One more conceivable culprit is the so-called “Hannibal Lecter of Bugaba,” who was arrested back in March of 2017 for hacking up a 27-year-old woman he’d met on Facebook, then bon-firing her body in his own backyard, not 20 minutes from Boquete proper.
When police caught up with him he was carrying unidentified raw meat around in a suitcase, thus leading to his cannibalistic sobriquet. Press reports indicate he’s still under investigation for possible links to other missing persons in the area.
Then there’s the taxi driver who brought Kris and Lisanne to the Pianista trailhead on the morning they went missing. He turned up dead almost exactly a year later, under officially “unexplained” circumstances. Gossip in Boquete paints Leo Gonzalez’s death as a “drowning,” but eye witnesses say questions remain.
“It’s a strange thing,” says César Castillo, a rock-climbing instructor who was teaching clients nearby when Gonzalez’s body was pulled from the water in a shallow stretch of the mini-canyon the locals call Gualaca.
“It’s easy to swim there, with no strong current,” says Castillo, who frequently takes his climbing students for a dip in the same spot. “And we never heard any cries for help, or splashing around like he was in trouble. We know he didn’t hit his head on a rock, because there was no blood or bruising,” says Castillo, who helped pull Gonzalez from the water and tried to perform CPR.
Castillo also reports the presence of other cars parked near the mini-canyon that day, although he admits he can’t be sure the death was not an accident.
“Leo was a good kid,” says a fellow taxi driver in town, when I ask about Gonzalez. “Always responsible. Always on time. If he got killed over the Holandesas, it could’ve been because he saw something he shouldn’t have near the Pianista,” the driver says, referring to the trail where the young women disappeared. “Not because he did anything wrong himself.”
Organ Players
Back in the fall of 2012, a young woman was found dead and partly burned near a highway just north of Boquete, near the Costa Rican border. At first it was thought to be a case of domestic violence, and her boyfriend was promptly arrested.
But soon widely circulated reports claimed that 18-year-old college student Aira Guerra was missing all of her vital organs. These were said to have been removed in a surgical manner via a Y-shaped incision from her shoulders to the pubic bone.
Because two other victims supposedly were found in a similar condition in the Chiriquí region, organ trafficking has also been hypothesized as a motive in the Kremers-Froon case.
At least four people were arrested for Aira’s murder. Links to a proven organ-trafficking ring operating just across the border in Costa Rica were touted in local news accounts.
It’s hard to say whether or not there is a definite connection to the Holandesas’ case, in part because the Panamanian prosecutors “suspiciously” allowed some of those arrested for Aira’s death to walk before thorough questioning could take place. (The trial is apparently still pending.)
My own hunch, however, is that this is just the regional rumor factory at work. Although the evidence in the Aira Guerra case does seem to have gone missing under shady circumstances, the accounts of organ removal are disputed.
And, in any case, the extremely remote area where Kris and Lisanne went missing would hardly be conducive to the harvesting of delicate human tissues.
"Organ theft is one of the oldest urban legends in the books,” says Dr. Kathy Reichs, when I ask her about the topic. “I would be very skeptical of this. How could their organs have been properly removed, preserved, or transported? Sold how? Implanted where?”
Another US-based forensics consultant, Carl Weil, concurs with Reichs. “If it was a crime it was more likely one of opportunity,” as opposed to a black-market operation conducted “out there in the wilderness,” says the former Marine and police officer who’s served as an advisor in over 300 U.S. court cases.
“In the mountains of the Pianista.”
The owner of the Spanish-language school in Boquete where Kris and Lisanne were enrolled appears to have been the first witness to alert authorities that the Holandesas were missing. At that time, she also reported the women had booked a trip to a “ranch in Alto Quiel” with the previously indicated guide.
There’s another mention of that guide in the leaked police archive, which again puts him at the center of the action. The reference makes clear the criminal investigation was initiated because of “information,” he provided “about the disappearance [of Kremers and Froon] in the mountains of the Pianista.”
On one hand, this could mean he was telling the truth, and providing help in the case. On the other hand, Panamanian prosecutors state he’d entered the women’s rented room prior to questioning, and without a police escort—a fact cited in relation to potential evidence having gone missing as well.
Other questions remain. For example, since the Holandesas’ scheduled tour with him was for Alto Quiel, which is in the opposite direction, how did the guide know the Dutch women were missing in the Pianista region when officials first questioned him?
It would be two more months before the victims’ remains and clothes and personal belongings would be found near the Pianista trail. Yet he described the precise location immediately following the disappearance, says the leaked report—although none of the first-strike rescue parties were able to find the two hikers alive in the early days of the search.
Of course there could be a purely coincidental reason for all such lingering doubts. And Carl Weil, who heads up Colorado’s Wilderness Medicine School, offers a simple solution for clearing them up:
“[They] ought to re-open this case,” says Weil, who also suggests the Dutch and U.S. embassies might need to get involved to help penetrate the cloud of myth and hearsay.
“Whoever did this should be brought to justice,” he says. “And that’s a fact.”The main role of cardinals is to elect a new pope, and they remain eligible to vote under any circumstances, even if they have been excommunicated, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, the secretary for the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said last week.
Ambrogio Piazzoni, a papal historian, told reporters last week that he could think of no examples of cardinals who had refrained from voting for anything other than health reasons, or from the pressures of different governments in past years.
Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit Web site based in Massachusetts that seeks to collate documentation about the sexual abuse crisis, said the move set a new precedent.
“Many cardinals scheduled to join the conclave have been involved as bishops in handling cases of clergy sexual abuse, and some of them have done such a bad job that they, too, should recuse themselves from the conclave,” he said in an e-mailed statement, naming Cardinal Mahony and the leaders of the church in two scandal-scarred countries, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland and Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium. “If they are involved in the deliberations and the votes, they will taint the outcome, damaging the legitimacy of whoever is ultimately chosen.”
The resignation was met with mixed responses in Scotland, ranging from satisfaction among gay and lesbian groups to dismay among others who saw Cardinal O’Brien as a strong voice for Scotland and its 750,000 Catholics, as well as an influential advocate for the poor and aid to the developing world. He has been a frequent visitor to Catholic missions in Africa.
Among some, there was upset that the cardinal had been brought down by accusers who have so far not identified themselves publicly, and whose allegations have yet to be tested by any ecclesiastical tribunal, or by a Scottish court. There was strong endorsement for the pope’s decision to accelerate the cardinal’s resignation and a hope that the episode would lead to a determination under a new pope to deal decisively with the legacy of sexual abuse among priests.
The differing views were reflected in e-mails that flooded into the BBC.
“I have little pity for a man who said some truly nasty things about the gay community,” wrote James Swinburne, in the English city of Manchester. “Religious belief or not, these views have no place in the U.K. in 2013. His comments will have hurt and offended many people, and potentially perpetuated prejudice that exists within our society.”Scott Bonner, who kept his library open while the nearby Ferguson riots closed schools, honoured for his work as a ‘quiet hero’ sustaining services for young readers
Scott Bonner – the librarian who kept his library open in Ferguson, following the 2014 riots sparked by the shooting of Michael Brown – has won a prize honouring “noble librarians faced with adversity”.
Established by the author Daniel Handler – who writes the bestselling Lemony Snicket children’s books – and the American Library Association, the $10,000 (£6,500) award is intended to recognise a librarian “who has faced adversity with integrity and dignity intact”.
After the unarmed black teenager Brown was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri last August, the St Louis suburb was hit by a wave of shock, escalating protests and civil unrest. But while local businesses closed their doors as riots, violence and arson raged, and schools delayed opening, Ferguson public library remained open, “thanks to Bonner and the absolutely vital and tireless work of every member of his staff”, said the ALA.
Just a few blocks from the clashes between protesters and police, Bonner, the only full-time librarian on staff, who had started the job just weeks earlier, set out a sign at the library doors saying “Stay Strong Ferguson. We are family”. He then worked with volunteers, church groups and local teachers to put on educational programming for up to 200 children a day, said the ALA, while racial tensions were “at a boiling point”.
Donations from nearly 13,000 supporters across the US poured in, topping $175,000, and Bonner used the money – almost half the library’s annual budget – to compile a book collection focused on civic engagement, diversity, the history of civil rights and trauma recovery.
“Bonner’s ability to respond to the needs of his community with earnestness and immediacy demonstrates his leadership, personal courage, selflessness and dedication to public service,” said the ALA. “When the library began receiving too many patrons and running too many programmes to house, Bonner secured space at the church next door and kept on going. While buildings were being burnt down, he was building the community of Ferguson.”
Los Angeles Public Library’s Dora Ho, chair of the jury that selected Bonner as the award’s winner, added that “under his leadership, a traumatic moment in our nation’s history was met with an outpouring of support”, with Bonner serving as a “quiet hero” through it all, “directing all media and social media attention toward highlighting the role of libraries and librarians as community hubs of support”.
“We feel that he has been the ultimate example of humility, integrity, and dignity in the face of adversity,” she said.
Responding to congratulations on Twitter, where he was described as a superhero, Bonner wrote: “Ha! Thanks. But, if I’m a superhero, then so is any local librarian, so go to the library and let them teach you to fly. :)”
He will be presented with the Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity on 28 June by Handler and the award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson at the ALA annual conference in San Francisco.The most important social and legal change in Canada during 2018 will almost certainly be the legalization of marijuana. This move, the boldest by the Trudeau government so far, will end almost a century of prohibition of cannabis that has resulted in a great deal of misery while delivering few benefits in return. The House of Commons has passed two laws that will make the consumption of marijuana legal while toughening the rules against abuse of the drug. The prime minister now says his goal to put them into effect by “next summer.”
A young man smokes a marijuana joint during a rally in downtown Vancouver. ( File photo / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
But it’s far from clear that will actually happen. Conservatives in the Senate are threatening to derail the entire project by stretching out debate on legalization in the Upper Chamber for many months – past the original deadline of July, and possibly deep into next fall. They should cease and desist. The appointed Senate has a constitutional job to do in reviewing legislation passed by the elected Commons. But deliberately thwarting the will of MPs by manipulating the arcane rules of the Senate is something else again. The Senate officially began debate on Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, and C-46, which would tighten rules on impaired driving related to marijuana use, at the end of November, as soon as the Commons passed them
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So it had seven months to vet the bills – ample time if senators are honestly determined to fulfill their duties while respecting the will of the Commons. But debate in the Senate is far from straightforward and since the Conservatives form the single biggest group on party lines (ever since Justin Trudeau freed Liberal senators from party discipline) they can control the pace of debate. Independent Senator Tony Dean has a better idea. He’s the sponsor of Bill C-45 in the Senate and proposes bringing in a “structured” debate for this important legislation. It would give senators a chance to examine the new laws, but according to a timetable that would bring it to a vote well before July 1. “I’m not talking about limiting or rushing discussion,” Dean wrote recently. “I’m talking about organizing discussion – a predictable, formulated debate.” That kind of debate was successfully used in the Senate to examine another contentious piece of legislation, the law on medical assistance in dying. The government representative in the Upper Chamber, Peter Harder, has also proposed bringing ministers involved in the issue to testify before the Senate in early February so senators can question them. All that would give senators a good chance to offer their “sober second thought” on the cannabis bills in a timely manner. Let’s recall what’s at stake here. The current marijuana laws criminalize thousands of Canadians for using a relatively harmless drug. Aside from medical marijuana, pot is sold mostly through gang-run black markets and the proceeds aren’t taxed.
There is legitimate concern about marijuana’s effects on young people, but prohibition hasn’t worked very well there either. Canada has one of the highest rates of pot use among the young – higher than some other countries like the Netherlands where it is tolerated. Nor has legalization in some U.S. states led to a spike in consumption among youth. Legalization with strict rules around distribution and sales, however, is complicated. The provinces are busy putting sales networks in place to meet the federal deadline, which involves locating outlets, signing legal agreements, hiring staff, preparing public education campaigns, and much more.
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To kick this can down the road for months longer – perhaps until the end of 2018 or even longer – would disrupt all that planning. Even worse, the Conservative senators are also threatening to delay the related Bill C-46, which will bring in stricter rules around driving while impaired – by either alcohol or marijuana. Leaving aside the wisdom of legalizing cannabis, delaying the impaired driving law is indefensible. In an open letter to senators, MADD Canada (formerly Mothers Against Drunk Driving) points out that “drugs are present in fatal crashes nearly twice as often as alcohol.” They are calling on the Senate to pass C-46 without delay. At the moment, Conservatives have 34 members in the Senate, compared to 39 Independents and just 15 Liberals. That gives the Conservative minority unusual power to manipulate the chamber’s rules. But if they do that to defy the elected Commons and delay these laws unnecessarily, their party and the entire Senate will be discredited. The Upper Chamber should do its job – in a timely, organized fashion that allows the best possible law on legalization to be adopted on the government’s schedule. Correction – December 27, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said cannabis is legal in the Netherlands. In fact, it is not legal but is tolerated.
Read more about:On his radio program today, Glenn Beck took a call from a young woman who said that though she is not yet old enough to vote, she would support Ted Cruz if she could because he is the only candidate who “makes the Bible his compass and bases his standards on something that is unchangeable.”
Beck replied that people don’t actually have to use the Bible as their compass because the Founding Fathers wove the Bible directly into the Constitution and so if we just follow the Constitution, we will be following God’s will as well.
“You don’t necessarily have to use the Bible as you compass,” Beck said, “because the founders used the Bible as the compass to enact the laws of the Constitution. The laws, the amendments are all based on natural law and God’s law. So, our politicians, all they need to do is use the Constitution as their compass and they’ll be in line with nature’s God and nature’s laws.”In October 2014, India’s Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) released a proposal for a new air quality index that would be used to quantify and communicate the severity of haze outbreaks. The new air quality index would synthesize levels of various pollutants—including PM 2.5, PM 10, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide—into one easy-to-understand number and warning color that would be used to alert the public about health risks during outbreaks.
While the proposed air quality index is still in the planning stages, it might have been useful in late October 2014. Since October 22, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on the Aqua and Terra satellites have observed an increasingly thick layer of haze hovering over northern India. The image above shows the area as observed by Terra on October 27, 2014. Red boxes show where MODIS detected fires.
Rice paddies and wheat and vegetable fields are commonly cleared with fire in the Punjab in October and November, so smoke from such fires are likely an important source of the haze. The smoke combined with routine urban and industrial pollution from cities in northern India to produce the pall of gray. Smoke from fireworks associated with Diwali celebrations also may have contributed to the buildup of haze, according to news reports from several cities.
Normally, air pollution dissipates relatively quickly because pollutants disperse as warm air near the surface rises. In this case, a temperature inversion associated with a storm system in northern Pakistan and India has helped hold the haze in place by trapping cool air under a layer of warmer air.
India’s government anticipates that an air quality index will help citizens minimize their exposure to hazardous pollutants during haze outbreaks. “The air quality index will prove to be a major initiative for improving air quality in urban areas, as it would enhance public awareness and involvement, and would create a competitive environment among cities to take steps for air pollution mitigation,” noted Susheet Kumar, chairman of India’s CPCB, while introducing the proposal. The efforts comes after the World Health Organization and Yale University recently listed India as having some of the most severe air pollution in the world.
NASA image courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.Throughout its project to build a massive battery "Gigafactory" near Reno, Nevada, Tesla has had assistance from its current battery supplier, Panasonic.
The Japanese electronics company has agreed to help fund the project, and will use its technical resources to help set up and run the factory.
Panasonic hasn't previously disclosed the amount it plans to invest in the $5 billion project, which will provide the economy of scale to lower the prices of Tesla electric cars.
DON'T MISS: Tesla Gigafactory To Host 'Hundreds' Of Panasonic Workers Starting This Fall (Jun 2015)
Now, the company--which also owns a small stake in Tesla--says it will spend up to $1.6 billion on the Gigafactory.
That estimate came from Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga, speaking to MarketWatch at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Panasonic's continued involvement in the Gigafactory project is reportedly part of plan to grow the company's presence in the automotive sector.
Tesla Motors - Model S lithium-ion battery pack More
Sales to carmakers accounted for about 15 percent of Panasonic's revenue in 2015, but the total revenue is expected to double over the next four years, representing 25 percent of the total.
At the same time, though, Panasonic faces stiffer competition from Korean battery suppliers Samsung SDI and LG Chem.
The latter will supply battery cells and many other components for the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV as part of a far-reaching partnership with General Motors.
ALSO SEE: Tesla And Panasonic: Partners In Electric Cars, Foes In Home Energy Storage (Sep 2015)
The $1.6 billion investment Panasonic revealed at CES is significantly higher than the $92 million it had previously discussed.
Employees from the Japanese company were expected to arrive in Nevada at the end of last year to prepare for the start of cell production.
According to previously-released terms, about half of the Gigafactory is to be devoted to cell production supervised by Panasonic. The other half will be occupied by suppliers and assembly lines for cell modules and battery packs.
Tesla Model S undergoing assembly More
The majority of cells initially will be used for its current Model S and Model X electric cars, as well as for its Powerwall home and business energy storage products.
Ultimately, though, the output will be used for the 200-mile Model 3 electric car, which is scheduled to be unveiled in March.
Tesla will need the economy of scale offered by such a large factory to achieve the Model 3's oft-quoted $35,000 base price.
MORE: Do Tesla, Panasonic Differ Dramatically On Growth Of Electric Car Batteries? (Jun 2015)
But that relies on the factory being fully operational by 2017, when Tesla has claimed Model 3 production is expected to start.
The company has delayed each of its new-vehicle launches, and the added variable of the Gigafactory could make the Model 3 launch more complex than previous models.
And Tesla needs to ramp up Model 3 production quickly to meet its goal of selling 500,000 cars a year by 2020.
If it does meet that goal, Tesla will likely account for the largest portion of Panasonic's planned automotive-market growth.
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Follow GreenCarReports on Facebook and TwitterD-backs No. 1 prospect Dansby Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 Draft, has been sidelined since suffering a concussion two weeks ago and continues to experience symptoms, according to MLB.com.
Swanson, Arizona's top selection in June, was hit in the face by a pitch two weeks ago during a simulated game for the D-backs in Arizona. The shortstop, currently ranked as MLB.com's No. 12 prospect, was hit in the right side of his mouth and needed 14 stitches.
"Every now and then, he'll have a little spell where he doesn't feel quite right," D-backs farm director Mike Bell told The Arizona Republic. "So that slows it down a little bit. I think we're almost there, but we're waiting for that one day where he's completely symptom-free."
Swanson, 21, has yet to make his Minor League debut after Arizona selected him out of Vanderbilt. The D-backs gave the Golden Spikes Award finalist a $6.5 million signing bonus July 17.
"I think at this point he's even frustrated," Bell said. "Just one little thing here or there that kind of creeps up where he might get a little light-headed or something."Using the time-tested 7 Steps to Building Your Own Conspiracy Theory, here’s an alternative explanation for the sinking of the Titanic.*
The RMS Titanic sank at 2 a.m. on April 15, 1912, after allegedly hitting an iceberg on 4/14. The governments of the United States and Great Britain have officially closed their investigations into the sinking of the Titanic, but many questions remain unanswered…
Metal is harder than ice. Try hitting an ice cube with a hammer if you don’t believe me. The Titanic sank in 1912. The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. Credible experts have shown that the angular cuts in the hull of the Titanic could only have come from THERMITE. If ice was stronger than metal, they would make boats out of it. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable — SO HOW DID IT SINK? Over 60% of the German gold was never recovered. According to Infowars.com, no Jews boarded the Titanic — were they tipped off by Mossad? Did President Taft and Israeli intelligence have foreknowledge? A bowl of ice will melt way faster than a bowl of metal at room temperature. Despite the fact she was the most advanced luxury cruise liner in the world, Titanic sailed on her maiden voywage with only half her capacity of 2,435 passengers. Coincidence? RMS Caronia, RMS Baltic, SS Amerika, and SS Californian all sent Titanic repeated warnings about icebergs in the area, but she continued on at FULL SPEED in the middle of the night. Only 20 lifeboats were available for over 2,000 people! Ice floats… so how did it supposedly break open Titanic’s steel hull UNDERWATER? The German ship SS Amerika, which was in the area of the Titanic‘s sinking, was later seized by the US Navy in World War I. COINCIDENCE? Standard procedure is to blow up icebergs, so why did Vice President James S. Sherman order the US Navy to “stand down” on 4/14? PrisonPlanet.com reports that Captain William Murdoch and First Mate Edward Smith were seen ALIVE, living in Malaysia in 1914. Eyewitnesses reported hearing loud explosions BEFORE the Titanic supposedly hit the iceberg. No video of the Titanic‘s sinking has ever been released to the public. The founder of the Federal Reserve System built the Titanic and canceled his trip at the last second, after inviting all the critics of a central bank on its first cruise… COINCIDENCE??!?!?!11!!! The iceberg has never been found. This picture:
Leonardo DiCaprio drowns, even though that piece of wreckage was TOTALLY big enough for two people!
ASK QUESTIONS. DEMAND ANSWERS. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
(Yes, it’s a joke. Please god, don’t take it seriously.)
*Maddox did it first, and better.Look at this photo of a model for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympic games as envisioned by Danny Boyle, the eccentric film director of many well-known films including Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Slumdog Millionaire. Titled “Isles of Wonder”, Boyle has claimed that his ideas are inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which is of course the bard’s late theatrical meditation on colonialism, slavery, magic and family hatred– But we get ahead of ourselves–Isn’t colonialism a result, or continuation of a certain process that has already developed in the countryside itself? Population increases, agricultural struggles, class struggles, militarism, advances in transportation all lead to colonies, yes? But capitalist colonization we can, and should understand as a qualitatively different process from mercantile colonization, as Marx brilliantly and teasingly concludes Volume One of Capital with a chapter on The Modern Theory of Colonization, fittingly the ultimate chapter to the section on Primitive Accumuation.
Primitive Accumulation of course being a variegated process of class struggle (aka stealing, pirating, marauding), but one that eventually takes on a special focus in the countryside, where peasants’ claims to hereditary property and traditional use of the land creates a direct obstacle to capital’s drive towards a specifically waged laboring class and a revolution of the concept of property rights. I have investigated these issues before in my three part series on Robert Brenner’s thesis on the transition out of feudalism into capitalist relations and its importance to the Marxist theory of the origins of capitalism, a still-contentious debate.
SO it should come as no surprise to careful readers of this blog at least that Danny Boyle’s design unconciously recreates a sort of microcosm of the specificity of the agricultural transformation of England (remember England was the first country to see half of its population living in cities well before other industrializing countries). We can call his ceremony “Primitive Accumulation: The Musical”, or maybe “The Enclosures: A Multimedia Spectacle!!!” For readers of Marx, Boyle’s formulations couldn’t be more apt and perhaps perverse: On this, the supposedly largest set ever constructed, 70 sheep and 12 horses will be grazing, or dragging plows or hay wains? There will be ” a rural mix of meadows, fields and rivers. Families will be taking picnics, farmers will till the soil…” Most amazingly is that Boyle seems somehow unconsciously aware that this countryside is indeed a product of social turmoil which depopulated the countryside in order to turn the land into profitable sheep walks– So each side of the set will contain “mosh pits” (their language) of hundreds of crowded youth–An eerie reflection of the masses of landless flocking to |
of him, it seems like a great pick.
-DEF-
Coelho – SKC – 7.7 Mil @ 3.4 % Ownership
Coehlo has been on my radar ever since the Opara injury. I took him out of my lineup right before the deadline, and regret it. Paired with Besler, this tandem will not only keep CS, score goals, but also has the potential to generate great BP’s. 16 points in 90 minutes with 1 GS, 1 CS, 4 CL, 0 B, 0 I, 8 REC, 3 SHOTS. Coelho will be in my lineup this week and wont come out until SKC’s form dips. 4 home games in the next 5 matches (VAN/TFC/RSL/nyrb/COL) is good enough for me!
Moor – TFC – 7.1 Mil @ 2.9 % Ownership
I have been big on Moor since TFC acquired him from COL. The 8 away fixtures tend to scare people away from TFC’s defense, but with the addition of Moor/Beita/Irwin, it shouldn’t. Moor scored 8 points in 90 minutes, boasting 1 CS, 8 C,3 I, 2 T, 3 R. He also will be a GS threat on set pieces. He is one for me to watch
-MID-
P. Morales – VAN – 10.6 Mil @ 2.3 % Ownership
Porales was in my lineup since Kaka was ruled out with injury. He has under performed this past season, but his potential is too great to pass up on. He is on all SP, and pulls the strings for VAN. With a DGW coming up in GW4, and his ability to generate BP’s, score and assist, he should be considered in everyone’s line up. Porales scored 10 points in 90 minutes with 1 AS, 2 C, 4 KP, 2 BCC, 1 C, 1 I, 6 R, 4 SH, 1 Fouled, he is a BP monster. GET HIM IN.
Accam – CHI – 9.2 Mil @ 4.3 % Ownership
This isn’t much of a punt. Its more of a MUST HAVE. I also had Accam in my initial line up, but the pressure got to me, and I failed….horribly. Accam is too dynamic of a player not to have in your line up. He has pace, great vision, and has a knack for finding the back of the net. Scoring 14 points in 90 minutes while compiling 1 GS, 1 A, 2 KP,2 BCC,1 T,6 R,7 SHOTS and was fouled twice. He took the PK when Gilberto was subbed, and is on most SP. MUST HAVE PLAYER.
-FWD-
Bruin – HOU – 9.1 Mil @ 2.2 % Ownership
We all know that when the Dancing Bear get hot…you get him in your lineup. Bruin is a streaky player, and opening the season up with 11 points, 90 minutes played, 2 A, 3 KP,1 BCC, 1 C,2 I, 1 T,6 R,1 SHOT and was fouled once seems pretty legit. If you’re looking for a player who could help you out. Bruin could be your man! The schedule isnt too favorable, with FCD/nyrb/van/SEA/LAG, he could put some decent points up. Buyer beware…FCD has had their way with HOU the past couple of games.
There you have it! GW2 Punts!! Im glad to be back, and I hope you all are too! My transfers this week look to be Francis/Stacha OUT—Coelho/Accam IN…
Let me know what your punts are this week!!
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PrintProbably not much of a shock to anyone, but after yesterday I really needed a little time to just take my mind off the whole Twilight situation, so I ended up hopping onto Earth Online for a while. So I was going around leveling my new gardener alt, when I ran into this other player and, well, what resulted was probably one of the most gloriously accurate things I’ve ever seen in the game. Here:
I mean, isn’t that…just…yeah. HAH!
While I’m at it, what with the new year, this might also be a good chance to look back at this first year of the Command Board. Well, first partial year, anyway…I only just started this thing up at the tail end of August. But still! Anyway, it’s definitely been a fun ride so far, but one thing I just look a look back at is the Google search terms that have been bringing people to the blog. Some of them make plenty of sense, but some of them…well…
Let’s just say some of you people really need to talk to someone.
Let me be really clear about this. I think it’s awesome that you guys are coming here to read the blog, and I’m happy that people are finding their way here one way or another. I’m not going to turn up my nose at blog visits from anybody. But, that being said, HOLY FUCKING SHIT some of these search terms are disturbing.
The most common ones are actually pretty good. Matter of fact, it kind of feels good when I see someone come to the Command Board based on search terms that make it pretty clear that they’d heard about the blog somehow. Like for instance, these were the top search terms last year:
warchief’s command board
the warchiefs command board
warchief command board
garrosh hellscream blog
warchief command board blog
So yeah, cool, so far so good. Then there was this one, which I figure was a typo except it had a bunch of hits coming from it, and I get what they were going for but it’s still kinda funny:
warchief command boars
I can think of at least five directions you can go with that. YMMV. Have at it an enjoy.
Then, things start to take a HARD left turn into Asshole-ville. Here’s a sampling:
“my pants got caught” “dangling or dangle or dangles or dangled or hang or hanging or hangs or hanged or hung”
why isnt the warchiefs command board working for me
sergeant dontrag the door is closed
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Okay, so first of all…I have to admit, I’m kind of scared now. I’m going to be really, really optimistic and assume that my regular readers are like…you know…vaguely well adjusted and…um…manage to get laid on a semi-regular basis. Some of the passers-by, though…yeah, you guys really need to get out more.
Especially the Jaina thing. I mean I know I clown on her a lot, but come on, guys. For realsies. This is just kinda sad.
That said…thanks for finding your way here one way or another! Barring some catastrophe, you can look forward to lots more thrilling tales and brilliant insights from your Warchief in the year ahead. AREN’T YOU LUCKY.
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedI was going to open this by warning of spoilers, but honestly, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came out nearly four years ago and if you haven’t seen it by now, I don’t even know what you are or why you live your life the way you do. This movie is one of my all-time favorites. The story is badass. The cast is perfect. The soundtrack is all that matters in life.
In case you’ve been living under some weird, boring rock that doesn’t let you watch fun movies, here’s the gist of the story: Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera, meets Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and is instantly obsessed. From the beginning, he is ready to do anything it takes to spend time with her and get to know her, but Scott’s intentions and determination are tested when he finds out he’ll have to defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes in order to be with her. Hilarity ensues. Asses are kicked. Hearts are won.
I’ve learned many things from Mr. Pilgrim over the years, as I have watched this movie more times than I ever care to count. For example, I’ve learned you can never trust a Wallace, bread makes you fat, vegans have superpowers, and “lesbian” isn’t always the right L-word. Mostly, though, I’ve learned some of my favorite lessons in dating. When it comes to doing relationships, I think Scott got it right (mostly). Here are some of my favorite Pilgrim-y nuggets of relationship wisdom.
1. Don’t be afraid of getting your ass kicked.
Dating is weird and scary and you really never know how things are going to turn out, but don’t let that stop you from being open to it. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Scott has just defeated the first evil ex and Ramona is explaining to him the craziness that would lie ahead for him if they were actually going to date. After she had basically just laid out his death plan, he looks at her and says, “So, what you’re saying is…we’re dating?” I love that she spills her weird secrets and baggage to him and he basically just says “IDGAF” and continues on as if the obstacles he’ll face are non-existent. He wasn’t afraid of getting his ass kicked.
2. On having a fake high school girlfriend.
At the beginning of the movie, we meet Scott’s “fake high school girlfriend,” Knives Chau. Knives is sweet and precious, but is basically a temporary human band-aid for the wounds Scott sustained as a result of his semi-recent breakup. Ahh, the temporary human band-aid! We’ve probably all been guilty of having some version of this relationship. Maybe you like the attention he or she gives you, maybe you’re trying to make someone else jealous, or maybe you’re just lonely. Any way it goes, you’re keeping someone around or leading someone on for reasons that can only be described as selfish. Maybe just cut that cord. You’re keeping that person from being with someone who actually likes them, and you’re not leaving yourself open to someone who you might actually like. It’s pointless, exhausting, and never ends well. But let them down gently, lest they come back and try to kill your new girlfriend at the end of the movie.
3. On being a fake high school girlfriend.
In the same way that we’ve probably all had a fake high school girlfriend, we’ve probably all been someone else’s fake high school girlfriend. It feels great, right? If you find yourself in this situation, and I think you can always tell when you are (whether you want to believe it or not), just go. Trust your instincts. Don’t wait around for them to decide to let you off the hook. You’re wasting your time and you’re going to feel so exhausted trying to force or “convince” them to like you. And, spoiler alert, it’s way more fun to like someone who likes you back. Don’t settle for being their Knives Chau because you will be someone else’s Ramona Flowers.
4. Don’t be a dick about their past.
While most of us don’t have a league of evil exes waiting to sabotage our new relationships, we all have baggage and things in our past that we wish weren’t there. As long as neither of us used to be murderers/rapists, the past should just stay where it is and it absolutely shouldn’t be thrown in each other’s faces out of spite. There’s a moment in the movie when a frustrated Scott spits out, “Is there anyone at this party that you haven’t slept with?” which leads to a hurt Ramona walking out of the club and right back to her evil-est of exes, Gideon. See? Don’t be a dick.
5. Sometimes, you’ve gotta break out the L-word.
No, not “lesbian”. And not “lesbians”. This one’s easy…just say what you’re feeling, duh. If you find yourself having feelings for someone, tell them. It might lead to you guys making out. If not, it will lead to you moving on and finding someone else to make out with. Why not grow a pair (of balls or tits) and speak up?
6. FIGHT!
OKAY THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE. Another one of my top moments of the movie is when Scott is performing with his band on stage and the first evil ex, Matthew Patel, comes crashing in through the roof prepared to annihilate him. Scott stands there confused while muttering, “What do I do?” over and over. Wallace screams out “FIGHT!” from the balcony and that’s exactly what he does. He kicks Patel’s ass and does the same to every evil ex that comes after. I love this because I love the idea of fighting for the person that you love. Not necessarily to rescue them, because people should rescue themselves, but to prove that you will do what it takes to be someone they can count on. Someone who will put the time and effort in to really know them and be with them. Someone who when faced with the difficulties of a relationship won’t run away scared, but will find it worthy enough to fight for. When faced with having to handle all the baggage and arguments and insecurities that come with a relationship, the answer should always be “FIGHT!”
I’m sure there are countless other lessons to be picked up from this story because, like I said, it’s PERFECT, but these are the ones that have always stayed with me. I hope to always be as fearless and noble as Mr. Pilgrim in my relationship. I hope that in our age of unsolicited dick pics, instant gratification, and dismissing people with a “swipe left” of our thumbs, I’ll never lose the willingness to really fight to know and love someone. To roll up my sleeves, look at someone else’s baggage and insecurities, and kick a little ass.Suzanne Hollack tried to care for her husband at home after he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia at age 69. But it got to the point where she couldn’t take a shower for fear he would stray out of the house.
So 18 months ago, she moved him to a memory care community near their home in Scottsdale, Az., which like most long-term care, is not covered by Medicare. That, plus his other medical expenses, cost the couple $90,000 last year.
“These expenses place a huge burden on your retirement savings,” said Mrs. Hollack, whose husband, Harry, managed operations for semiconductor companies. “Losing that tax deduction becomes a double burden.”
The Republican tax overhaul bill introduced in the House last week would eliminate that deduction, which allows people who itemize their federal income taxes to deduct medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of their total income. The change is part of a broad effort to rewrite the tax code in a way that Republicans say will be simpler and fairer. But while the party has framed its tax plan as a boon for the middle class, eliminating the medical-expense deduction would hit the middle class squarely, eliminating a source of relief that has helped millions of people cope with steep medical costs in a country without comprehensive, universal health coverage.The designers at I-Beam Design created the Pallet House Project because they were inspired by one simple, but unbelievable, fact: 84% of the world's refugees could be housed with a year's supply of recycled American pallets. Just based off of a year and a half year of pallet production in the US alone, 33 million refugees could live in a Pallet House. That's a lot of housing for a LOT of people in need. What makes their design so brilliant is that virtually anyone can build it very cheaply and in less than one day.
The Pallet House, by I-Beam Design, was conceived as a transitional shelter for refugees returning to Kosovo.
The pallet house is simply and provides great flexibility in terms of configuration. Each family could build a house based on their needs and size.
Since the house is made from spare wooden pallets, it is easy to acquire the materials to build the shelter.
Not only that, but the house is very simple. Only basic tools are required to build it.
You could add on to the house with found materials, such as plastic sheeting or tarps.
The pallet houses can even be upgraded to include insulation, heating and cooling.
I-Beam Design provides "IKEA-style assembly instructions" so that anyone can assemble these houses. You don't need a background in carpentry.
For only $75, you can buy a pallet house information kit that includes: pdf plans, sections, elevations, photos, diagrams, renderings and a materials & tools list.
Even though the pallet house was originally designed for refugees, you could use those plans to build yourself a beautiful little camper cabin or shelter.
It's amazing what can be done with materials America "wastes."
So for less than $100, you can learn how to build a shelter (basically, a house) that is without plumbing but will protect you from the elements. Building a small cabin (or even a treehouse for your children) was never so easy. If you'd like to buy the plans yourself, please visit I-Beam Design's website. Source: I-Beam DesignBill Kwon, one of Hawaii’s most esteemed sports reporters and editors, died today of natural causes at Nuuanu Hale, where he had lived for the past year. He was 81.
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Bill Kwon, one of Hawaii’s most esteemed sports reporters and editors, died today of natural causes at Nuuanu Hale, where he had lived for the past year. He was 81.
“Just had dinner with him last night,” said longtime colleague and friend Ann Miller. “He was good, as engaged as ever with an amazing memory and sense of humor.”
Kwon’s association with Honolulu newspapers started on Dec. 7, 1941, when he sold the Star-Bulletin on the street the day of the Pearl Harbor attack.
After graduation from Roosevelt High and the University of Manoa, he was hired as a clerk by the Star-Bulletin in 1959. Kwon eventually rose to full-time sports reporter, and then sports editor around 1980. He was later the paper’s lead sports columnist until 2001 when he retired and started writing a golf column for the Honolulu Advertiser until a final retirement in 2010.
Golf was one of Kwon’s many passions. He covered it at all levels, as he did all other major sports beats in Hawaii — and some beyond. He covered multiple Super Bowls, the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and baseball spring training.
“If Bill Kwon was there, it was important,” said golf analyst Mark Rohlfing, in a Honolulu Star-Advertiser story written by Miller in 2010.
Kwon is survived by his sister Dee Kuwaye. Services are pending.The Mach-Effect thruster is a propellantless propulsion concept that has been in development by J.F. Woodward for more than two decades. It consists of a piezo stack that produces mass fluctuations, which in turn can lead to net time-averaged thrusts. So far, thrust predictions had to use an efficiency factor to explain some two orders of magnitude discrepancy between model and observations. Here, a detailed 1D analytical model is presented that takes piezo material parameters and geometry dimensions into account leading to correct thrust predictions in line with experimental measurements. Scaling laws can now be derived to improve thrust range and efficiency. An important difference in this study is that only the mechanical power developed by the piezo stack is considered to be responsible for the mass fluctuations, whereas prior works focused on the electrical energy into the system. This may explain why some previous designs did not work as expected. The good match between this new mathematical formulation and experiments should boost confidence in the Mach effect thruster concept to stimulate further developments.Motorola has shared a list of its recent devices that it plans to update to Android Oreo. The good news is that several devices released last year will make the cut, but there are a few caveats here, too. First up, here’s a peek at devices that are definitely getting the Android Oreo upgrade.
Moto Z2 Force (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon)
Moto Z2 Play (Verizon, unlocked)
Moto Z Force DROID (Verizon)
Moto Z (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, unlocked)
Moto Z Play (Verizon, unlocked)
Moto G5S Plus (unlocked)
Moto G5 Plus (unlocked)
Moto G5 (unlocked)
Notice anything missing? That’s right, the Moto G4 family is not slated to get Android Oreo. (Including the Moto G4 Play that’s on Amazon’s Prime Exclusive Phones list.) It’s only just now a year old, so it’s unfortunate that Motorola has decided to leave it off the update list. What’s worse is that some of the above phones are listed as “pending partner support”, which means if AT&T decides not to issue Android Oreo to its Moto Z customers then they won’t get Android Oreo.
Worst of all, Motorola hasn’t really made it clear when these devices will be getting support since devices sold via carriers remain dependent on carrier support for those updates. There used to be a time when you could rely on Motorola to update their phones relatively quickly, but it looks like that mantle should be passed on to Nokia for now.0 of 5
Brandon Wade/Associated Press
Training camp is important for every single player on the roster; however, it is exponentially more important for the players who battle for a starting spot or a place on the 53-man roster. These players' futures are on the line every day, and they are fighting to climb up as high on the totem pole as they can in every practice and preseason game.
The Dallas Cowboys' roster is as good as it's been in a few years, which means there will be fierce competition to make the squad or become one of the 22 coveted starters.
The Cowboys appear to be loaded once again on offense. They have one of the best quarterbacks in the game, an elite wide receiver corps and the best offensive line in football, which should make for some interesting battles throughout August.
On defense, the Cowboys appear to be much improved with the additions of Greg Hardy, Randy Gregory and Byron Jones. Furthermore, Sean Lee is returning from injuring, which should allow the Cowboys to play faster and much better in coverage on short and intermediate routes.
Overall, the Cowboys will have a ton of competition throughout training camp, which is why we will take a look at the five most crucial position battles throughout training camp.
Each battle is ranked based upon how much impact the winner of that position battle will have on the Cowboys season.General purpose thread pools are more complicated to get right than you may think. In CLR 4 (the next version of the VM that powers.NET), the thread pool has made some significant advances in performance and support for concurrency and parallelism.Since V1,.NET programmers have been afforded the luxury of an automatic queue-dequeue-execute-from-the-queue thread management infrastructure inside the CLR. This is.NET's Thread Pool.As expected, the CLR's thread pool has improved with each iteration of the CLR (hey, V1 was, well, V1...). The goal has always been efficient, reliable, performant thread management. With CLR 4, the team that designs and implements the thread pool, have made some truly compelling changes, which should add up to a very solid thread pool shipping with CLR 4. One of the big changes is the addition of thread-stealing algorithms to support concurrency and parallelism. Indeed, CLR 4 has native support for the Parallel Computing Platform's Parallel Extensions for.NET. What does this mean, exactly? How does it work, exactly? What else is new in CLR 4's thread pool?Meet developer Eric Eilebrecht and program manager Erika Parsons. Eric helped implement the thread pool (he's been doing this for multiple versions, actually). Erika, as PMs do, helped design the thread pool and ensured that the design and implementation meets the needs expressed by customers who rely on the thread pool.Tune in. Lots to learn. You'll be impressed both by the enhancements and direction set forth for the future in CLR 4's thread pool. Eric has some great blog posts on the new addtions to the thread pool in CLR 4 that will be very useful for expanding on the knowledge you gain from this conversation.PM Modi Visits Gujarat, Announces Package Of Rs 500 Crore, Nothing For Assam Where Death Toll Has Reached 77
PM Modi Visits Gujarat, Announces Package Of Rs 500 Crore, Nothing For Assam Where Death Toll Has Reached 77
Updated On: 1st August 2017, 1.43 PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Assam today and discussed the issue of flood relief with state chief minister.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited flood affected parts of his home state Gujarat to take stock of the situation.
On Tuesday PM Modi announced a relief package of Rs 500 crore for the flood-affected districts. He also declared ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased, and Rs 50,000 to those seriously injured in the floods.
PMO/ Twitter
Modi conducted an aerial survey of flood-ravaged areas of north Gujarat where the authorities have shifted more than 36,000 people to safety and rescued more than 1,600 with the help of Indian Army, Indian Air Force and the National Disaster Response Force personnel since Monday.
PMO/ Twitter
The flood situation in Gujarat and Rajasthan is expected to continue the same at least for a couple of more days as heavy rains have been forecasted in the two states.
Don't Miss 96.5 K SHARES 50.8 K SHARES 65.6 K SHARES 22.5 K SHARES 35.4 K SHARES
PTI
Meanwhile in Assam, which has been in the grip of the worst flood in decades, the situation has shown signs of improvement.
As the downpour has slowed down water has began receding in many parts, bringing in much needed relief.
But the devastative floods have left a trail of destruction in its path, claiming 77 lives so far.
PTI
According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), some 23,118 people have been affected by flood in nine districts.
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal who had recently met Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi had sought the center's intervention.
AFP
Currently an inter-ministerial team is on a visit to Assam to carry out an on-the-spot assessment of the flood situation.
The team will conduct an on-the-spot assessment of the flood situation and will be visiting flood-affected areas of Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Majuli, Barpeta, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts of Assam till July 28, an official release said.
But the lack of central assistance and action has left many in the state miffed.
PM. Modi visited flood affected Gujarat but didn't bother to visit Assam. He forgot that he is PM of India not CM of Gujarat — Kya Milega? (@Kya_Milega) July 26, 2017
narendra modi prime minister: Sir, pl visit Assam Flood affected Area — Awadhesh Shah (@shah_awadhesh) July 26, 2017
Dear Modi Ji what about the announcement for the recent flood victims in Barak Valley Regions of Assam?
Have you got any 4 Assam?? — abdul hashim (@hashimabdul24) July 25, 2017
Many states incl odisha,Assam is going through severe flood condition but modi choose Guj
Equality for Eastern states?? Anyone pls — Raghunath Sahoo🇮🇳 (@sahoo_raghunath) July 25, 2017
Over 70 died in Assam flood. Modi sends junior minister Rijiju. Flood in Gujarat. Modi flies himself. Why 2 separate standards @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/zt5aZVf6Vx — atanu bhuyan (@atanubhuyan) July 25, 2017
PM goes for aerial survey in Guj
These days Assam was flood effected Modi was busy,
Still he thinks he is CM of Guj I guess.#GujaratFloods — Dr.YUSUF A.ATHANI (@Neta2lead) July 25, 2017A popular tourist beach in Louisiana remained closed due to oil contamination Saturday as BP officials denied botching the month-long clean-up and deliberately hiding the true extent of the spill.
As Grand Isle, Louisiana, closed its seven-mile beach to clean up an orange-liquidy slick washing ashore, the British energy giant once again postponed an operation aimed at permanently stopping the leak.
The “top-kill” operation to inject heavy drilling fluids into the ruptured well, a month after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig, and then seal it permanently with cement, will now not take place until Tuesday at the earliest instead of at the weekend.
Just how much oil is gushing daily from the rig’s wreckage has been a contentious issue, with BP initially putting the figure at 5,000 barrels — or 210,000 gallons.
“That was not just BP’s estimate. That was the estimate of the in-flight command, including NOAA and the Coast Guard. That’s the best estimate we have,” BP’s chief operating officer Doug Suttles told ABC television Friday.
But in further confusing comments, BP also radically slashed by more than half its figures for how much of the oil it is siphoning up daily from the ruptured well via a mile-long (1,600 meter) insertion tube.
BP spokesman John Curry told AFP Friday that it now estimated some 92,400 gallons of oil had been diverted from the well in the 24 hours before midnight on Thursday.
That would mean BP is sucking up only 2,200 barrels daily from the pipe, not the 5,000 barrels it had estimated on Thursday.
Coast Guard commandant Thad Allen later told reporters that the flow was variable, fluctuating from a low rate of 2,000 barrels a day to a high of 5,000 barrels.
Live webcam pictures showed more oil continuing to spew into the Gulf from the ruptured well — as visitors flocked to BP’s site to watch the video.
Even at the lowest estimates, more than six million gallons of crude have flowed into the water since the disaster. And independent experts have warned the flow could be at least 10 times higher than the current estimates.
Grand Isle shut down its beach as volunteers armed with spades sought to scoop up the oil into plastic bags.
“This is only the beginning. It happened 30 days ago and it just came yesterday. Yesterday, it was the very first, it was very little, and now it’s all over,” said angry resident, 69-year-old Lana Downing.
Charter boat captain Larry Averitt said impatience was also growing further along the coast in Venice, Louisiana.
“In the beginning, everybody was trying to be patient. People are starting to get exasperated. It’s definitely affecting our ability to make a livelihood and pay our bills,” he told AFP. “Nothing BP has tried so far has worked.”
Suttles sought to quell the growing anger among the US administration, telling ABC television that BP had already spent 700 million dollars on the clean-up.
“We’ve mounted the largest response ever done in the world. We put 20,000 people at this.
“I understand the anger. But I can tell you, I don’t know of anything, absolutely anything we could be doing that we’re not doing,” he said.
But he also revised the timetable for when BP would attempt its latest bid to stop the leak, the “top kill” operation.
“Our current forecast for when this operation will take place is sometime in the early part of next week. The best estimate is Tuesday,” Suttles told reporters.
He added the operation was very complex and was being carried out by robotic submarines positioning the equipment on the seabed a mile down.
BP PLC, owner of the damaged well, predicts it will take 70 to 90 days – perhaps into August – to stab through more than three miles (five kilometers) of seawater and earth and puncture the vertical pipe that is channeling a torrent of oil and gas to the surface of the Gulf near the Louisiana coast.
US officials have insisted that BP provide a wealth of technical information to the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to help them fight the slick.
Democratic congressman Ed Markey voiced the frustrations of many, saying: “We’re beginning to understand that we cannot trust BP. People do not trust the experts any longer. BP has lost all credibility.”
Meanwhile, senators from four oil-producing states Friday wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking that the government exempt shallow-water drilling from a moratorium on new offshore oil drilling.WARNING: Graphic content. Discretion is advised.
Three siblings are set to testify against their aunt and uncle in Calgary court, saying they were punched, kicked and tortured with utensils over the course of two years.
“They will tell you how they were punished with punches, kicks and slaps to head and body,” Crown prosecutor William Tran said in opening arguments Monday. “They will detail how they were placed in cold showers and time and time again….How [the adoptive parents] would use various utensils from the home including wooden spoons, belts, electrical cords, needles, dish soap and barbeque forks to carry out the torture.
“…how she was subjected to having her tongue burnt with a lighter and how she was forced to drink her own vomit.”
In fall 2006, the children and their birth parents were in a car accident. The kids were ages two, three and nine years old at the time. Though the children survived, the Crown alleges they’ve been the victims of horrific abuse since they were adopted by their aunt and uncle in 2009 and relocated to Calgary.
There is a publication ban in the case to protect the identities of the children.
The Crown alleges it was a teacher who first noticed there was a problem when one of the children, age 7, came to school with a “swollen and bruised face” in January 2011. A school counsellor was notified, who then interviewed the young girl.
“[She] then provided a detailed recollection of a history of abuse perpetrated by her adoptive parents…on her and her two siblings,” Tran told court.
READ MORE: Alberta ‘leading the way’ in fight against child abuse, Sheldon Kennedy tells international experts
The three children were subsequently removed from the home, Tran said.
A detective was assigned to the case in March 2011 and interviewed the children the next month.
The three siblings are set to testify in the case starting Tuesday.
The Crown alleges the children were forced to stay home from school and wear long sleeves and sweaters at school to hide injuries.
“Although it has been quite some time since the alleged abuse, there will be photographs depicting the long-lasting injuries suffered.”
Calgary police searched the home and seized items allegedly used against the children on May 18, 2011. On June 29, 2011, the aunt and uncle were arrested.
The woman faces charges including assault and assault with a weapon. The man faces charges including assault with a weapon and criminal negligence.
Police officers with the forensic crime scene unit took the stand Monday, testifying about numerous marks found on the children’s bodies.
With files from Global’s Tracy NagaiI never did like the name “Open Orthodoxy”.
It doesn’t take a Talmudic genius to see its not-so-subtle insinuation, that the rest of the Orthodox world is somehow…“closed.”
Closed, though, to what? To beliefs at variance with those of the Judaism of the ages? Well, yes, that’s the definition of Orthodoxy.
Closed to innovations rejected by recognized authorities of halacha, or Jewish religious law? Ditto.
Closed to Jews who are unlike ourselves? Tell that to the thousands of non-observant Jews who study daily in community kollelim with non-judgmental Orthodox rabbis, or who participate in efforts like “Partners in Torah” paired study-sessions, or who interact with the myriad traditional Orthodox “outreach” organizations. And that doesn’t even touch on Chabad.
So I was heartened to read that the phrase “Open Orthodoxy” was unceremoniously jettisoned.
Apparently, back in July, The New Jersey Jewish News received a communication from “Yeshivat Chovevei Torah,” or “YCT,” the seminary of the movement that must no longer be named, informing the paper that, “We have been referred to as an ‘Open Orthodox Seminary’ by your newspaper, which is incorrect. ‘Open Orthodox’ is not a term that we use to describe ourselves, nor is it part of any language on our site, mission, marketing materials, etc.”
The present tense in that last sentence is used pointedly. Because the term now prohibited was in fact the institution’s credo, included even in its mission statement at its founding in 1999, and was used thereafter until relatively recently.
Rabbi Avi Weiss, the father of the now-abandoned phrase, touted the term when he introduced it as “expressing vibrancy, inclusivity and non-judgmentalism,” and as conveying the new movement’s embrace of non-traditional ritual roles for women, embrace of homosexual relationships, relaxation of Jewish religious law’s requirements for conversion and encouragement of interfaith dialogue.
None of that, of course, has changed with the abandonment of the ill-fated phrase. The once “open” group has now claimed an adjective once employed by others but which had fallen into disuse: “Modern”.
Because what was once called “Modern Orthodoxy,” which never dared abandon what the erstwhile “openers” have cast overboard, shed that phrase long ago |
by bullets,'' said Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards.
He said the injuries aren't life threatening. One victim was grazed in the eye, and another shot in the buttocks.
Police on the scene believe a group of teens were taking part in a Senior Skip Day. There were at least 15 spent shell casings found in the parking lot.
The initial call went out as a fight. Then there were gunshots reported. A short time later, two victims showed up at St. Vincent's East. Officers said one car on the scene was hit by bullets. Another car that was struck left the scene and is at the hospital.
It appears the gunfire erupted when someone started throwing eggs, which got on the suspect's vehicle - a late-model Chevrolet Tahoe. As the 20-year-old suspect fired, someone from the park returned fire, Edwards said.
No one was in custody as of early Friday evening.
The parking lot was littered with balloons, water guns and shell casings. A short while later, a fight broke out at St. Vincent's East among family and friends of the victims but was quickly diffused by Birmingham police.
The investigation is ongoing.
Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Chanda Temple issued this statement:
"Birmingham City Schools does not condone students skipping class. The district does not have a 'Senior Skip Day' listed on its school calendar, nor does it recognize 'Senior Skip Day.'
"We are aware of what happened in Bradford Park today. However, we must stress that whatever event took place in the park, it was not connected to any Birmingham high school. Also, the school district did not sanction any events in the park today."Our ears are still ringing from the time we got up close and a little too personal with Renault’s shouty, gorgeous A110-50 concept in Monaco (above), but news today is the company has formed a partnership with Caterham to build sportscars.
Two, to be precise, each coming your way in the next three to four years, and each carrying the respective brands’ ‘DNA’. For Renault, that brand is Alpine; the iconic French firm that used Renault engines to power its cars to motorsports victory. It won the world rally championship in 1973, took victory at the Monte Carlo rally in ‘73 and ‘74, and won the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1978.
Both cars will be produced at the Alpine factory in Dieppe; a factory that has both historical significance (it was built in 1969 as the home of the Alpine brand), and because of its core business of building sportscars (and also the home of Renaultsport). It means Caterham takes a 50 per cent stake in the ‘Automobiles Alpine Renault’ company, which will be renamed ‘Alpine Caterham’, and headed up by a chap named Bernard Ollivier, himself a former manager of Renaultsport technologies.
Neither Renault or Caterham has confirmed exactly what kind of sportscar they’d build, but from Renault’s side, we can at least expect something a toned-down version of the aforementioned ear-busting A110-50 concept pictured above, itself built in tribute to 50 years since the A110 - the most iconic Alpine ever built - first went on sale.
In Paris today, Renault boss Carlos Tavares said the Alpine model will cost “between 40,000 and 50,000 Euros”, about £35,000.
When we saw that concept in Monaco, Renault sources hinted that should a road-going version ever see the light of day, it’d probably wear a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine rather than the concept’s 400bhp, mid-mounted V6. Also, it’d probably be a lot quieter too. You can decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.
But, as Renault design chief Laurens van der Acker told TG at the time: “Alpine is owned by everyone who loves cars… so I know I can’t screw this one up.”
We’ll bring you more as soon as we find out, but for now, why not have a stab at imagining what the Alpine Caterham cars would look like below…Today Unello Design is taking wraps off of a cool experimental Oculus Rift demo that continues the studio’s trend of blissful experiences. Opera Nova is a short but sweet demo which combines music and visuals in an experience that’s compatible with the Oculus Rift DK2.
Aaron Lemke, founder of indie VR studio Unello Design, went right to work after Oculus VR released the latest Oculus SDK 0.4.0 beta, updating for the Oculus Rift DK2 a project he’s kept under wraps for some time. Opera Nova is a short experiment in 3D audio and accompanying visuals.
Lemke, the creator of the soon-to-be-released Eden River HD, has a history of creating peaceful/meditative virtual reality experiences which have a heavy emphasis on audio design. Opera Nova is the first time Lemke has implemented 3D audio in a VR experience available to the public. He’s been testing several different Unity plugins for this purpose. The current version of Opera Nova uses the 3Dception binaural audio plugin from Two Big Ears.
See Also: Eden River HD Preview – Tranquility Amidst a Sea of Action-packed VR Games, Launching August 8th (video)
The game combines an original audio track with the 3D audio plugin and leverages a number of interesting particle effects to give visual form to each note. You start in a nondescript landscape as the music starts up around you. Each instrument that contributes to the song is represented visually around the player. Approaching the ‘instruments,’ if you will, brings their individual sound front and center. It really feels like the notes are eminating from the visual effects in front of you—like the sound exists within a 3D space.
The game enables players to essentially choose their own experience when it comes to the music. Do you want to focus on the bubbly treble notes or perhaps the dub-steppy (yes, I just wrote that) bass line on the far right? By adding both visual and spatial elements to each note, Lemke has nearly turned them into tangible objects. The effect is very cool and I can’t wait to see the concept expanded. Road to VR Editor Paul James, called it “hypnotic.”
I asked Lemke about his experience with the Oculus Rift DK2 so far.
“Updating was a fairly easy process. However I usually work on Mac and the Mac SDK is not out yet, so I had to migrate the whole project to Windows. That was kind of a pain,” he told me. “The DK2 is very slick. The first thing I powered up was the Oculus world demo. This demo lets you visualize the camera volume. What i didn’t expect was how large the volume is. You could actually have a really solid standing VR experience if you aim the camera up a bit and move your desk chair out of the way. Seeing the size and the accuracy of this capture volume definitely got my creative juices flowing… can’t wait to start experimenting.”
Lemke is making the Opera Nova demo immoderately available to anyone who pre-orders his forthcoming title, Eden River HD, which is due out on August 8th and will also be compatible with the DK2, says Lemke. The Opera Nova demo is Windows-only for now, until the Oculus SDK is available for Mac. It also supports the ‘Direct HMD Access’ mode, making it extremely easy to use with the Oculus Rift DK2. Lemke plans to flesh out Opera Nova into a full experience down the road.John Cotter, The Canadian Press
EDMONTON - Scientists are joining the battle over a plan to phase out the use of off-highway vehicles in two ecologically sensitive parks in southwestern Alberta.
Last January, the province announced a draft plan for the Castle Wildland Provincial Park and Castle Provincial Park to preserve just over 1,000 square kilometres of mountains and foothills.
Since then, groups that represent people who drive ATVs, trucks and jeeps have protested against the plan that would ban them from these areas within five years.
On Tuesday, 57 scientists sent an open letter to Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips urging the province not to back down.
"The decision to remove off-highway vehicle use from the Castle and restore damaged areas will contribute to the conservation of native vegetation, fisheries, wildlife, soil and community water," reads the letter.
"The science is clear that motorized use, even under controlled circumstances, has a negative impact on these natural features."
The letter is signed by scientists at the universities of Alberta, Calgary, Lethbridge and other schools in Canada and the United States.
For years the Castle region has been mined, logged and drilled for oil and natural gas.
It is home to more than 200 species of endangered plants and animals and is considered a key link for grizzly bears that move north and south.
David Schindler, an award-winning water expert at the University of Alberta, said he supports the ban even though he owns ATVs.
"I have had three hip replacements on two hips and own ATVs, yet I still support the removal of this land use as I understand the impact of even a small amount of noise and disturbance has on water and on sensitive wildlife," he wrote.
The government has received the letter.
Phillips said the plan for the Castle area is guided by science-based decision making and reflects the increase in the Alberta's population in recent years.
"We're taking steps to ensure the Eastern Slopes are better managed to protect livelihoods, recreation and conservation," she said in an email.
"We will invest in infrastructure so off-highway vehicle users can still enjoy less sensitive areas. And we will work to protect biodiversity, drinking water and the natural beauty of the Castle area for future generations."
When the Alberta government announced its draft management plan for the parks on Jan. 20, it gave people 60 days to respond, including through an online survey. The deadline has been extended to April 19.
Since then off-highway vehicle groups have held protests, including at the Alberta legislature and in the town of Blairmore in the Crowsnest Pass.
These groups estimate that up to 1,000 off-highway riders and random campers use the Castle area on a summer long weekend.
In March, the government revised the plan. The changes include not putting it into effect in the upcoming season and to allow hunters to use trail networks to recover game.
A group of riders known as the Crowsnest Pass Quad Squad said they continue to oppose the proposed ban.
"We still feel that we can protect the environment by maintaining proper trails," said Gary Clark, the group's president. "We are frustrated and angry."
Clark noted that more than $2 million has already been spent in the Castle wilderness over the years to build bridges and move trails away from streams.This is the pivotal period in which the battle of ideas over the future of our economy will be lost or won. All the evidence of the failure of austerity has been exposed, and the neoliberals are fighting for their ideological survival. The terrain they have chosen is over state intervention in the economy; they deploy media outriders using trite journalistic tactics to sow fears over the costs of state investment. Since I became shadow chancellor my aim has been to raise the level of economic debate and challenge the hegemony of this egregious ideology.
The budget gives us the opportunity to confront and overrun the bogus economic arguments that have dominated political and economic policymaking for so long. The official figures released alongside the budget this year were utterly damning, a litany of failure not only for this government but for the entire economic philosophy it lives and will die by.
There lurks a belief that government borrowing is akin to burning money
UK growth is now the lowest in the G7, and we have the worst set of official forecasts in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s history. Productivity growth is the worst since Napoleon was retreating from Russia, wage decline the worst since the invention of the steam engine. And clearing the government’s deficit, which Philip Hammond’s predecessor once reassured us would be done by 2015, is now pushed back to perhaps 2031.
The underlying problem is Britain’s productivity growth, which fell off a cliff around the time of the financial crisis and then – unlike in every other G7 major economy – never truly recovered. This matters, because for the last two centuries our economy has been able to grow and produce rising living standards on the back of improving productivity. So while advanced economies across the world have seen a slowdown in productivity since the crash, none has suffered as badly as Britain. And the OBR expects this to continue for the indefinite future.
Improved productivity comes from investment that delivers new equipment, new technology and new ideas that allow an economy to work more productively. But Britain, under Conservative-led governments, is a low investment economy. We have the lowest rate of investment in the G7. What little growth has happened has come through the creation of poorly paid, insecure jobs. Our economy has exploited cheap labour rather than invest in capital.
The primary responsibility for this switch lies with those governments. Under George Osborne, investment by government fell by £18bn. Research spending was cut by £1bn. At precisely the moment the government could have been rebuilding the economy and delivering the stable, long-term investment needed to lay the foundations for future productivity growth, it was slashing essential spending. When Labour returns to government, it will begin to repair that damage by investing £250bn over a decade in transport, communications, housing and research. This will bring us from languishing at the bottom of OECD tables for investment to around the average level of investment of our competitors.
The Tories and much of the media have been attacking our proposals using bogus economic arguments. By focusing on the cost of government borrowing (currently close to an all-time low, thanks to tiny interest rates) rather than the enormous social and financial returns on investing that money, the right creates a narrative that investment costs society rather than benefits it.
Philip Hammond must ditch deficit reduction and invest. But he won't | Larry Elliott Read more
Lurking behind this is an assumption that a government cannot invest productively – the belief that government borrowing is akin to burning money. This is nonsense used to support the economic approach that has led our country to this pass. Very clearly, government investment can and should be used to support economic growth, as the OECD and others recommend – as indeed this Tory government, in some small way, is coming to recognise, committing a small amount of borrowing for investment. The meaningful question is whether that investment is wise, given the costs – rather than presuming that only costs exist.
Not all borrowing is good. After missing so many deficit targets, the Conservatives are spending billions on interest payments because austerity has failed to get wages growing and tax receipts increasing. Unlike Labour, they borrow to pay for their failure rather than invest in the future. Our “fiscal credibility rule” commits us to borrowing only for investment, as well as reducing the debt burden over the course of a parliament.
Labour intends to take on, and win, the argument on investment. It is at the centre of our economic debate, and we stand ready to remove this failure of a government and build an economy that works for the many, not the few.
• John McDonnell is shadow chancellorFrederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Competitors at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will not be allowed to put stickers on their helmets and boards to remember Sarah Burke, the International Olympic Committee have confirmed.
Canadian freestyle skier Burke died in a training accident two years ago, but she is still remembered by some of her former rivals and friends by the subtle tribute.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams was quoted by Reuters (via Yahoo! Sport) saying the stickers were not appropriate:
For us it is a question of what is appropriate. We have huge sympathy and she (Burke) needs to be well remembered either individually or collectively. The competitions themselves are not the right place to do that and we would like to keep that separate.
Australian Torah Bright has already been warned by the IOC over the issue, and took to Instagram in frustration:
I am also here to honour my great friend Sarah Burke who left this world two years ago. I ride with a Sarah sticker on my snowboard and helmet always. The IOC however, consider Sarah stickers "a political statement" and have banned them. WOW. Sarah is a beautiful, talented, powerful women, whose spirit inspires me still. She is a big reason why skier pipe/slope are now Olympic events.
The IOC have always tried to keep political messages out of the Games, but whether the public would share the view that these personal tributes are political in nature is another question altogether.
Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Norway was also contacted over an incident at the start of the event.
As the Reuters report also notes, the brother of cross-country skier Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen died suddenly a day before the Games, and the team wore black armbands during the skiathlon in tribute.James Kirk Jones +
child pornography +
child abuse victim +
NEW DELHI: The arrest of American linguistics expertlast week for possessing and sharing nearly 30,000 files ofhad jolted Hyderabad. Recent government data shows the rot runs deeper: alongside metros, many of India’s tier-II cities are among the worst lot on surfing and sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Amritsar, Lucknow, Alappuzha and Thrissur were among the 10 worst cities where CSAM was shared on multiple occasions in the past six months. Amritsar took top place with more than 4.3 lakh “files of interest” — code for child porn — shared between July 1, 2016 and January 15, 2017. Delhi was second, followed by Lucknow."There are cities like Agra, Kanpur, Barrackpore and Dimapur where we had not seen any surfing for CSAM (child sexual abuse material) until six months ago. Here too there is significant growth,” said a government source.The data is limited to IP addresses originating in the country, but there are several instances of surfers using TOR (The Onion Router) to mask or reroute their IP address, making it appear as if they are based in another country, to avoid being tracked. Online child porn is directly linked to offline child abuse “For every child porn video, there is asomewhere,” said Vidya Reddy from Tulir — Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse. “The accessibility of technology has ensured that CSAM is more easily available than ever before,” she added. In fact, Jones was also using a peer-to-peer, filesharing network — Giga-Tribe, to stay in contact with 490 ‘like-minded’ friends.Despite the large volume of child porn being shared through private social media groups, reporting remains abysmally low. The National Crime Records Bureau has registered just about 1,540 cases of online child sexual abuse in 2015-16. If not for an Interpol alert, Jones too would have flown under the radar. In fact, according to cyber crime law expert Prashant Mali, few people even realise that watching or downloading child porn is a crime.“Under the present laws, watching or sharing such material is a non-bailable offence attracting up to 7 years imprisonment and a Rs 10 lakh penalty,” says Mali. A major hurdle in the detection of online CSAM is the international nature of the crime. “A person could ostensibly view porn in India, which may have its server in Russia, its pay-site in Scotland and be hosted in Austria,” says Reddy of Tulir. “We need a transnational police force with state-ofthe-art forensic laboratories and a cohesive policy.” A step in the right direction was taken this week by Union minister Maneka Gandhi, who announced the establishment of a national alliance that would coordinate with law enforcement agencies, ministries, information technology experts, Interpol, and NGOs to curb the proliferation of CSAM online. The alliance will achieve its objective by blocking websites that host CSAM, setting up a hotline for complaints and placing restrictions on the travel of known sex offenders into the country. The minister has already written to the MEA asking for such visa restrictions be put in place.Droughts in California are mainly controlled by wind, not by the amount of evaporated moisture in the air, new research has found.
The findings were published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, on June 30. The research increases the understanding of how the water cycle is related to extreme events and could eventually help in predicting droughts and floods, said lead author Jiangfeng Wei, a research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences.
"Ocean evaporation provides moisture for California precipitation but is not the reason for droughts there, although the ocean evaporation is slightly lower during droughts," Wei said.
The researchers analyzed 30-year data sets that recorded precipitation, ocean evaporation, surface wind speed and atmospheric pressure on and near the west coast of the United States. These are all factors that influence the water cycle in California. One of the difficulties of studying the water cycle, Wei said, is that the water sources for precipitation cannot be directly observed, so the team also used a mathematical moisture-tracking method and high-resolution model simulations.
Their analysis showed that although moisture evaporated from the Pacific Ocean is the major source for California precipitation, the amount of water evaporated did not strongly influence precipitation in California, except in the cases of very heavy flooding. That's because the amount of water evaporated from this ocean region does not change much year by year, researchers found, and did not cause rain to occur more or less often.
"Ocean evaporation has little direct influence on California precipitation because of its relatively weak variability," Wei said.
Instead, the researchers found that disturbances in atmospheric circulation, the large-scale movement of air, have the most effect on drought because they can affect factors that will cause it to rain more or less.
The study co-authors are Qinjian Jin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who earned his Ph.D. at the Jackson School; Zong-Liang Yang, a professor in the Jackson School's Department of Geological Sciences; and Paul Dirmeyer, a professor at George Mason University.
Most of California has been in a severe drought since 2011, although a strong El Niño in the winter of 2015 helped diminish the drought. The current drought is caused by a high-pressure system that disturbs the atmospheric circulation. The development of the high-pressure system is related to a sea surface temperature pattern in the Pacific Ocean, according to research cited by the study.
"Although this is a very rare event, the probability of this kind of high-pressure system is likely increasing with global warming," the authors said.
Yang said that the research could aid in the prediction of droughts and floods by improving scientific understanding of the intricate factors that influence rainfall the most.
"The topic is extremely timely as current and future climate change would mean more changes in extreme events such as droughts and floods," Yang said. "Understanding this asymmetric contribution of ocean evaporation to drought and flooding in California will ultimately help us make better predictions."Improve all aspects of your health and well-being by making sure you get enough zinc in your diet. Many people know about zinc for its immune boosting properties, but this mineral is actually a wonder of health benefits. Despite its central role in wellness and performance, many people are at risk of zinc deficiency, even in the developed world. In one review on the importance of zinc, scientists write that “zinc is such a critical element in human health that even a small deficiency is a disaster.”
Zinc is so important because it is found in every tissue in the body and is directly involved in cell division. It is a powerful antioxidant, helping to prevent cancer, but zinc also is directly involved in the maintenance of ideal hormone levels.
Zinc deficiency makes both men and women infertile and causes low libido. Low zinc also exacerbates the effects of stress on the body and accelerates aging.
Additionally, adequate zinc is necessary for optimal physical performance, energy levels, and body composition. Zinc affects protein synthesis and is required for proper function of red and white blood cells. It is highly concentrated in our bones, the pancreas, kidneys, liver, and retina.
This article will give you the top ten reasons why you should attend to your zinc levels. Be aware that zinc deficiency is not only prevalent in malnourished individuals or developing countries. Rather, it is widespread in the U.S. and the UK, and it is particularly common in areas where the population eats a large amount of cereal and grain proteins.
Groups At Greatest Risk of Low Zinc
Zinc deficiency occurs from not eating enough zinc-rich foods. Zinc is found in large concentrations in meat, some seafood—oysters contain the largest concentration of all known foods—and dairy.
Whole grains and legumes contain zinc, but it is bound to phytates in these plant-based foods, making the zinc inaccessible by the body. Vegetarians are at greatest risk of zinc deficiency, but alcoholics and people with digestive issues and poor stomach acid are also highly susceptible.
Taking medications may produce zinc deficiency and low levels of almost all essential nutrients. Women on the birth control pill or on hormone replacement therapy are at greater risk of deficiency.
Symptoms of Zinc Deficiency
Low zinc will produce an altered sense of taste leading to cravings of saltier, sweeter food. Deficiency can also be indicated by diarrhea, low energy, chronic fatigue, infertility, poor immunity, bad memory, inability to focus, ADD symptoms, slow wound healing, nerve dysfunction, and ringing in the ears.
Take note that symptoms may be present, but because they are so diverse and associated with other health conditions, it’s often hard to make the link to zinc deficiency without a test. A guide is provided at the end of this article on how to test your zinc level.
#1 Improve Athletic Performance and Strength
Adequate zinc directly affects athletic performance and strength development from training because it plays a primary role in hormone production. Research shows having ample zinc available in the body allows for a more robust release of testosterone, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Without these, athletic performance and strength capacity are reduced.
A recent study highlights the boost that raising zinc levels can give to testosterone production following exercise. Researchers found that giving trained athletes a zinc supplement for four weeks prior to an exhaustive exercise test resulted in a greater post-workout testosterone response than a placebo.
Researchers note that zinc enhances the conversion rate of androstenedione to testosterone, and that paired with high-intensity exercise, it allows the body to produce testosterone at an even higher rate.
Not only will healthy zinc levels allow for performance and muscle development in both men and women, the post-workout hormone boost can improve recovery from training as well. And, as you’ll see below, having enough zinc will give you more energy and improve metabolism.
#2 Support Male Reproductive Health and Fertility
Zinc is a critical mineral for robust testosterone levels, and the cells of the male prostate require a very high concentration of zinc to work optimally. Low zinc in men impairs testosterone production, puts them at risk for developing prostate cancer, and causes infertility. Inadequate zinc has also been linked to low libido.
One recent study of 88 men aged 40 to 60 years showed that those with normal testosterone levels had significantly higher zinc compared to those with low testosterone levels. Low zinc was directly correlated with low testosterone levels, which put the men at greater risk of symptoms of male menopause.
Just as important, zinc is used to produce enzymes that initiate cell division, but the male prostate tissue requires ten times more zinc than other cells in the body to stay healthy. Adequate zinc level in the prostate protects the cells from damage, inflammation, and cancer development. Also, once the prostate cells are damaged and become cancerous, they lack the ability to accumulate zinc, leading to greater propagation of cancer cells that produce to tumors.
Researchers write that zinc is a “promising anti-cancer treatment” and that regular supplementation when men are healthy with no evidence of cancer is the best prevention. They also suggest zinc can prevent related cancers such as ovarian, breast, and colorectal.
#3 Support Female Reproductive Health and Fertility
In women, zinc is involved in the growth process of the oocyte or egg. If women are zinc deficient, the egg won’t mature properly and ovulation will be impeded, causing infertility.
Adequate zinc allows women to use estrogen and progesterone efficiently, supporting reproductive health and ensuring that estrogen does what it’s supposed to do in the body. When estrogen levels become too high, or are inefficiently metabolized they can cause poor reproductive health and breast cancer.
#4 Prevent Cancer and Boost Immune Function
Ananda Prasad, a leading researcher in the field of zinc and health, notes that simply ensuring our zinc levels are adequate can help cure a number of the most severe health problems, especially cancer and poor immune function.
Along with prostate cancer, low zinc plays a role in the development of most cancers since it is instrumental in healthy cell proliferation. Recent evidence links zinc deficiency to cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries, lungs, skin, and leukemia.
Zinc deficiency profoundly affects the immune system because low zinc produces a direct and rapid decline in T cell function. T cells elevate the body’s immune system when viruses, bacteria, or challenges to health arise. Older people are at greater risk of zinc deficiency, which is not thought to be solely due to poor dietary intake. There’s evidence that a need for more zinc may increase with age to counter inflammation, support the immune system, and ensure healthy cell function.
#5 Improve Cardiovascular Health
Zinc is vital to maintain the health of cardiovascular cells and the endothelium. The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that lines the blood vessels and plays a major role in circulation. Low zinc can cause a deficiency in the endothelial barrier, which leads to high cholesterol buildup and inflammation. Cholesterol and inflammation increase your risk of heart disease.
Studies show that poor zinc status can amplify the negative cardiovascular effects of a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet, whereas an adequate zinc intake will have a protective effect and inhibit the progression of heart disease. The elderly population is especially susceptible to the buildup of inflammatory markers including C-reactive proteins and cytokines, which have been called “slow, silent killers.”
#6 Become More Sensitive to Insulin and Prevent Diabetes
Zinc is needed for the healthy function of most hormones, including insulin. Adequate zinc plays at least three roles in insulin health. First, zinc binds to insulin so that insulin is adequately stored in the pancreas and released when glucose enters the blood stream.
Second, zinc improves cell health, making up a component of the enzymes necessary for insulin to bind to cells so that glucose can enter and be used as fuel. The process of insulin binding to the cell is what is referred to with the term “insulin sensitivity” and means that the cell is receptive to insulin.
Once insulin binds to the cell, it “opens the door” so that the glucose can enter. If the cell is resistant to insulin, glucose will stay in the blood stream, cause high blood sugar, and ultimately lead to fat gain. When zinc concentration falls, there is a reduction in insulin secretion and peripheral insulin sensitivity, which if persistent, will lead to diabetes
Third, zinc has anti-inflammatory effects as mentioned in #5 via its role in abolishing inflammatory markers such as C-reactive proteins. Zinc also helps get rid of substances that cause inflammation in cells, helping to preserve cell health and insulin sensitivity.
A recent study of Spanish school children found a direct relationship between low zinc levels, greater body fat content, and insulin resistance. The children who were classified as zinc deficient had poorer insulin sensitivity and greater glucose intolerance (a related measurement of persistent blood sugar levels) than those whose level was adequate.
#7 Get The Super Antioxidant Effects of Zinc
Zinc is an excellent antioxidant. The purpose of an antioxidant is to get rid of free radicals that cause damage to cells in the body by bonding with them and neutralizing them. Zinc is particularly good at countering the damaging effect of high iron. Zinc also targets free radicals that cause inflammation throughout the body.
#8 Prevent Alzheimer’s & Promote Brain Health
The super antioxidant effects of zinc allow it to effectively help the body eliminate heavy metals from the brain so they don't build up in tissue and cause damage. It also helps maintain cellular homeostasis of brain cells. This combination help prevent neurodegeneration and the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
#9 Improve Sleep, Cognition & Energy Levels
Zinc plays an essential role in neurotransmitter function and helps maintain cognition. It is necessary in the metabolism of melatonin, which is a key hormone for healthy sleep.
In addition, zinc regulates dopamine, an energizing neurotransmitter that gives you drive and focus. Also, zinc is part of an enzyme that is necessary for the anabolism of fatty acids in the brain membrane. This is very important because a key part of supporting brain health and cognition is to ensure the membrane gets the nutrients it needs.
Zinc is a commonly ignored mineral for treating ADHD. Studies show children with ADHD tend to have lower zinc than healthy children. Even more promising, one study of 400 children with diagnosed ADHD found that taking 150 mg/d of zinc sulfate improved impaired social behavior and made subjects less hyperactive and impulsive than a placebo.
#10 Elevate Mood and Avoid Depression
The exact relationship between zinc deficiency and depression is unknown, however it surely has to do with the role of zinc in neurotransmitter and hormone production. Dopamine production, which is partly regulated by zinc status, is a chemical that boosts energy, mood, and reward-driven learning.
Poor insulin health or low testosterone levels can lead to health problems that increase rates of depression and low energy. Throw in the antioxidant power of zinc and its ability to get rid of inflammatory biomarkers such as C-reactive protein and tumor necrosis factor (causes cell damage), and it is reasonable to ensure zinc intake is adequate when treating depression.
A new study in the Journal of Affective Disorders showed that zinc deficiency may affect depression in women more than men. Women in this study who were already using antidepressants and had low zinc levels had a five times greater risk of ongoing depression. It’s thought that the gender-based relationship between low zinc and depression is related to how zinc influences energy levels and production of the hormone estrogen.
In women, estrogen is involved in serotonin production—the neurotransmitter that makes people feel good—and zinc supplementation can increase the density of serotonin receptors in the brain.
Have you picked up on the theme that zinc plays multiple roles in the body, affecting numerous chemical messengers that play complex, essential, interconnected parts in the body?
How To Test Zinc Level
Before you start popping zinc at random, take note that there is an upper limit to dietary zinc. Zinc toxicity has produced poor immune health and infertility, just as low zinc compromises the immune system. Scientists suggest you perform a zinc test to measure your level and then supplement accordingly. Once you start taking zinc, your levels will rise and you should do another test six to eight weeks later for best results.
The best way to test your zinc level is to get a red blood cell zinc test and continually monitor zinc levels when supplementing. Other methods, such as a zinc taste test, provide another option. They tend to be less reliable, especially for people with moderate zinc deficiency.Twitter.com launched its Night Mode feature on desktop today, although the feature has yet to roll out to all accounts. The feature has already been available on iOS and Android since last year.
To enable Night Mode on desktop, click on your profile photo, then select Night Mode, which is the last option and has a moon icon. Activating Night Mode turns Twitter’s usual white screens and cheerful light blue into a beautiful Tumblr-like navy blue and fills up the moon icon with blue. To disable Night Mode, just click again to deselect.
You can now enable night mode on https://t.co/fuPJa3nVky! Also available on Twitter for iOS and Android. https://t.co/9AjOwcv3Zn — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 6, 2017
Since I’ve customized my hyperlinks to show up as purple and set my header image as a purple cascade of lines, Night Mode is especially aesthetically pleasing. It loses Twitter’s bright and cheerful UI and gives everything an early Halloween vibe.EDIT
I must say, although my frustrations below were truthful and I'm glad I was able to voice them, WayTools has graciously reached out to me and I am extremely pleased with their response. They truly care for their customers and I can see why they are in that "between a rock and hard place" bind.
As the saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
I placed the first order in Jan 2015 and like everyone else waited as long as I possibly could at the time. I posted this thread: https://forum.waytools.com/t/tapping-out-best-wishes-waytools/836 in August 2015 and tapped out. You provided a mature, respectful post and kept me on the hook.
As I saw momentum pick up, TREG program expanding, the MacRumors articles indicating TREG shipping, General Release seemed more realistic. So I re-ordered 30 Dec 2015.
Two years later, two kids born (my oldest is almost 3), three iPhone/iPad upgrades, and like many still are just hanging on with a fine piece of dental floss.
I saw the status update. It all sounds the same as before except the shipping window just slips to another season again which is vague. The question remains – what is in it for us now? Why should any loyal customer stick around? This is how start ups fail. It’s called customer retention. Respectfully so, you’re stiffing your loyal following the way you do business.
This is not intended to be a stab at your company by any means, and I am still in and supportive because I believe in your vision towards revolutionizing the keyboard. But as a two year loyal backer myself, the voice must be heard.
In conclusion, again, I’m still in and hope to be considered for TREG or General Release “actually” comes sooner rather than later.
Best regards,
BrandonAs it is with every EXO comeback, wallets become lighter and records are broken. It is no different with EXO’s recent comeback with their third studio album, “EX’ACT.”
EXO killed the charts with title track “Monster,” and lined up other songs from their album in the charts, as well. Within 6 days, EXO pre-sold 660,000 copies of “EX’ACT,” quickly approaching a million copies even before the album’s release; if “EX’ACT” reaches a million sold, it will be the third to do so out of three albums for EXO.
On behalf of EXO, leader Suho spoke to OSEN regarding the success of the recent album. “There are so many people that we were thankful to throughout album productions. We prepared the album as one, and the members were quite determined, as well.” He continued, “We’re so thankful for EXO-Ls and everyone for supporting our album, and we as EXO have become more confident as a team, too.”
Suho also spoke about |
Oritse Williams denies rape allegation The singer has not been charged Getty 6/9 Bill Gates announces $1bn investment fund for clean energy technology Team-up with Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and others aims to fight climate change - and reap'super' rewards Getty 7/9 Donald Trump's aide worked for anti-immigation extremists Poll was used by President-elect during campaign to justify banning Muslims from the US Reuters 8/9 Henry Kissinger tells Nobel Peace Prize forum to give Donald Trump a chance More than 7,000 people called for the'mastermind of war' to be arrested while visiting Norway EPA 9/9 John Travolta dismisses new Scientology documentary by former member Leah Remini The actor defends the church and says it was a source of support for him when he lost his girlfriend, mother and son Getty
Farooqui denies the allegations and has said he was falsely implicated.
Farooqui, who had been placed on bail, was taken into custody soon after the court pronounced him guilty. The court will hear arguments on sentencing on 2 August. The offence of rape carries a minimum punishment of seven years rigorous imprisonment and a maximum punishment of imprisonment for life.
Farooqui directed the 2010 Bollywood hit Peepli Live film about farmer suicides along with his wife Anusha Rizvi.
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 nowThe Convoy story is one that many Mannheim Steamroller fans can recite by heart. Less well known is how Mannheim Steamroller and American Gramaphone founder Chip Davis ended up in Omaha in the first place. In this post, we shed light on both.
How a Sylvania, Ohio Native Put Down Roots in Omaha
When Chip first visited Omaha it was to attend a workshop put on by the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the early 1970s.
While there, he accepted an offer to arrange and conduct a local production of ‘Hair.’ In this rendition of the Broadway classic, Davis composed a score as big as Broadway and fit in into a dinner theater setting. The effort was so successful that Chip’s original eight-week commitment turned into a six-month affair. Unfortunately, Nebraska was not as impressive to Chip as his show was to Nebraska.
“I promised myself that I’d never live permanently in Nebraska,” he says. “It was too flat.” Chip made himself another promise at the time – that he would try anything except writing country music.
From Dinner Theater to Jingle Writing
When the show’s run ended, Chip got a job as a jingle writer for Bozell & Jacobs, a local advertising agency still successfully operating as Bozell, in Omaha. While he wrote more than 2,000 jingles, the one that made Chip famous was a snippet for the Old Home Bread company. Chip and ad executive Bill Fries crafted a series of radio and TV commercials that told the story of a fictional truck driver named C.W. McCall, his girlfriend Mavis, and the Hold Home Filler Up and Keep On Truckin’ Café.
Wildly popular, the ads garnered professional and popular acclaim. Not only did Bill and Chip win a prestigious Clio award for advertising excellence, listeners called radio stations in mass, requesting the jingle. That popularity opened an opportunity for Chip and Bill to cut a single with MGM Records under the moniker C.W. McCall, called the “Old Home Filler Up and Keep On Truckin’ Café.” Performed by the Old Home Band, the song reached the Billboard charts and was followed by an album.
The Old Home Band released a second album in 1975 called “Black Bear Road,” which rose to #12 on the Billboard pop chart. The single, “Convoy” went gold in just two weeks and sold more than a million copies in two months. As Mannheim Steamroller fans know, “Convoy” eventually sold 10 million singles and, in 1978, inspired the creation of a motion picture by the same title starring Kris Kristopherson.
In spite of himself, Chip had put down roots in Nebraska and written his way into country music. As C.W. McCall, Chip recorded nine albums, sold 20 million records and in 1976, at 27 years old, was named Country Music Writer of the Year.
A Unique Style of Country Music
Even in his early musical career, Chip did what he has always done – redefined established music genres. He called his Old Home Band music ‘techno-country’ and with French horns and big-voiced backup singers, it certainly was.
When he wasn’t recording country music, Chip was experimenting with Moog synthesizers and Baroque sonatas, and in the process, defining the unique sound that has made Mannheim Steamroller famous. Speaking of that process, Chip says, “I wanted to explore new ways of expressing music and created a sound I call 18th Century classic rock.
An Ironic Ending to a Stellar Story
Back then, as now, Chip didn’t believe in an all-acoustic or all-digital or all-analog sound. “My style is where they all meet.” Ironically, decades later, those roads converged and have remained in Omaha – a bustling city in the flat, southeast corner of Nebraska Chip proudly calls home.
Wanna know more about Chip? Read his story here.I'm gratified that from what I can tell, we weren't wildly unfair in our Nozick episode, and in particular that Metcalf's participation apparently didn't irredeemably taint our coverage, what with his being an already established opponent of the text.
As is typical when we cover and largely pan a work related to a movement that people are invested in, we get more requests to cover different texts that would make the case more effectively (in this case, a couple of people have brought up Michael Huemer. I would encourage such people to go create a Not School group right now to talk about it, as no further forays into this area are scheduled or anticipated. If you start a group and record your discussion, I will eventually get around to doing another Not School highlights episode, meaning that at least the beginning of your discussion will get shared with the full PEL listenership.
Our next planned steps in sort-of political philosophy are in economics, covering Smith first, then probably a Keynes-Hayek combined episode. We'll also definitely get to an anarchism episode, i.e. Proudhon/Bakunin. That's all I can safely predict at this point, though your suggestions are always welcome and will certainly be considered (especially if we hear the same suggestion from enough different people).
So that leaves us where we often are given our "great books"-based approach: we've considered the main representative of a view according to the philosophical canon, but arguably haven't grasped with the issue itself. Disgruntled libertarians can join the Marxists and and atheists and theists and people who think we read the wrong Merleau-Ponty text or haven't yet received proper guidance on Lacan.
So our opinions about libertarianism as a wider social position beyond Nozick's book will for the foreseeable future instead be a product of lots of third-hand gossip and encounters with irritating dorm-mates or things we heard in the media or whatever, i.e. how people normally get their opinions who don't make a concerted scholarly effort to grapple with a view. So I invite libertarian-leaning listeners to engage us here to help us understand what we may be missing.
To me, the rationality behind someone's libertarianism has everything to do with what kinds of nasty government actions they have in mind when they say that government action is in general, or outside of specified narrow limits, unjustified. When Thoreau was complaining about government, he had in mind the stupid wars of his day and the enforcement of slavery, which are pretty damned good things to complain about. If your problem with the federal government today is foreign wars and drones, I'm with you, though I also recognize that I don't actually know much about foreign affairs, and just about nothing about strategic defense of American interests. As we discussed as far back as our first episode and more recently on our Oppenheimer episode, we necessarily rely to a very large degree on expert opinions, and so when it comes to fighting terrorism or the like, the best I feel I can do is try to gauge whether the people we put in charge of such things are corrupt or not, i.e. whether they're going to be doing primarily the bidding of their campaign contributors or whether they actually have the public interest in mind. I tend to think that most people in public service, given that public service doesn't pay as much as the private sector, are at least trying to do the right thing.
What's my rationale for that opinion? It's a "bullshitty" one, to quote myself re. Thoreau. I work with some people with some government power (mostly in the transportation sector), and have thought and researched enough about the relationship between jobs and human nature to feel confident that people don't want to live wasted, shitty, corrupt lives. While a low-level government job may attract many a person in search of a sinecure (this is one of my favorite words; look it up if you don't know it!), if you're actually going to work at something, you want it to matter. I have less understanding of real-world instances of the raw motivation toward power that characterizes public servants in our media, but, as with money, think it obvious that such a hunger would be much more easily satisfied in the private sector than in our checks-and-balances system.
Inevitably, any attempt to generalize about the psychology of libertarians is going to be highly inapplicable to many of them, but if we're dealing in anecdote and near-groundless generalization, as semi-philosophical essays about the social apparently must according to Wes, then here goes:
Libertarians like Thoreau tend to be both highly cynical, contra my assessment of public servants above, and maybe also think that there's something about government power in particular that corrupts more than other kinds of power, probably because of the whole monopoly on force thing. Someone high up an a corporate, or academic, or nonprofit political organization may well be an ass and promote policies that exploit others, but he can't have his underlings and constituents arrested or killed.
The problem here is how to provide a tempered response to a real problem. I had a musician friend once who was so paranoid about being robbed that he would always keep his blinds closed so that no one passing would so much as see his equipment and start hatching plans to steal it. Some people are so worried about driving or flying that they simply won't do these things. What makes for a rational response to a real risk is a matter of judgment, and so people with different sensibilities are going to put more or less emphasis on particular threats.
I actually found David Brin to be pretty persuasive on this: we shouldn't discount any of our concerns about the power of any elites, private or public, but should recognize that it's not the level of power someone has that matters (and we can't do much about this anyway), but what's done with the power. I'm not concerned with arguing that in principle, some elites need to be restrained from any possible bad moves, but am concerned with there being accountability for and checks on all elites.
Another point of what I'd call personality-engendered disagreement is how you view the possibility of social change and our personal and collective responsibility for bringing that about. I'm a liberal, of course, in the sense that I see many of the world's evils as capable of being addressed... maybe not cured, but greatly greatly lessened. There's no reason given our level of overall world wealth why we should still have poverty. There's no reason why we have to keep wrecking our environment. We can't remove natural disasters, but we can develop more effective ways of responding to them to mitigate long-term damage. We can't stop disease and death, but we can invest a lot in medical research and more in propagating preventive care and other medical resources that we already have. We can't get rid of religious strife and power struggles and general human dickishness, but we can change aspects of the culture through more communication and better guidance. (Would you have believed when you were a kid that bullying would actually be getting real treatment as a problem in the way it has been of late?)
So there's a lot that I think needs to be done to address these problems, and I don't really give a crap who does it. If a corporation can address one of these needs, great, and if they get rich in the process, fine. But as we know, corporations aren't designed to serve the public interest (well, some are), so it becomes the task of government to defend those who don't have the resources to defend themselves. This, I think, is the position of the very centrist Democratic party of today: We just want things to work, dammit. We want effectiveness, we want long-term planning, we want deep thought about a vision of the future but don't want to sacrifice any incremental gains that might actually be politically achievable in the name of some principle that not enough people will understand or be on board with to allow it to result in new laws.
Given my mindset, I have little patience for someone who gets hung up on some bias against government action (or against private ownership, or again religious organizations, or against international aid, etc., etc.). You might argue that one can't legislate change: that real change comes from within, from changing people's hearts and minds in the war of ideas. This ignores one of Marx's fundamental insights, which is that people adapt to their material circumstances, and typically our ideas express the status quo or the teleology inherent in the system in which we live. So, for example, you can't legislate that people stop being racist, but you can use laws to discourage discrimination and positively give opportunities to minorities. In the short term, this creates tension, in that, for example, whites suspect that any minority in a position of power was only there because of affirmative action. But as a long-term proposition, the result is more minorities in positions of power, and people obeying that power as they generally must, and so what was most terrible about old, racist society largely dissipates.
I sometimes romanticize my time in school, because it's an example of where most of us lived under a different kind of governing structure, and in my case (in my affluent Chicago suburb that to this day always votes "yes" on referenda to shower the high school with new and improved facilities), the result was very positive. No, I'm not advocating for a paternalistic society that determines our main activities, but what worked for me was that there was of course the main activity (classes) which was at least designed with our human capacities and interests in mind (yay, New Work), and then there were all these extracurricular opportunities (sports teams, drama, etc.) that only only gave us something to sink our ambitions into, but there was a culture that was amenable to fostering friendships and consequently cooperative efforts not sponsored by the school, like, say, starting a rock band or running an underground magazine.
I'm more than aware that lots of people had very different experiences of school, and am not urging that model on society as a whole, but it tells us something about the possible relationship between intentionally designed, institutional community and human thriving. College provides another set of models we can learn from, as do many civic, church, and business communities. To rule out government action on grounds of principle is as foolish as ruling out any role for technology in conquering our problems.
But any such openness to central (or highly decentralized!) planning, and any admission that there are problems that are "ours" as a larger collective instead of belonging to each of us as individuals or maybe at best families, already runs against what I've witnessed as the sensibilities of many a libertarian. Some are pessimists and/or cynics: the problems of the world are bad enough that admitting the world or even the whole nation to our circle of care will simply ensure that nothing gets solved... they'll just drag us down, whether through their orneriness or laziness or simply because they've got it too bad for us to add their problems to our plate. Some deny the connection between human hardship and happiness, taking Freud to mean that we're pretty much going to be unhappy however we structure things, so why worry about it? It's hard enough dealing with your own shit. Some simply don't give a shit at all about other people as a species, and deny on principle that we are fundamentally social beings.
In our Nozick discussion, this came up in our confusion/disagreement re. whether Nozick had anything to say about ethics proper. You could (as I interpret Nozick) take him to be arguing against any government duty towards positive ethical action (specifically, arguing that any attempt to follow such a duty would violate a moral side constraint) while accepting that as human beings, we do have duties towards each other. Seth maintained instead that Nozick's position that individuals can't have such positive duties either. Clearly, Thoreau was not only against government charity, but against charity altogether. Or you could believe that government shouldn't try to help, but we still as individuals and voluntary agencies should. I take neither position to be well justified, but at least the latter isn't obviously misanthropic.
Most often, I hear the accusation that we naive liberals just don't understand economics, that we fail to recognize how somehow any action by government screws up the not-perfect-but-the-best-we-can-do action of free markets. This challenge I do take seriously, which is why we need to do a short survey of economic theory. My initial hypothesis is that economics is our modern theology, and that it's just as bullshitty as old-time theology was. Collecting more data and examining historical patterns does not predict the future, and the disagreement among major economists (left- vs. right-wingers) as well as their failure under any administration to effectively address real-world economic problems (or tell us with with any confidence what the economy would look like if some actions had been taken or not) makes me think it's all a high-priced guessing game, used, then, by this class of libertarian to justify their political opinions which are actually based on sentiment, i.e. bullshit.
By all means, I encourage our listeners to tell me what I'm missing here, and that means actually telling us here, not just pointing me at some 300 page text that for sure none of us will read. Thanks as always for your patience in reading my bullshit.
Best, -MarkRepublican Greg Gianforte won Thursday’s special election for the U.S. House in Montana, defeating Democratic challenger Rob Quist despite being charged with misdemeanor assault the day before.
Gianforte will now take over former Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke’s House seat. Zinke vacated the seat when he accepted the post of Secretary of the Interior in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
The election results — with Gianforte winning over 50% of the vote and leading by a seven-point margin — were a major blow to Democrats’ anti-Trump efforts, and to the media’s expectations, after Gianforte had allegedly “body-slammed” a reporter before his final campaign event on Wednesday.
Montanans are “sending a wake-up call to the Washington D.C. establishment,” Gianforte told a jubilant crowd outside his campaign headquarters, after multiple outlets called the race.
Democrats had hoped to turn the race into an early referendum on President Trump’s performance in the White House and the GOP’s health care bill, which passed the House and is now being considered in the Senate.
But despite national attention and considerable outside funding, as well as Trump’s recent controversies in Washington D.C., Democrats were unable to turn the anti-Trump “resistance” into a concrete victory at the ballot box — a bad sign for Democratic chances in the 2018 midterms.
Democrats had also been handed the gift of a last-minute controversy when the UK Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs was allegedly assaulted by Gianforte. Jacobs said the entrepreneur had “body-slammed” him in response to questions about the Congressional Budget Office score of the GOP health care plan.
Fox News’ Alicia Acuna also supported Jacob’s account saying Gianforte grabbed Jacobs “by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him.”
An audio recording released by the Guardian showed Jacobs asking Gianforte a question, before a loud crashing noise was heard, followed by Jacobs saying Gianforte had attacked him and broken his glasses.
Gianforte’s campaign pushed back against Jacobs’s claims, saying that the reporter entered the office without permission and “aggressively shoved” a recorder in the candidate’s face. An official campaign statement said Jacobs had been asked to leave and to lower the recorder (neither of which was heard on the recording).
Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault and appeared to go dark Thursday, canceling interviews with both Fox News and NBC’s Meet the Press.
At least three newspapers, the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian, and the Billings Gazette, pulled their endorsements of Gianforte, while Democrats seized on the alleged assault, with both MoveOn.org and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launching ads that played audio of the incident.
Democrats were also hoping that Trump’s time in the White House would motivate their base in the election, and would give them a win that would point toward a big victory in the 2018 midterms, in the same way President Barack Obama motivated the Republican base in the 2010 midterms.
Despite all those factors in Democrats’ favor, it seemed that Gianforte’s win was a comfortable one. When The Associated Press called the race, Gianforte was leading Quist by approximately seven points.
In his victory speech, Gianforte appeared humbled by the recent controversy, and apologized to Jacobs for the incident that had at one point appeared to doom his campaign.
“Last night I made a mistake and I took an action that I can’t take back,” he said. “I should have not responded in the way that I did. And for that I am sorry.”
In victory speech, Greg Gianforte says he's ‘sorry.' "Last night I made a mistake." https://t.co/53QVJshUEz pic.twitter.com/wXfVpLpxhp — ABC News (@ABC) May 26, 2017
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNYEmotional blackmail and FOG are terms, popularized by psychotherapist Susan Forward, about controlling people in relationships and the theory that fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled. Understanding these dynamics is useful to anyone trying to extricate from the controlling behavior of another person, and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.[1]
General [ edit ]
The first documented use of "emotional blackmail" appeared in 1947 in the Journal of the National Association of Deans of Women in the article "Emotional Blackmail Climate". The term was used to describe one type of problematic classroom control model often used by teachers.[2] Esther Vilar, an Argentine physician, also used the term "emotional blackmail" in the early 1970s to describe a parenting strategy observed among some mothers with multiple children.[3]
Emotional blackmail typically involves two people who have established a close personal or intimate relationship (parent and child, spouses, siblings, or two close friends).[4] Children, too, will employ special pleading and emotional blackmail to promote their own interests, and self-development, within the family system.[5]
Emotional blackmailers use fear, obligation and guilt in their relationships, ensuring that others feel afraid to cross them, obligated to give them their way and swamped by guilt if they resist. Knowing that someone close to them wants love, approval or confirmation of identity and self-esteem, blackmailers may threaten to withhold them (e.g., withhold love) or take them away altogether, making the second person feel they must earn them by agreement.[6] Fear, obligation or guilt is commonly referred to as "FOG". FOG is a contrived acronym—a play on the word "fog" which describes something that obscures and confuses a situation or someone's thought processes.
The person who is acting in a controlling way often wants something from the other person that is legitimate to want. They may want to feel loved, safe, valuable, appreciated, supported, needed, etc. This is not the problem. The problem is often more a matter of how they are going about getting what they want, or that they are insensitive to others' needs in doing so that is troubling—and how others react to all of this.[1]
Under pressure, one may become a sort of hostage, forced to act under pressure of the threat of responsibility for the other's breakdown.[7] and could fall into a pattern of letting the blackmailer control his/her decisions and behavior, lost in what Doris Lessing described as "a sort of psychological fog".[8]
Types [ edit ]
Forward and Frazier identify four blackmail types each with their own mental manipulation style:[9]
Type Example Punisher's threat Eat the food I cooked for you or I'll hurt you. Self-punisher's threat Eat the food I cooked for you or I'll hurt myself. Sufferer's threat Eat the food I cooked for you. I was saving it for myself. I wonder what will happen now. Tantalizer's threat Eat the food I cooked for you and you just may get a really yummy dessert.
There are different levels of demands—demands that are of little consequence, demands that involve important issues or personal integrity, demands that affect major life decisions, and/or demands that are dangerous or illegal.[1]
Patterns and characteristics [ edit ]
Addictions [ edit ]
Addicts often believe that being in control is how to achieve success and happiness in life. People who follow this rule use it as a survival skill, having usually learned it in childhood. As long as they make the rules, no one can back them into a corner with their feelings.[10]
Mental illness [ edit ]
People with certain mental conditions are predisposed to controlling behavior including those with paranoid personality disorder,[11] borderline personality disorder,[12] and narcissistic personality disorder.[13]
People with borderline personality disorder are particularly likely to use emotional blackmail[12] (as too are destructive narcissists).[13] However, their actions may be impulsive and driven by fear and a desperate sense of hopelessness, rather than being the product of any conscious plan.[14]
Codependency [ edit ]
Codependency often involves placing a lower priority on one's own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others. Codependency can occur in any type of relationship, including family, work, friendship, and also romantic, peer or community relationships.[15]
Affluenza and children [ edit ]
Affluenza—the status insecurity derived from obsessively keeping up with the Joneses—has been linked by Oliver James to a pattern of childhood training whereby sufferers were "subjected to a form of emotional blackmail as toddlers. Their mothers' love becomes conditional on exhibiting behaviour that achieved parental goals."[16]
Assertiveness training [ edit ]
Assertiveness training encourages people to not engage in fruitless back-and-forths or power struggles with the emotional blackmailer but instead to repeat a neutral statement, such as "I can see how you feel that way," or, if pressured to eat, say "No thank you, I'm not hungry." They are taught to keep their statements within certain boundaries in order not to capitulate to coercive nagging, emotional blackmail, or bullying.[17]
Recovery [ edit ]
Techniques for resisting emotional blackmail include strengthening personal boundaries, resisting demands, developing a power statement—the determination to stand the pressure—and buying time to break old patterns. Re-connecting with the autonomous parts of the self the blackmailer had over-ruled is not necessarily easy.[9] One may feel guilty based on emotional blackmail, even while recognizing the guilt as induced and irrational;[18] but still be able to resist overcompensating, and ignore the blackmailer's attempt to gain attention by way of having a tantrum.[19]
Consistently ignoring the manipulation in a friendly way may however lead to its intensification, and threats of separation,[20] or to accusations of being "crazy" or a "home wrecker".[9]
Cultural examples [ edit ]
Angela Carter described Beauty and the Beast as glorifying emotional blackmail on the part of the Beast, as a means of controlling his target, Beauty. [21]
as glorifying emotional blackmail on the part of the Beast, as a means of controlling his target, Beauty. Novelist Doris Lessing claimed that “I became an expert in emotional blackmail by the time I was five."[22]
Criticism [ edit ]
Daniel Miller objects that in popular psychology the idea of emotional blackmail has been misused as a defense against any form of fellow-feeling or consideration for others.[23]
Labeling of this dynamic with inflammatory terms such as "blackmail" and "manipulation" may not be so helpful as it is both polarizing and it implies premeditation and malicious intent which is often not the case. Controlling behavior and being controlled is a transaction between two people with both playing a part.[1]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Category:Popular psychologyPORTLAND, Ore. -- The organizer of what started as a peaceful protest Thursday evening against the election of Donald Trump has condemned the actions of rioters and the damage they left behind.
"We want to reiterate that we do not condone nor support violence, vandalism or destruction in any way shape or form and we are starting a fundraiser to repair the damage," said Greg McKelvey of Portland's Resistance.
More: Peaceful protest turns into riot
He said volunteers from that group would be helping Friday to repair the damage and starting a fund for any additional repairs.
Pearl District Neighborhood Association residents have organized a volunteer effort to help clean up the riot aftermath.
Brooms and graffiti removing equipment used for a twice-yearly 'Polishe the Pearl' event were being provided to volunteers.
Anti-Trump protest leader explains why protesters shut freeway
Friday afternoon, the group plans what McKelvey calls a "rally and heal-in" at City Hall.
"We would like to take few moments to disavow the actions taken to destroy property, to clarify the intentions and goals of our new efforts and to offer empathy to all the stakeholders in last night's protests and those to come," the Portland's Resistance read in part.
Portland's Resistance StatementCLOSE Reds beat writers C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan discuss the latest news and notes from spring training. The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar
Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart (2) flips the ball to second base during fielding drills at Cincinnati Reds spring training, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, in Goodyear, Arizona. (Photo: The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar)
GOODYEAR, Ariz. – Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart was taking some routine grounders during Tuesday’s first full-squad spring training workout when coach Dick Schofield accidentally poked a grounder up the middle of the infield. Cozart was playing in, and bolted quickly to corral the ball.
It was the first time he’s really made that type of quick-twitch movement since knee surgery ended his 2015 season in June.
“I just – bam – got there easy,” Cozart said. “It was like, ‘OK…’ (Schofield) was like, ‘Sorry!’ and I said, ‘No, I appreciate it. That’s what I want.’ For me, that was my main goal. I want to get my quickness back side-to-side. Defense is my game. Once I got that back, my confidence is going to skyrocket.”
Cozart’s confidence in his body is already pretty high. Manager Bryan Price said the team will ease him into Cactus League games, but the 30-year-old shortstop feels he’d be ready to handle game action sooner than that.
He’ll wear a knee brace for the next two or three weeks at least, but most of the time doesn’t realize it’s even there.
“I remember when I look down at my pant and I see a brace under my pants,” he said.
The bigger question will be how quickly Cozart gets up to speed at the plate. His injury cut short what was shaping up to be his greatest offensive season – the shortstop slashed.258/.310/.459 with nine home runs in 53 games – but taking seven months off comes with a price.
Cozart wasn’t able to do any swinging on his own in the offseason, and still gets tired after 20 or 30 swings. Still, he and Price both feel the six weeks of spring training should be more than enough time to get in game shape and find his rhythm at the plate.
“I’m trying to hit as much as I can even though I get tired,” Cozart said. “I want to keep hitting, keep hitting and just get that muscle memory back.”
Smooth sailing
Camp has taken on a different form with first base coach Freddie Benavides orchestrating things, but Price said everything has run smoothly so far. In fact, changes to the routine are refreshing.
“(Reporters) have your groundhog day and to a certain degree, we do too,” Price said “If we can disrupt that a little bit, it’s a nice bonus.”A holy knight, a defender of the realm and its people, an example of nobility, strenth and resilience - the Paladin. A name that sets a new industry standard for all who love their games and believe the best possible protection from damage and wear.
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Production will take place under our direct supervision, following all the quality standards we promise to abide to in this campaign. As always, when we manufacture overseas, we will be present on site for quality check and final delivery of the sleeves.
After the end of this campaign, we will open a pledge manager, where you will be able to complete your order by choosing the sizes of Paladin Card Protectors you need and desire.
We estimate that production will be over at the end of June and we will be able to start shipping in July. Since all rewards are shipped out from Poland, we estimated that most backers will receive rewards in August, while some distant regions might have to wait until September or October.
Free shipping worldwide
All rewards are sent out from Poland. Depending on your pledge level, you will receive your reward either in a cardboard box or in a heavy-duty bubble protected envelope. We are using the services of our local post, which has a delivery rate of 99.5% (from our direct experience). Most packages will come without a tracking number, as we will use the economy option. This is how we are able to offer free shipping to absoluetly everyone!
Paladin was created by a team of passionate gamers and game design and publishing specialists, working (and playing games together!) for NSKN Games and Strawberry Studio. As gamers, we wanted to create the perfect type of sleeve: offering high level of protection, while having a minimum influence on your gaming experience.
The Paladin Card Protectors are 90 microns thick. This means, that they are thicker than most of the popular brands’ Premium sleeves. We offer extremely high durability, and a level of protection that keeps your cards away from harm in any gaming situation.
We chose the thickness of 90 microns to maximize binding, making Paladin Card protectors almost unbreakable |
no info has been disclosed regarding a release date or even when shooting will begin, but be sure to stay tuned for more.
Let us know if you’re looking forward to LeBron starring in the much-anticipated followup!
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Words by Jonathan Sawyer Staff Writer Not NYC, not LA.The Croatian looks set to become West Ham manager, where the fans will hope to love him as much as Besiktas' do.
West Ham United are currently on the hunt for a new manager to replace Sam Allardyce, who parted company with the club at the end of the season.
Plenty of names have been mentioned. The likes of David Moyes, Roberto Di Matteo and even Jurgen Klopp have done the rounds. With it now looking like Marcelo Bielsa and Unai Emery will stay with Marseille and Sevilla respectively it is looking like former West Ham player Slaven Bilic might get the job.
The Croatian, who came to the fore in charge of the Croatia national team, has confirmed he is leaving Besiktas this summer and that has seen interest emerge from West Ham.
By the looks of it, Besiktas fans do not want him to go.
Yolun Açık Olsun Herşey İçin ÇokTeşekkürler Bilic Bu Taraftar Seni asla Unutmaz... pic.twitter.com/oIdI84yeAS — FORZA BEŞİKTAŞ✌ (@NoirBlancAsk) June 4, 2015
These are the scenes that greeted him at the airport today as he prepared to leave Istanbul for the last time as Besiktas manager.
Compared to the way in which West Ham fans held the door open for Big Sam's departure this sort of love and admiration must surely have West Ham fans excited about his potential arrival.
All that remains to be seen is if Bilic gets the job.A motion to study the Criminal Code's definition of when human life begins was defeated in the House of Commons Wednesday night.
Members of Parliament voted 203 to 91 against Motion 312, sponsored by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth.
The private member's motion would have set up a committee to study how the Criminal Code defines when life begins. The provision, in the homicide section of the code, says a child becomes a human being when it has fully left its mother's body.
Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper had opposed the motion, some members of his cabinet voted in favour. Those included Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan and International Co-Operation Minister Julian Fantino.
Liberal MPs John McKay, Lawrence MacAulay, Kevin Lamoureux and Jim Karygiannis also supported the motion.
Critics said the motion was an excuse to re-open the debate on abortion in Canada and set limits on the procedure. Woodworth had said he hoped having a debate would convince Canadians to oppose abortion.
Woodworth said last week that he didn't expect the motion to pass. The Conservatives, NDP and Liberals treating it as a free vote, meaning MPs were not told how to vote on the motion.
The NDP accused the government of using a private member's motion to push an agenda they're afraid to tackle more officially.Hello! I’m Amanda Kastner, an illustrator, book collector, and fan of Jane Austen's wonderful, witty novels. This coloring book project combines my love of illustration and my love of Jane Austen in 24 illustrated quotes just waiting for some color from you, my fellow Austen fan!
Every illustration is hand drawn in ink, then scanned and prepared for printing. As I designed the coloring pages I re-read passages of the novels and drew inspiration from the context of the quote. You can visit my website for a full list of quotes and a preview of all 24 illustrations.
I love putting art on my walls, and I hope you do, too! She Coloured is designed with more than the coloring experience in mind--each 8" x 10" illustration is printed on paper sturdy enough to display with or without a frame.
In addition to the coloring book, you can choose to receive colorable greeting cards, a mini print, or even an original sketch or quote illustration--and every reward level includes the full PDF coloring book for unlimited coloring fun!
Three printable illustrations from She Coloured are available for free on Gumroad. If you enjoy the sample pages, you'll love the full coloring book!
Shipping is included for all backers in the USA! (International backers, I tried to figure out the cheapest and most convenient shipping option--I'm sorry postage is still so high!)
If you would like extra books (bound or loose-leaf), greeting cards, or mini prints, just increase the amount of your pledge by the amount shown above. After the campaign ends I’ll send you a survey so you can let me know what the extra funds are for.
When you pledge money by choosing one of the reward levels, you are basically pre-buying the book and helping me cover the initial printing costs--it’s a good deal for both of us!
(Your card is not charged until the campaign has finished successfully. If the funding goal is not reached, you will not be charged.)
The money from this campaign will be used to cover the expenses of Kickstarter fees, printing of books and other rewards, and shipping costs.
Visit the FAQ if you’re wondering:
What do you mean by “Adult” coloring book?
What quotes are included in the book?
Is the paper suitable for markers? ($12 level)
What illustrations are on the greeting cards? ($25 level)
Which original miniature sketch do I receive? ($40 level)
How does the quote commission work? ($75 level)
When do I get my rewards?
If you love this project, please share the campaign with your friends so She Coloured will meet its funding goal and become a reality! Your support and sharing is SO appreciated--I can’t do this without you, my fellow Austen fans!
(Don't forget your 3 FREE sample pages available HERE!)
You can connect with me on social media so you don't miss out on future projects--I would love to see you there!
blog.amandakastner.com
instagram.com/amandaillustrates
facebook.com/amanda.kastner.illustration
pinterest.com/akillustration
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twitter.com/storyseamstress
Every day this month I'm drawing a new miniature sketch (available at the $40 reward level) and posting it on Instagram--come and see!
What would Jane’s characters think of coloring books? I imagine Mrs. Elton would say something like this:
Tweet Mrs. Elton's Opinion
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Check out the updates section for more character sketches throughout the campaign!When Bilal Berjawi spoke to his wife for the last time, he had no way of being certain that he was about to die. But he should have had his suspicions.
A short, dumpy Londoner who was not, in the words of some who knew him, one of the world’s greatest thinkers, Berjawi had been fighting for months in Somalia with al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group. His wife was 4,400 miles away, at home in west London. In June 2011, Berjawi had almost been killed in a US drone strike on an al-Shabaab camp on the coast. After that he became wary of telephones. But in January last year, when his wife went into labour and was admitted to St Mary’s hospital in Paddington, he decided to risk a quick phone conversation.
A few hours after the call ended Berjawi was targeted in a fresh drone strike. Perhaps the telephone contact triggered alerts all the way fromCamp Lemmonier, the US military’s enormous home-from-home at Djibouti, to the National Security Agency’s headquarters in Maryland. Perhaps a few screens also lit up at GCHQ in Cheltenham? This time the drone attack was successful, from the US perspective, and al-Shabaab issued a terse statement: “The martyr received what he wished for and what he went out for.”
The following month, Berjawi’s former next-door neighbour, who was also in Somalia, was similarly “martyred”. Like Berjawi, Mohamed Sakr had just turned 27 when he was killed in an air strike.
Four months later, the FBI in Manhattan announced that a third man from London, a Vietnamese-born convert to Islam, had been charged with a series of terrorism offences, and that if convicted he would face a mandatory 40-year sentence. This man was promptly arrested by Scotland Yard and is now fighting extradition to the US. And a few weeks after that, another of Berjawi’s mates from London was detained after travelling from Somalia to Djibouti, where he was interrogated for months by US intelligence officers before being hooded and put aboard an aircraft. When 23-year-old Mahdi Hashi next saw daylight, he was beingled into a courtroom in Brooklyn.
That these four men had something in common is clear enough: they were all Muslims, all accused of terrorism offences, and all British (or they were British: curiously, all of them unexpectedly lost their British citizenship just as they were about to become unstuck). There is, however, a common theme that is less obvious: it appears that all of them had found their way on to the “disposition matrix”.
The euphemisms of counter-terrorism
When contemplating the euphemisms that have slipped into the lexicon since 9/11, the adjective Orwellian is difficult to avoid. But while such terms as extraordinary rendition, targeted killing and enhanced interrogation are universally known, and their true meanings – kidnap, assassination, torture – widely understood, the disposition matrix has not yet gained such traction.
Since the Obama administration largely shut down the CIA’s rendition programme, choosing instead to dispose of its enemies in drone attacks, those individuals who are being nominated for killing have been discussed at a weekly counter-terrorism meeting at the White House situation room that has become known as Terror Tuesday. Barack Obama, in the chair and wishing to be seen as a restraining influence, agrees the final schedule of names. Once details of these meetings began to emerge it was not long before the media began talking of “kill lists”. More double-speak was required, it seemed, and before long the term disposition matrix was born.
In truth, the matrix is more than a mere euphemism for a kill list, or even a capture-or-kill list. It is a sophisticated grid, mounted upon a database that is said to have been more than two years in the development, containing biographies of individuals believed to pose a threat to US interests, and their known or suspected locations, as well as a range of options for their disposal.
It is a grid, however, that both blurs and expands the boundaries that human rights law and the law of war place upon acts of abduction or targeted killing. There have been claims that people’s names have been entered into it with little or no evidence. And it appears that it will be with us for many years to come.
The background to its creation was the growing realisation in Washington that the drone programme could be creating more enemies than it was destroying. In Pakistan, for example, where the government estimates that more than 400 people have been killed in around 330 drone strikes since 9/11, the US has arguably outstripped even India as the most reviled foreign country. At one point, Admiral Mike Mullen, when chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was repo rted to be having furious rows over the issue with his opposite number in Pakistan, General Ashfaq Kayani.
The term entered the public domain following a briefing given to the Washington Post before last year’s presidential election. “We had a disposition problem,” one former counter-terrorism official involved in the development of the Matrix told the Post. Expanding on the nature of that problem, a second administration official added that while “we’re not going to end up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying ‘we love America'”, there needed to be a recognition that “we can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us”.
Drawing upon legal advice that has remained largely secret, senior officials at the US Counter-Terrorism Center designed a grid that incorporated the existing kill lists of the CIA and the US military’s special forces, but which also offered some new rules and restraints.
Some individuals whose names were entered into the matrix, and who were roaming around Somalia or Yemen, would continue to face drone attack when their whereabouts become known. Others could be targeted and killed by special forces. In a speech in May, Obama suggested that a special court could be given oversight of these targeted killings.
An unknown number would end up in the so-called black sites that the US still quietly operates in east Africa, or in prisons run by US allies in the Middle East or Central Asia. But for others, who for political reasons could not be summarily dispatched or secretly imprisoned, there would be a secret grand jury investigation, followed in some cases by formal arrest and extradition, and in others by “rendition to justice”: they would be grabbed, interrogated without being read their rights, then flown to the US and put on trial with a publicly funded defence lawyer.
Orwell once wrote about political language being “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable”. As far as the White House is concerned, however, the term disposition matrix describes a continually evolving blueprint not for murder, but for a defence against a threat that continues to change shape and seek out new havens.
As the Obama administration’s tactics became more variegated, the British authorities co-operated, of course, but also ensured that the new rules of the game helped to serve their own counter-terrorism objectives.
Paul Pillar, who served in the CIA for 28 years, including a period as the agency’s senior counter-terrorism analyst, says the British, when grappling with what he describes as a sticky case – “someone who is a violence-prone anti-western jihadi”, for example – would welcome a chance to pass on that case to the US. It would be a matter, as he puts it, of allowing someone else to have their headache.
“They might think, if it’s going to be a headache for someone, let the Americans have the headache,” says Pillar. “That’s what the United States has done. The US would drop cases if they were going to be sticky, and let someone else take over. We would let the Egyptians or the Jordanians or whoever take over a very sticky one. From the United Kingdom point of view, if it is going to be a headache for anyone: let the Americans have the headache.”
The four young Londoners – Berjawi, Sakr, Hashi and the Vietnamese-born convert – were certainly considered by MI5 and MI6 to be something of a headache. But could they have been seen so problematic – so sticky – that the US would be encouraged to enter their names into the Matrix?
The home secretary’s special power
Berjawi and Sakr were members of a looseknit group of young Muslims who were on nodding terms with each other, having attended the same mosques and schools and having played in the same five-a-side football matches in west London.
A few members of this group came to be closely scrutinised by MI5 when it emerged that they had links with the men who attempted to carry out a wave of bombings on London’s underground train network on 21 July 2005. Others came to the attention of the authorities as a result of their own conduct. Mohammed Ezzouek, for example, who attended North Westminster community school with Berjawi, was abducted in Kenya and interrogated by British intelligence officers after a trip to Somalia in 2006; another schoolmate, Tariq al-Daour, has recently been released from jail after serving a sentence for inciting terrorism.
As well as sharing their faith and, according to the UK authorities, jihadist intent, these young men had something else in common: they were all dual nationals. Berjawi was born in Lebanon and moved to London with his parents as an infant. Sakr was born in London, but was deemed to be a British-Egyptian dual national because his parents were born in Egypt. Ezzouek is British-Moroccan, while al-Daour is British-Palestinian.
This left them vulnerable to a little-known weapon in the government’s counter-terrorism armoury, one that Theresa May has been deploying with increasing frequency since she became home secretary three years ago. Under the terms of a piece of the 2006 Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, and a previous piece of legislation dating to 1981, May has the power to deprive dual nationals of their British citizenship if she is “satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good”.
This power can be applied only to dual nationals, and those who lose their citizenship can appeal. The government appears usually to wait until the individual has left the country before moving them to deprive them of their citizenship, however, and appeals are heard at the highly secretive special immigration appeals commission (SIAC), where the government can submit evidence that cannot be seen or challenged by the appellant.
The Home Office is extraordinarily sensitive about the manner in which this power is being used. It has responded to Freedom of Information Act requests about May’s increased use of this power with delays and appeals; some information requested by the Guardian in June 2011 has still not been handed over. What is known is that at least 17 people have been deprived of their British citizenship at a stroke of May’s pen. In most cases, if not all, the home secretary has taken action on the recommendation of MI5. In each case, a warning notice was sent to the British home of the target, and the deprivation order signed a day or two later.
One person who lost their British citizenship in this way was Anna Chapman, a Russian spy, but the remainder are thought to all be Muslims. Several of them – including a British-Pakistani father and his three sons – were born in the UK, while most of the others arrived as children. And some have been deprived of their citizenship not because they were assessed to be involved in terrorism or any other criminal activity, but because of their alleged involvement in Islamist extremism.
Berjawi and Sakr both travelled to Somalia after claiming that they were being harassed by police in the UK, and were then stripped of their British citizenship. Several months later they were killed. The exact nature of any intelligence that the British government may have shared with Washington before their names were apparently entered into the disposition matrix is deeply secret: the UK has consistently refused to either confirm or deny that it shares intelligence in support of drone strikes, arguing that to do so would damage both national security and relations with the US government.
More than 12 months after Sakr’s death, his father, Gamal, a businessman who settled in London 37 years ago, still cannot talk about his loss without breaking down and weeping. He alleges that one of his two surviving sons has since been harassed by police, and suspects that this boy would also have been stripped of his citizenship had he left the country. “It’s madness,” he cries. “They’re driving these boys to Afghanistan. They’re making everything worse.”
Last year Gamal and his wife flew to Cairo, formally renounced their Egyptian citizenship, and on their return asked their lawyer to let it be known that their sons were no longer dual nationals. But while he wants his family to remain in Britain, the manner in which his son met his death has shattered his trust in the British government. “It was clearly directed from the UK,” he says. “He wasn’t just killed: he was assassinated.”
The case of Mahdi Hashi
Mahdi Hashi was five years old when his family moved to London from Somalia. He returned to the country in 2009, and took up arms for al-Shabaab in its civil war with government forces. A few months earlier he had complained to the Independent that he been under pressure to assist MI5, which he was refusing to do. Hashi was one of a few dozen young British men who have followed the same path: in one internet video clip, an al-Shabaab fighter with a cockney accent can be heard urging fellow Muslims “living in the lands of disbelief” to come and join him. It is thought that the identities of all these men are known to MI5.
After the deaths of Berjawi and Sakr, Hashi was detained by al-Shabaab, who suspected that he was a British spy, and that he was responsible for bringing the drones down on the heads of his brothers-in-arms. According to his US lawyer, Harry Batchelder, he was released in early June last year. The militants had identified three other men whom they believed were the culprits, executing them shortly afterwards.
Within a few days of Hashi’s release, May signed an order depriving him of his British citizenship. The warning notice that was sent to his family’s home read: “The reason for this decision is that the Security Service assess that you have been involved in Islamist extremism and present a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom due to your extremist activities.”
Hashi decided to leave Somalia, and travelled to Djibouti with two other fighters, both Somali-Swedish dual nationals. All three were arrested in a raid on a building, where they had been sleeping on the roof, and were taken to the local intelligence agency headquarters. Hashi says he was interrogated for several weeks by US intelligence officers who refused to identify themselves. These men then handed him over to a team of FBI interrogators, who took a lengthy statement. Hashi was then hooded, put aboard an aircraft, and flown to New York. On arrival he was chargedwith conspiracy to support a terrorist organisation.
Hashi has since been quoted in a news report as saying he was tortured while in custody in Djibouti. There is reason to doubt that this happened, however: a number of sources familiar with his defence case say that the journalist who wrote the report may have been misled. And the line of defence that he relied upon while being interrogated – that Somalia’s civil war is no concern of the US or the UK – evaporated overnight when al-Shabaab threatened to launch attacks in Britain.
When Hashi was led into court in Brooklyn in January, handcuffed and dressed in a grey and orange prison uniform, he was relaxed and smiling. The 23-year-old had been warned that if he failed to co-operate with the US government, he would be likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars. But he appeared unconcerned.
At no point did the UK government intervene. Indeed, it cannot: he is no longer British.
When the Home Office was asked whether it knew Hashi was facing detention and forcible removal to the US at the point at which May revoked his citizenship, a spokesperson replied: “We do not routinely comment on individual deprivation cases, nor do we comment on intelligence issues.”
The Home Office is also refusing to say whether it is aware of other individuals being killed after losing their British citizenship. On one point it is unambiguous, however. “Citizenship,” it said in a statement, “is a privilege, not a right.”
The case of ‘B2’
A glimpse of even closer UK-US counter-terrorism co-operation can be seen in the case of the Vietnamese-born convert, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Born in 1983 in the far north of Vietnam, he was a month old when his family travelled by sea to Hong Kong, six when they moved to the UK and settled in London, and 12 when he became a British citizen.
While studying web design at a college in Greenwich, he converted to Islam. He later came into contact with the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, and was an associate of Richard Dart, a fellow convert who was the subject of a TV documentary entitled My Brother the Islamist, and who was jailed for six years in April after travelling to Pakistan to seek terrorism training. In December 2010, this man told his eight-months-pregnant wife that he was going to Ireland for a few weeks. Instead, he travelled to Yemen and stayed for seven months. MI5 believes he received terrorism training from al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula and worked on the group’s online magazine, Inspire.
He denies this. Much of the evidence against him comes from a man called Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali who once lived in the English midlands, and who was “rendered to justice” in much the same way as Hashi after being captured in the Gulf of Aden two years ago. Warsame is now co-operating with the US Justice Department.
On arrival back at Heathrow airport, the Vietnamese-born man was searched by police and arrested when a live bullet was found in his rucksack. A few months later, while he was free on bail, May signed an order revoking his British citizenship. Detained by immigration officials and facing deportation to Vietnam, he appealed to SIAC, where he was given the cipher B2. He won his case after the Vietnamese ambassador to London gave evidence in which he denied that he was one of their citizens. Depriving him of British citizenship at that point would have rendered him stateless, which would have been unlawful.
Within minutes of SIAC announcing its decision and granting B2 unconditional bail, he was rearrested while sitting in the cells at the SIAC building. The warrant had been issued by magistrates five weeks earlier, at the request of the US Justice Department. Moments after that, the FBI announced that B2 had been charged with five terrorism offences and faced up to 40 years in jail. He was driven straight from SIAC to Westminster magistrates’ court, where he faced extradition proceedings.
B2 continues to resist his removal to the US, with his lawyers arguing that he could have been charged in the UK. Indeed, the allegations made by the US authorities, if true, would appear to represent multiple breaches of several UK laws: the Terrorism Act 2000, the Terrorism Act 2006 and the Firearms Act 1968. Asked why B2 was not being prosecuted in the English courts – why, in other words, the Americans were having this particular headache, and not the British – a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “As this is a live case and the issue of forum may be raised by the defence in court, it would be inappropriate for us to discuss this in advance of the extradition hearing.”
The rule of ‘imminent threat’
In the coffee shops of west London, old friends of Berjawi, Sakr, Hashi and B2 are equally reluctant to talk, especially when questioned about the calamities that have befallen the four men. When they do, it is in a slightly furtive way, almost in whispers.
Ezzouek explains that he never leaves the country any more, fearing he too will be stripped of his British citizenship. Al-Daour is watched closely and says he faces recall to prison whenever he places a foot wrong. Failing even to tell his probation officer that he has bought a car, for example, is enough to see him back behind bars. A number of their associates claim to have learned of the deaths of Berjawi and Sakr from MI5 officers who approached them with the news, and suggested they forget about travelling to Somalia.
Last February, a 16-page US justice department memo, leaked to NBC News, disclosed something of the legal basis for the drone programme. Its authors asserted that the killing of US citizens is lawful if they pose an “imminent threat” of violent attack against the US, and capture is impossible. The document adopts a broad definition of imminence, saying no evidence of a specific plot is needed, and remains silent on the fate that faces enemies who are – or were – citizens of an allied nation, such as the UK.
But if the Obama administration is satisfied that the targeted killing of US citizens is lawful, there is little reason to doubt that young men who have been stripped of their British citizenship, and who take up arms in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere, will continue to find their way on to the disposition matrix, and continue to be killed by missiles fired from drones hovering high overhead, or rendered to courts in the US.
And while Obama says he wants to curtail the drone programme, his officials have been briefing journalists that they believe the operations are likely to continue for another decade, at least. Given al-Qaida’s resilience and ability to spread, they say, no clear end is in sight.Yesterday, it was reported that August Ames, an award-winning porn star, had died of a suspected suicide. She was only 23 years old.
Immediately, speculation ran rampant as to what had prompted someone so young to take their own life. Because one of her last tweets (NSFW) about her refusing to work with a gay performer had garnered some backlash, some speculated that cyberbullying had prompted her to take her own life.
But of course, as mental health experts have previously pointed out, there is no one factor that is a greater contributor to suicide than mental illness, and on a podcast that she recorded months before her death, Ames spoke openly about her struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. In the interview with friend Holly Randall, she noted that she struggled to find a good therapist due to her role in the porn industry.
"I would get in contact with some people and then I would feel badly because they'd be like 'What's your profession?' and I'd be like 'Oh, I'm in the adult industry,'" she said. "Then I'd feel like they're like, 'Oh, that's the whole reason that you are the way you are' and then I'd get turned off.”
Unfortunately, that view is apparently widespread among mental health care professionals, according to many porn performers. Due to the stigma associated with the porn industry, as well as the frequent cultural misconceptions about the people who work in it (such as the false idea that they’re all addicted to drugs or riddled with STIs), it’s difficult for adult performers who struggle with depression to get the mental health care they need.
“The problem is that most mental health and medical professionals have the same prejudices and misconceptions as everyone else,” says Conner Habib, an adult performer and writer. “It’s probably even worse in the mental health community because a lot of them follow false and damaging sex addiction models. They’ve absorbed all the stuff about porn being bad in our culture.”
It’s worth noting that there are financial reasons why adult performers might struggle to gain access to mental health care resources. “We are like most entertainers: we have independent insurance, and we are non-unionized, because of many things, one being the turnover rate (3 months for performers),” says Tasha Reign, the chairperson of the Adult Performers’ Advocacy Committee (APAC). The out-of-pocket health care expenses can also be prohibitive when you factor in the cost of testing: just to be able to book jobs, performers must pay nearly $400 twice a month to be cleared for STIs, a fee that they also must pay out-of-pocket.
In addition to the costs of mental health care, it’s also extremely difficult for adult performers to find the resources they need, due to the myths and misconceptions associated with the industry itself. Take, for instance, the widespread belief that porn performers must be struggling with drug abuse or childhood sexual trauma to be willing to do sex work: while Ames herself admitted to having survived child sexual abuse on Randall’s podcast, the idea that all performers are “damaged goods” is largely uncorroborated by the little research that has been done on the porn industry.
According to a study in the Journal of Sex Research, which surveyed 177 female performers, porn performers are not any more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse than members of the general population, though they were more likely to report having had sex for the first time at an early age and with more sexual partners.
Many adult performers also struggle to find therapists who do not subscribe to the view that being in the adult industry is not an aberrant mental health care condition in itself, which might discourage many performers from seeking treatment if they do struggle with depression. “Most mental health professionals don’t treat our job like a regular job. They treat it like it’s indicative of some deeper issue,” says porn performer Ela Darling. “Our jobs aren’t treated as jobs. They’re treated as symptoms.” (Men's Health reached out to the American Psychological Association (APA), and will update if we hear back.)
Even less formal therapeutic resources, such as support groups, might fall short of providing resources. Such programs are “very gendered, very binary, very not open to alternative forms of varying ways that sexuality can be healthy, whether that’s part of your work or private life,” says Traci Mediros, a therapist who specializes in treating LGBTQ people and sex workers.
For this reason, the mental health treatment of sex workers is considered a specialized field in itself. The Sex Workers’ Outreach Project (SWOP) provides a network of service providers who are deemed sex worker-friendly, as does APAC, for those in the industry who are seeking mental health care. Yet if Ames’s podcast interview is any indication, the stigma might be far too overwhelming for some to overcome.
“While therapy is helpful and suicide is preventable... we have to normalize sexuality, sex workers, and porn in order to create an environment where we don’t feel ‘othered’ and alone,” says Reign. “It’s very difficult to tune out they negative attitudes. Even if we love what we do. I hope the world becomes more peaceful.”
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please seek help immediately or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.(CNN) With US and Russia engaged what some call a new Cold War, some 900 US troops are about to find themselves on its most dangerous front.
The US and NATO confirmed this week that the US will lead a multinational battalion in northeast Poland beginning in April 2017, a strategically crucial location that would put them in the center of hostilities should an armed clash between NATO and Russia break out.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told reporters Wednesday that the American soldiers will be headquartered in Orzysz, Poland, a town which lies only miles from the most likely target of a possible Russian attack against NATO, according to military analysts.
Carter made the remarks while speaking after a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. He called the unit a "battle-ready battalion task force."
Russia was quick to criticize the announcement.
In a series of tweets, Russia's ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushko, called the deployments "confrontational schemes of military building up in areas along our borders" and threatened retaliation.
"NATO countries understand that these actions will not remain without a response from our side," he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced Monday that about 600 paratroopers from Russia and Belarus conducted a joint exercise near the town of Brest on the Polish-Belarusian border and only miles from where the new troops will be based.
The Suwalki Gap, where the US forces will be located, is a thin stretch of about 60 miles of Polish territory that borders fellow NATO ally Lithuania. It is also bordered on both sides by Russia's European enclave Kaliningrad and close military ally Belarus.
"It's a small sliver of land, which, if seized, would allow the Russians to cut-off the Baltic states from the rest of the NATO alliance," Magnus Nordenman, director of the transatlantic security initiative at the Atlantic Council, told CNN.
He added that such an action, combined with the sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles Russia has been deploying to Kaliningrad, would make US and NATO efforts to reinforce and defend its Baltic allies extremely difficult.
"One can assume it is in the Russian attack plan simply by looking at a map," he added. "Russia is clearly developing a strategy for keeping the US and NATO out in the event of a crisis."
A NATO official told CNN Friday that the Suwalki Gap did indeed feature in the alliance's defensive plans but would not elaborate further.
The Baltic States, which include Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, will also receive NATO battalions led by the UK, Canada and Germany. These countries are particularly concerned about Russian aggression, especially after Moscow's 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Russia's "militarization and aggressive actions in the region creates new tensions," Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas, told CNN's Nic Robertson Thursday.
The new deployments are part of NATO's "Enhanced Forward Presence" program, a NATO effort to reassure member countries and deter any Russian offensive actions.
"Russia has been willing to use military force against neighbors," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday. "We have seen that in Georgia and we have seen it in Ukraine with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the continued destabilization of Eastern Ukraine. So, therefore, NATO has to respond."
Russian and Belarusian paratroopers conduct a military exercise near the border with Poland in October 2016
Earlier this month, Russia reportedly deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a move Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski called "a massive strengthening of the Kaliningrad garrison," adding that the "missiles could reach well into the significant part of Polish territory."
"We have adapted, we have responded, to the increased Russian military presence close to NATO borders," Stoltenberg told reporters on Thursday.
The US unit due to be stationed in the Suwalki Gap and joined by two companies of troops from UK and Romania is miniscule compared to the American military's effort to deter the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
During America's geopolitical stand-off with the Soviet Union, some 300,000 US troops and tanks were deployed to Germany in order to defend the strategic Fulda Gap, an area of lowlands thought to be the likeliest route for a Soviet tank invasion of Western Europe.
"There is simply no way you can compare four NATO battalions and approximately 4,000 forces to 300,000 US forces at the height of the Cold War," Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington told CNN.
Nordenman thinks that the US and NATO feel that the battalion offers some substantial benefits despite its small size. "In the event of a crisis, it would allow American reinforcements to link-up with the US forces already there," he said.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the US contingent will include a headquarters element, Stryker armored vehicles, an artillery battery, anti-tank capabilities, explosive ordnance disposal and engineering from a squadron based in Vilseck, Germany.
He also revealed that the US soldiers will be under the tactical control of a Polish brigade.
Nordenman said the troops are an "important political signal for the US and NATO," adding that they will "allow the US and its NATO allies to train on terrain that they would have to fight on" in the event of an armed conflict with Russia.
While he called the new deployments a "good signal and good demonstration of our solidarity," Olekas, the Lithuanian defense chief, told CNN that they were not sufficient, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin only understood "power."
Nordenman said the US was selected to lead the defense of the most strategic location at the request of Poland. He |
to the sideline for the play call—meaning he has pre-determined reads—but he called several audibles in the Northern Iowa game.
Stitt vouches for his quarterback.
Coachable? “I can give him the worst call in the world and he’ll say, ‘I love it, I love it, let’s try it.’”
Tough? “Our O-line struggled. He took shots last year in our first couple games, and he was hurting. There was one shot in the midsection at NDSU. But he never said a word. I said, ‘Brady, you O.K.?’ Yeah coach, I’m fine.’… Even when he came back, the last few games, he wasn’t feeling great. He kind of told me after the fact. His leg still didn’t feel good, but he played anyway.” (After Gustafson returned to the lineup, Montana scored 57 and 54 points, respectively, in the final two games of the regular season.)
Able to handle pressure? “All summer he heard, ‘Next Carson Wentz, next Carson Wentz, and in our first game he tried to be perfect—he tried to be Carson Wentz. But he was able to adjust at halftime, and then he was Brady Gustafson, and he had a heck of a game.”
His potential is exciting. But at the same point in their respective careers, Wentz was far more polished. Gustafson has the tools, but because of his inconsistent mechanics, he’s considered a project. And teams are increasingly impatient with quarterbacks taken toward the top of the draft.
So is Brady Gustafson the next Carson Wentz? Probably not. But because of Wentz, a prospect like Gustafson is going to get a long look.
• EVERYTHING LEONARD FOURNETTE DOES… EXCEPT RUN: You already know that Fournette is outstanding as a runner. But what else do scouts want to see from the star tailback? I asked, and then I spent a Saturday watching Fournette do everything else but run.
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PICK MY GUY
A current NFL player explains why his former collegiate teammate is destined for success as a pro. Here’s Chiefs outside linebacker Dee Ford hyping fellow edge rusher and Auburn ex-teammate Carl Lawson.
Greg McWilliams/Icon Sportswire
“Carl is very strong, very productive, and very, very technically sound. He came in as a freshman and was ready to play right away. He had only a few things he needed to learn, but the talent was there. Of course, he had a few vets above him, like me, but he was always a force. I’ll never forget his first sack, his freshman year against Ole Miss, it was beautiful. He’s been hurt just about every season, and he might have even played through some things. But I feel like this is the year. If he’s fully healthy, the sky is the limit for him. I’ve been in this league a few years now and I know what type of players can be impact players. Carl is that guy. I love him to death. That guy, he has a chance to be really special. He might even be better than me.”
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Don Juan Moore/Getty Images
THE ANONYMOUS SCOUT
A few NFL evaluators introduce you to the players they’re keeping an eye on…
Dalvin Cook, RB, Florida State: Big play threat anytime he gets the ball. Lethal when he gets space. He’s a three-down starter.
Vince Biegel, OLB, Wisconsin: He has a chance to be an elite 3-4 edge rusher. Has a nice low dip move. Needs to slow his motor down sometimes, should have had a couple sacks on [LSU quarterback] Brandon Harris in Week 1 but missed.
Jessamen Dunker, G, Tennessee State: Originally played for Florida, had been suspended for off-field issues and transferred. He’s really athletic. He’s a great pulling guard. Strong anchors in pass protection. He has all the tools, and if he was still at Florida he’d be one of the top guards in the country.
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What I’m watching this week
All times Eastern…
No. 12 Michigan State at No. 18 Notre Dame (Saturday, 7:30 p.m): Don’t look now, but Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer could be supplanting Deshaun Watson as the No. 1 quarterback prospect in this year’s class (remember, Kizer is just a redshirt sophomore; Watson is a junior). Kizer has prototypical pocket-passer size and arm strength, but can also move; he has 12 rushing touchdowns in 15 career games. The Spartans, coming off a bye, had time to prepare. And you know Mark Dantonio always has his defense ready.
No. 2 Florida State at No. 10 Louisville (Saturday, noon): All aboard the Lamar Jackson hype train. I’m in one of the first cars. The Cardinals’ quarterback is the new Heisman frontrunner, accounting for 888 total yards and 13 total touchdowns in his first two games—and he sat the second half of the season-opener. Against the Seminoles, Jackson can prove that he’s legit and that the Cardinals are playoff contenders. Biggest game in Louisville football history?
No. 22 Oregon at Nebraska (Saturday, 3:30 p.m.): In a weekend full of splashy matchups, this could be a sneaky good one. Cornhuskers coach Mike Riley knows the Ducks well; he spent 14 seasons as coach of their rival, Oregon State. The Ducks are averaging 48.5 points per game—beating up on struggling Virginia last week—but I think they’re vulnerable. Looking forward to seeing how they transition into Brady Hoke’s defense for their first big test of the year.
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FACTOID OF THE WEEK
For the first time since 1996, Air Force, Army and Navy have all started the season 2-0. Navy and Army have each overcome in-game challenges. In Week 1 Navy pulled an emergency quarterback from the stands after their starter went down. And in Week 2, the start of the second quarter of the Army-Rice game was delayed several minutes after one of Army’s mules pooped in the end zone. All eyes on you, Air Force, in your Week 3 game against Utah State.
• SABAN SAYS: The Alabama coach on his time in the NFL, the growing gap between college and pro offenses, ideas to improve the NFL draft and the future of football.
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Dave Reginek/Getty Images
SAVAGE’S SENIORS
Former NFL GM and current Reese’s Senior Bowl Executive Director Phil Savage highlights senior matchups he’ll be keeping an eye on this week.
Colorado CB Chidobe Awuzie vs. Michigan WR Amara Darboh (Saturday, 3:30 p.m.): Awuzie is a three-and-a-half year starter, capable of playing outside or in the slot. He’s creating buzz among NFL scouts with his combination of size, speed and instincts. Darboh overcame the death of his parents in war-torn Sierra Leone before being taken in by a family in Des Moines, Iowa, and being introduced to football in high school. In three seasons as a starter for the Wolverines, he has accumulated 102 receptions for 1,353 yards and 10 touchdowns. Awuzie will be challenged by the size and strength of Darboh, and the speed of another senior wide receiver, Jehu Chesson.
Best of the rest...
South Carolina State OT Javarius Leamon (No. 52) vs. Clemson DT Carlos Watkins (No. 94)
San Diego State CB Damontae Kazee (No. 23) vs. Northern Illinois WR Kenny Golladay (No. 19)
Florida State CB Marquez White (No. 27) vs. Louisville WR Jamari Staples (No. 2)
Alabama FS Eddie Jackson (No. 4) vs. Ole Miss TE Evan (No. 17)
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Campus Eats
Beginning my four-plus hour drive to Northern Iowa last week, I immediately thought one thing: I can stop by the Kurt Warner Hy-Vee. We at The MMQB love the Kurt Warner Hy-Vee. We visited last winter as part of our Super Bowl 50 tour. There’s probably no need for a refresher, as this is the equivalent of reminding everyone that Antonio Gates once played basketball, but whatever: Hy-Vee is where Warner bagged groceries for $5.50 an hour before he got his NFL shot. When we came in February, the managers bragged about their in-store restaurant. Skeptical about sit-down dining 50 yards from the dairy aisle, we told them if we had more time, we’d stop. Seeing as I had a few hours on Saturday afternoon, I did stop. And it was quite impressive. Besides the nine local beers on tap (hear that, Peter King?) they had a full menu ranging from sushi to a buffalo chicken sandwich with the ratio of bun (normal size) to buffalo chicken approximately 1:7. Hello, Midwest portions! As I watched my Nittany Lions stumble through the first half against Pitt, I had a chicken Caesar salad and some of their homemade bread, which was pillowy and coated in honey and unlike anything I have ever tasted. In February I had texted a photo of the Hy-Vee to Warner, pointing out that his old stomping grounds now featured a Starbucks. His response was perfect: “I guess we’re all moving up in the world.”
Question or comment? Email us at talkback@themmqb.com.John key says Labour's tax package will make high-income earners "not welcome in New Zealand". Where might they be more welcome than here?
In this morning’s news, the Prime Minister is quoted talking about Labour’s tax package, to be formally released on Thursday. He said:
“The answer from Labour is that if you are a top personal [income] taxpayer, your tax is going up, you're certainly paying more in capital gains tax and frankly, you're not welcome in New Zealand.”
All indications from Labour are that yes, top earners will be asked to pay a little more income tax, and those earning capital income will, for the first time in a long while, be asked to pay some tax on those earnings.
But what of Key’s last, dramatic claim, that these new elements would make top earners “not welcome in New Zealand?” How does he get to that? Certainly the news article had no facts to back up Key’s claim. In the past, however, he has talked vaguely about “tax competitiveness” to justify these predictions of doom.
Here are some pertinent facts about tax competitiveness for high-earners:
The table above gives statistics for three types of income commonly earned by high-income people: wage income; capital income; and dividend income. It shows that New Zealand taxes all three of those forms of income more lightly than do any of the other countries on the list.
Australia, Canada, Ireland, Britain, and the US all tax high wages, capital gains, and dividends more heavily that New Zealand does. Many of these differences between New Zealand and the rest are not even close – New Zealand’s taxes are substantially lower.
If John Key is determined to measure a person’s welcome in New Zealand only through tax rates, then the conclusion is clear. High income earners are more “welcome” here than in any of the country Mr Key aspires us to be like. Labour’s reported tinkering with the income tax scales and probable capital gains tax are not going to change these rankings.
John Key is wrong, even according to his own measure.
The CGT discussion so far has been a bit surreal. Labour starts a debate about tax policy, traditionally a strong area for National and ACT. In response, National becomes a fact-free zone and ACT retreats into an internecine war over the appropriate degree of their race-baiting.
Why are they both unwilling or unable to engage on taxes? I do not know, but I am interested to find out.A 15-year-old cyclist and a pair of bus passengers are in hospital after a crash on the Rapibus transitway Tuesday morning.
It happened around 8:15 a.m. at a crossing near the mini-putt course on Sillery St., parallel to de la Gappe Blvd. According to Sgt. JP LeMay, it’s not clear if the boy on the bicycle was walking or pedalling his bike across the transitway. It’s also not clear if the pathway is an approved bike route and if the crossing is a formal one, properly marked.
"An investigation is underway," said LeMay.
The bus was headed westbound, from Gatineau to Hull.
The man’s injuries aren’t expected to be life-threatening, but they are considered serious. Four people on the bus were hurt during the collision, two of them, were taken to hospital, one for a head injury and the other for a leg injury.
The $255-million Rapibus system was reviewed in May after riders complained of delay s and more than a dozen crashes in just eight months. An April rush hour crash sent 17 people to hospital.
More to come.
Twitter: @DougHempsteadYou missed it! But Today's Woot is waiting!
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Now that my friend Mitsy and I have Samsung Galaxy S4s, we talk ALL THE TIME. Yay hahaha!.......I don't like Mitsy.
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Back to topIn an apparent attempt to compete with fast-casual joins like Shake Shack and Five Guys, McDonald's is launching a create-your-own gourmet burger menu.
The 'Create Your Taste' menu allows customers to customize their own burger with from a choice of artisinal bun to toppings like bacon, guacamole and tortilla strips.
Customers place their orders on a touch-screen kiosk and then take a seat while their creations are made. The bespoke burgers take about 10 minutes to make, but are brought out and delivered directly to the customers
Choice: McDonald's is trying out a create-your-own burger program, which is currently available at limited restaurants nationwide
Something new: The 'Create Your Taste' menu allows customers to customize their burgers from a choice of artisinal bun to toppings like bacon, guacamole and tortilla strips
After trying the program out in Australia, the fast-food chain is now setting its sights on the U.S.
Currently, only a limited amount of McDonald's locations nationwide are offering the Create Your Taste menu, but it could see a larger expansion.
The standard burger starts at $5.99, with an extra $4 to make it a meal with friends and a drink.
However, the upside is that all toppings are free, with the exception of bacon which is a dollar extra.
Among some of the toppings on offer are white cheddar, pepper-jack cheese, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions and jalapenos.
Late last year, McDonald's said that the Create Your Taste program would be available in 2,000 of its 14,000 U.S. locations
The rollout is seen as a response to the growing popularity of places like Chipotle, which lets people customize their orders by walking down a line and saying what they want on their bowls and burritos.
While the Create Your Taste menu is only available in limited restaurants there are plenty of other ways to customize your order.But there are two other, related, metrics, that indicate a fundamental shift in Smith’s style of play. In 2011, Alex Smith led the NFL in interception rate, but he also led the league in sacks. Smith threw an interception on just 1.1% of his passes in 2011 but took a sack on 9.0% of his dropbacks; this year, his sack rate has jumped to 10.9% while he has yet to thrown an interception.
Last year, the average quarterback threw an interception on 2.9% of his passes and was sacked on 6.4% of his dropbacks, meaning Smith’s interception rate was just 39% of the league average while his sack rate was 41% higher than league average. Smith also averaged just 197 passing yards per start, 80% of the league average metric.
It’s extremely early, of course, but Smith looks to be on a similar path this year. Which made me wonder: how often does a quarterback have a two-year stretch with (1) an excellent interception rate, (2) a bad sack rate, and (3) a below-average amount of passing yards per game? The answer is very rarely.
There’s a lot of information to present, so I’ve overloaded the table below. This lists all quarterbacks since 1978 who over a two-year period had a sack rate at least 30% higher than average, an interception rate of 70% of league average or lower, and were below league average in passing yards per game. After the traditional categories, I’ve listed each quarterback’s sack rate, interception rate and yards per game, and then how their sack rates, interception rates and yards per game compared to league average. The last two columns show the quarterback’s record over those two years.
QB Tm Years Att Yd TD INT Sk SkYd SkRt INTRt YPG Sk% INT% YPG% Rec Win% Charlie Batch DET 1998--1999 573 4135 24 13 73 408 11.3% 2.3% 180 159.9% 68.3% 80.1% 11-11-0 0.500 Steve Young SFO 1996--1997 672 5439 33 12 69 380 9.3% 1.8% 201 134.6% 55.6% 91.5% 21-6-0 0.778 Jim Harbaugh IND 1996--1997 714 4690 23 15 77 446 9.7% 2.1% 180 140.7% 65.4% 81.9% 9-16-0 0.360 Jim Harbaugh IND 1995--1996 719 5205 30 16 72 409 9.1% 2.2% 179 145.3% 69.2% 78.6% 14-12-0 0.538 Jim Harbaugh IND 1994--1995 516 4015 26 11 53 291 9.3% 2.1% 149 156.2% 69% 64.3% 11-10-0 0.524 Ken O'Brien NYJ 1987--1988 817 5263 28 15 87 631 9.6% 1.8% 202 134% 46.6% 91.9% 11-12-1 0.479 Neil Lomax STL 1985--1986 892 5797 31 24 113 823 11.2% 2.7% 193 141.2% 65.9% 85.8% 9-20-1 0.317 Ken O'Brien NYJ 1984--1985 691 5290 31 15 84 567 10.8% 2.2% 203 130.1% 52.8% 89.9% 12-9-0 0.571 Steve Bartkowski ATL 1983--1984 701 5325 33 15 91 648 11.5% 2.1% 213 140.5% 50.8% 94.6% 9-16-0 0.360 Neil Lomax STL 1982--1983 559 4003 29 17 74 549 11.7% 3% 182 147.7% 69.6% 82% 12-9-1 0.568
During Jim Harbaugh’s 4 years in Indianapolis, he was essentially Alex Smith. He had a 9.6% sack rate and a 2.1% interception rate, while averaging under 180 passing yards per game. When discussing Joe Namath, I noted that he almost never took sacks, which by some measures penalized him because it drove down his completion percentage and increased his interception rate. You can put Alex Smith and the Indianapolis version of Jim Harbaugh on one end of a spectrum and Joe Namath on the other. Both interceptions and sacks are bad, but to some extent, quarterbacks can decide whether they want to throw interceptions or take sacks. Smith, under Harbaugh’s tutelage, has clearly chosen the latter.
On a team with a great defense, that can work. Namath’s defenses weren’t always good, but when they were, the Jets were Super Bowl contenders. When the defenses struggled, Namath pressed even more, and ended up throwing even more interceptions. Smith is never asked to do too much, and Harbaugh has surrounded him with enough talent on the other side of the ball to make that a winning formula.
From 1994 to 1996, Jim Harbaugh went just 20-26 with the Colts. In 1997, Harbaugh had the lowest interception rate in the NFL and the second highest sack rate in the league. But the 1997 Colts ranked in the bottom 5 of the NFL in points allowed, passing touchdowns allowed, interceptions forced, rushing yards allowed, rushing touchdowns allowed and yards per carry allowed. The team went 3-13 overall, and 2-9 with Harbaugh, indicating that this conservative philosophy has its limitations.
Often times we use stats as a way to rank players, where more of one stat or less of another means a player is good, and less of one stat and more of another means a player is bad. But stats can also be used descriptively without overarching themes of good or bad. Just like some running backs are big and slow and others are small and fast, some quarterbacks are risky and some are risk-averse.
Harbaugh clearly was a risk-averse player in Indianapolis under Lindy Infante. What about the other players on the list? Conservative and risk-averse were good adjectives to describe Charlie Batch’s first two years in the league. In 1998, he had Barry Sanders, but Batch’s numbers were nearly identical both seasons (of course, you would normally expect some improvement by a quarterback betwen year one and two). It looks like he played things very safe as a rookie on a good team in 1998, and let’s not forget how he got the starting job: Scott Mitchell was benched after throwing a pick-six in overtime. We can safely conclude that Batch was told to avoid interceptions at all costs, for many reasons.
Steve Young led the league in passer rating in ’96 and ’97, and for many reasons, doesn’t really feel like a comparable player to Alex Smith. He had already been a two-time MVP by 1996.
Ken O’Brien was a very accurate quarterback who led the league in interception rate in ’85, ’87 and ’88. But he took a ton of sacks, in part because of a below-average offensive line. At his peak he was better than Smith has been so far — in ’85 he was 2nd in yards per attempt and he was 5th in that metric in ’86 — but there are some similarities between the two players.
From 1982 to 1986, Neil Lomax had a 10.5% sack rate but a tiny 2.8% interception rate; despite the conservative nature, his team went just 30-36-2 over that span. Lomax was outstanding in 1984, but otherwise was a solid but unspectacular player during this span (Lomax made the Pro Bowl in ’87 when he led the league in completions, attempts, and passing yards.) Lomax also benefited from consecutive All-Pro seasons from Roy Green in ’83 and ’84, but poor defenses prevented Lomax from compiling a winning record in St. Louis.
In the early ’80s, Steve Bartkowski had some success under Leeman Bennett, and made the Pro Bowl in ’80 and ’81. During those years, he was at or above average in sack rate and also interception rate, but then his interception rate improved dramatically in ’83 while his sack rate fell off for the rest of his career. A likely explanation is the hiring of Dan Henning that season, who may have emphasized a more conservative approach.
The two years before Harbaugh arrived, Smith had a 6.2% sack rate and a 3.1% interception rate, both numbers which were pretty close to league average. But Alex Smith 2.0 is not trying to prove to the world that he’s the #1 pick who can do everything; this version is concerned with minimizing risks at all costs. So far, it’s been a very successful formula.M Night Shyamalan has played down the link between his new TV show Wayward Pines and cult classic Twin Peaks.
Wayward Pines will star Matt Dillon as a secret service agent on the hunt for his missing colleagues, with early publicity comparing the show to David Lynch and Mark Frost's early '90s drama.
Rex Features
"I'm not copying anybody," After Earth director Shyamalan told IGN. "I don't like copying anything, so the specificity will be the way you'll know that it's different."
Shyamalan did acknowledge that Twin Peaks remains an "iconic" piece of television, adding: "Stepford Wives is another kind of touchstone for me in terms of odd tone, like, 'What's going on? Why's everyone acting so weird?'
"That vibe... if that's what you're feeling, we're in a good place."
Wayward Pines is to air on Fox in the US in 2014.
> Melissa Leo joins M Night Shyamalan TV drama Wayward Pines
Watch M Night Shyamalan talk Wayward Pines with Digital Spy below:We all know Psy. You've probably heard G-Dragon and CL before—on a Diplo or Skrillex beat at the least—and some hundred thousand Lady GaGa fans are about to meet Crayon Pop in stadiums across Middle America and Canada this summer. But there's no K-pop phenomenon bigger than Girls' Generation. They remain Korea's all-time best-selling girl group, their YouTube prowess has trouncedthat of even some of the brightest Western stars, and their tour attendance is astounding. If Korean music is something that's been brought to your attention sometime in the past half decade, there's a good chance that had something to do with "Gee," the undisputed classic of K-pop (watch it above).
After an uncharacteristically long break since their last release—all of two months—and almost a straight year of Japanese records and tours, Girls' Generation returned late last month with the Mr.Mr. mini-album. We broke bread with all nine (very polite) girls to talk new music, bolstering the flagging confidence of insecure boys, and Korea's super intense trainee pop regime. Apparently of the 10,000 K-Pop wannabes, only one becomes a star. Steep odds for sure.
Noisey: Mr.Mr. is your eleventh major release since Girls' Generation debuted in 2007. What do you think sets this one apart from the rest?
Seohyun:Every time we release a new title, we try doing something different, something more challenging and fun. Mr.Mr. has exciting R&B sounds with cool, simple melodies that people can easily remember, dance, and sing along to. We tried to send a supportive message to all the misters out there!
Describe your new concept for the "Mr.Mr." video, and what it was like to perform and film?
Sunny: Our new music video is about reviving the confidence of men that have lost courage and encouraging them to let go of their apprehensions. One interesting experience is that while filming our dance choreography, one of the lighting adapters overheated and burned. There was fire crackling and smoke coming out of it! It could've turned into a dangerous situation, but it actually created a cool campfire-like atmosphere.
Being "the Nation's Girl Group" in Korea, do you feel a constant pressure to set and break records? Or do you feel like you've accomplished enough not to have to worry about that anymore?
Sunny: We don't always work to set or break records, but we also cannot stay comfortable and satisfied where we are right now. We want to work hard and bring something new and better with each release.
The intensive "trainee" system used in Korea to refine talent and form pop groups is virtually unique. Tell me a bit about what it was like to come up through such a demanding regimen.
Hyoyeon: I remember how we had to stay up the whole night together rehearsing over and over before our debut [with] "Into the New World." We even had to practice each other's step distance to create the perfect choreography.
In 2009, you helped start what many people consider the golden age of K-pop with "Gee." How do you feel about Korean music today? How has the industry and music changed?
Sooyoung: Thank you for the compliment! K-Pop is definitely the mainstream music in Korea. We're excited to see the level of interest in K-Pop spreading all over the world. And as K-Pop is growing, we are starting to see a growth in sub-genres as well. So we hope that K-Pop fans will support not only mainstream K-Pop groups, but indie bands, R&B, and other genres coming out of Korea.
Being a star anywhere is hard work, but Korean promotional schedules are famously demanding. How do you keep from getting exhausted or overwhelmed?
Yuri: There aren't any special ways, and it varies from member to member and the situation too. Sometimes we listen to R&B or ballads and read books to relax. I also like to exercise and watch movies.
K-Pop has had a big interest in the American market for years now. You did a media tour here in early 2012 yourselves, including a performance on Letterman. Looking back, how do you feel about that time promoting in America?
Tiffany: I was extremely excited since I grew up in the States and knew how popular the Letterman Show is. We thought this was a really good opportunity and felt honored to be able to perform on such a respected show. We were really excited and overwhelmed at the same time. Looking back, there were so many grateful moments and fun memories.
Nine members still seems pretty big for a girl group. What's that like?
Taeyeon: We definitely feel more assured and confident when we are performing together. All the girls are cheerful and outgoing, so there's never a dull moment!
K-Pop or not, what are some things you personally enjoy listening to these days?
Taeyeon: We enjoy all different types of music!
Sunny: I've been listening to Lorde—particularly "Royals" and "The Love Club."
Where do you imagine each of you would be if Girls' Generation had never happened?
Yoona: Even if we were not members of Girls' Generation, we would probably be using our talents and be in the entertainment industry. But since we are all about students' age, we could be studying and living ordinary lives too.
What are your plans for the rest of 2014 so far? Anything you're looking forward to?
Seohyun: After quite a long hiatus, we're back with Mr.Mr. and we are definitely having a lot of fun. As of now, we are planning to do a concert tour in Japan from April till June. Till the end of this year, we are planning to perform as a group, as well as show our individual talents in various fields of entertainment. We are always thinking of how to delight our fans. Please continue to show your love and support!
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Jakob Dorof knows a shit-ton about K-Pop and he's on Twitter — @soyrev.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prepares to speak to reporters on the grounds of Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, England, Dec. 17, 2010. AFP/Getty Images
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange believes he could withstand solitary confinement in a U.S. prison if the American government manages to extradite him, but he fears he would likely be killed "Jack Ruby-style" if held with others inside the U.S.
Assange told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview at the English mansion where he's under house arrest that the final determination as to whether he can be sent from the U.K. to Sweden or the United States would be made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, but that believed it would be "politically impossible" for Cameron to okay the move.
"Legally the U.K. has the right to not extradite for political crimes," Assange told the Guardian. "Espionage is the classic case of political crimes. It is at the discretion of the U.K. government as to whether to apply to that exception."
The U.S. government has not filed any charges against Assange, but Attorney General Eric Holder has said "there's a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes."
It's been suggested, not least by Assange himself, that the U.S. government is trying to find a way to name the WikiLeaks founder as a co-conspirator in a case against the Army private suspected of providing the classified U.S. documents to WikiLeaks.
U.N. Checking on WikiLeaks Suspect's Treatment
"Solitary confinement is very difficult," Assange said, reflecting on the nine days he's already spent in a London prison on a Swedish warrant for questioning in a sexual misconduct case brought by two women in that country.
"But I know that provided there is some opportunity for correspondence I can withstand it. I'm mentally robust," he added, reflecting on the possibility that he could find himself in the same situation again if extradited to the U.S. "Of course it would mean the end of my life in the conventional sense."
If he was to be held in a general prison population in the U.S., however, Assange speculated there was a "high chance" he'd be killed extra-judicially by a third party actor he likened to Jack Ruby, the man who killed alleged JFK shooter Lee Harvey Oswald two days after he was arrested.
Assange claimed the legal fees incurred by WikiLeaks had already tallied up to about $770,000 -- more than the organization was able to pay from its present finances. He said the decision by several large U.S. financial companies (reportedly under political pressure from U.S. lawmakers) to halt payments to WikiLeaks had deprived his group of its $655,000 "war chest".CARSON, Calif. – Landon Donovan has heard all the chatter about Graham Zusi’s place with the US national team and where that leaves him.
During Donovan’s self-imposed absence over the past four months, the Sporting Kansas City star continued his ascent in Jurgen Klinsmann’s side and has became a regular in midfield, leading many to suggest that Zusi could be the successor to Donovan when he does eventually step away from the USMNT permanently.
Consider Donovan duly impressed.
“I think Graham’s been terrific,” Donovan told reporters on Saturday after his goal and assist led the LA Galaxy to a 2-0 win over Sporting KC. “And aside from all the on-the-field stuff, I think he’s handled everything really well. I know he gets asked a lot about all this stuff and I said to him after the game that I think he’s doing a great job handling it.”
READ: Zusi on the pressure of replacing Donovan with USMNT
Zusi has enjoyed a rare meteoric rise from first cap to national team starter. It’s only been 15 months since his first-ever US call-up, where he was among the inexperienced pack in Klinsmann’s first January camp. But he earned his first international appearance that same month and then scored his first national team goal just four days later.
Since then, Zusi has appeared in seven matches for the USMNT, five of them as a starter, finding a home in right midfield for Klinsmann – a spot Donovan occupied over a good portion of his 13-year national team career.
Zusi’s 10 goals and 22 assists over the past two seasons – and role as Sporting’s primary set-piece taker – have catapulted him into the conversation of who will fill the void when all-time USMNT scoring leader Donovan does hang ‘em up for good.
“You could tell tonight he wasn’t completely on his game [tonight], but he has moments where he has something special,” Donovan said. “And I think he’s done a great job. He’s somebody who deserves to be where he’s at.”
READ: Zusi admits Zidane is the model for his game
And while the 31-year-old Donovan acknowledges there might be a competition with Zusi while the former tries to work his way back into Klinsmann’s good graces, he’s not exactly ready to hand over the torch to the guy five years his junior just yet.
“I look forward to continuing to battle back and forth with him and hopefully push each other,” he allowed. “He’s a lot younger than me. But don’t count the old guy out yet.”
Jonah Freedman is the managing editor of MLSsoccer.com.Last week, the Trump administration took steps to restrict government access to software |
actor -- who plays Dustin on the spooky, sci-fi series - chose his words carefully about the show's oh-so-secretive return when talking to TooFab about Holiday Inn's Summer of Smiles campaign.
"We have new characters joining the cast. We got to work with new people, especially a new actress Sadie Sink, who I had known before this but she's the new kid joining our gang in Season 2, which is going to be fun," the 14-year-old actor told TooFab. "It's got a new vibe, similar vibes and it's just gonna be a lot more action packed than the first season."
"It is Stranger Things 2.0, which is gonna be awesome," he added.
In addition to Sink, this season will also see a lot more of star Noah Schnapp, who spent most of Season One in the Upside-Down.
"He really is like my second little brother. He's younger than all of us and he wasn't in Season One as much, but now that we get to hangout with him, it's really amazing getting to work with him a lot more," said Matarazzo. "He's immensely talented. He's doing such a good job and I'm really excited for everyone to see his true acting potential in this upcoming season because he's got a lot of cool stuff to do."
"I'm really excited for everyone to see it because I personally think his performance, even as a kid, is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen," he went on. "He's done an amazing job."
Since the show's debut in July 2016, the kids making up its cast have become mini superstars, attending events like the MTV Movie and TV Awards, the Emmys and even performing on "Lip Sync Battle." But for Matarazzo, his favorite celebrity moment so far came at the Critic Choice Awards in December.
"Sterling K. Brown was awesome from 'This Is Us,'" said Gaten. "It was awesome meeting him because he's a very big fan of the show and I'm a very big fan of his. We saw him at the Critics Choice Awards on the blue carpet. It was great meeting him, we're both very big fans of each other, we got pictures, got to talk with him and it was wonderful!"
While Matarazzo plans on just "relaxing" this summer, he's also promoting a series of kid-centric activities around the country as the kid ambassador for Holiday Inn.
"A lot of times nothing is really directed at kids, so I really wanted to be part of it and, let's be honest, kids only watch TV or listen to people if there's other kids," he said of the Summer of Smiles initiative. "I thought it'd be a great thing for me to do."
From chocolate milk happy hours to summer eclipse viewing parties, get more info here.
"Stranger Things" Season 2 drops Halloween 2017 on Netflix.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Congress is quickly approaching a Thursday deadline to keep the government funded, but top lawmakers were prepared to approve a stopgap funding measure if necessary to buy lawmakers more time.
"The federal government's going to run out of money in two days. There's no reason the government should shut down, and we're ready to pass a yearlong spending bill to take care of this," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
House and Senate negotiators reached a deal on a $1 trillion spending package to keep the government funding for the full fiscal year except for the the Department of Homeland Security, which will be funded through early next year. The short-term funding will provide Republicans another opportunity to confront President Obama on his recent executive order on immigration.
Top Senate Democrats and House Republicans also reached a deal that bars the District of Columbia from legalizing marijuana and derails an initiative that voters in the city approved last month, according to various news sources. With Republicans set to take over the Senate in January, speculation is that the measure would be suspended indefinitely, according to the Washington Post.
House and Senate leaders also propose adding a measure that would multiply by 10 the amount of money a person can contribute to a national political party from $32,400 to $324,000, according to The Hill. The proposed measure also would allow someone to give $648,000 in two years and allow a couple to give twice that amount over the same period, the news organization reports.
Republicans broadly oppose the president's order to delay deportations for as many as 4 million undocumented immigrants, who will be able to apply for legal status. GOP leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, have acknowledged there is little Congress can do to restrain the order because of the president's veto power, but most Republicans would like to keep a legislative vehicle on the table as leverage for negotiations next year when Republicans have full control of Congress.
The Homeland Security Department oversees implementation of much of the nation's immigration policy, so a stopgap measure for the agency will revive the immigration debate next year.
The full details of the spending package were released Tuesday evening. The House was aiming for a Thursday vote, while the Senate may need to work into the weekend to finish its legislative agenda, which also includes a defense bill and a one-year extension of certain tax breaks. The defense and tax bills have already passed the House.
"There's a very, very good chance we'll be here this weekend," Reid said.
Senate Democrats, who lost control of the chamber in the midterm elections, are also working to confirm several lingering executive nominees before the next Congress. They include Sarah Saldaña, who President Obama tapped to be director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Carolyn Colvin, who was nominated to run the Social Security Administration.
One of the lingering hurdles for lawmakers was how to resolve an extension of the federal terrorism risk insurance program. House Republicans are moving forward Wednesday with a six-year renewal of the program, which has broad bipartisan support. Enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the program provides a federal backstop for insurance claims related to acts of terrorism. The legislation would increase to $200 million the trigger for government help.
However, Republicans have included in it unrelated provisions affecting the financial services industry that some Senate Democrats oppose. The timing of the vote means the Senate will either need to accept the House bill, or allow the program to expire. House GOP leaders continue to aim for a Thursday adjournment.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1D5opKAThe pope is responsible for the Vatican's growing hostility towards Turkey joining the EU, previously secret cables sent from the US embassy to the Holy See in Rome claim.
In 2004 Cardinal Ratzinger, the future pope, spoke out against letting a Muslim state join, although at the time the Vatican was formally neutral on the question.
The Vatican's acting foreign minister, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, responded by telling US diplomats that Ratzinger's comments were his own rather than the official Vatican position.
The cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Ratzinger was the leading voice behind the Holy See's unsuccessful drive to secure a reference to Europe's "Christian roots" in the EU constitution. The US diplomat noted that Ratzinger "clearly understands that allowing a Muslim country into the EU would further weaken his case for Europe's Christian foundations".
But by 2006 Parolin was working for Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and his tone had distinctly chilled. "Neither the pope nor the Vatican have endorsed Turkey's EU membership per se," he told the American charge d'affaires, "rather, the Holy See has been consistently open to accession, emphasising only that Turkey needs to fulfil the EU's Copenhagen criteria to take its place in Europe."
But he did not expect the demands on religious freedom to be fulfilled: "One great fear is that Turkey could enter the EU without having made the necessary advances in religious freedom. [Parolin] insisted that EU members – and the US – continue to press the [Turkish government] on these issues … He said that short of 'open persecution', it couldn't get much worse for the Christian community in Turkey."
The cables reveal the American government lobbying within Rome and Ankara for Turkish EU membership. "We hope a senior department official can visit the Holy See and encourage them to do more to push a positive message on Turkey and integration," concluded the 2006 cable.
But by 2009, the American ambassador was briefing in advance of President Barack Obama's visit, that "the Holy See's position now is that as a non-EU member the Vatican has no role in promoting or vetoing Turkey's membership. The Vatican might prefer to see Turkey develop a special relationship short of membership with the EU."
Roman Catholicism is the only religion in the world with the status of a sovereign state, allowing the pope's most senior clerics to sit at the top table with world leaders. The cables reveal the Vatican routinely wielding influence through diplomatic channels while sometimes denying it is doing so. The Vatican has diplomatic relations with 177 countries and has used its diplomatic status to lobby the US, United Nations and European Union in a concerted bid to impose its moral agenda through national and international parliaments.
The US charge d'affaires D Brent Hardt told Parolin, his diplomatic counterpart in Rome, of "the Holy See's potential to influence Catholic countries to support a ban on human cloning" to which Parolin emphasised his agreement with the US position and promised to support fully UN efforts for such a ban.
On other global issues such as climate change, the Vatican sought to use its moral authority as leverage, while refusing itself to sign formal treaties, such as the Copenhagen accord, that require reporting commitments.
At a meeting in January this year Dr Paolo Conversi, the pope's representative on climate change at the Vatican's secretariat of state, told an American diplomat that the Vatican would "encourage other countries discreetly to associate themselves with the accord as opportunities arise".
The Americans noted that Conversi's offer to support the US, even if discreetly, was significant because the Vatican was often reluctant to appear to compromise its independence and moral authority by associating itself with particular lobbying efforts.
"Even more important than the Vatican's lobbying assistance, however, is the influence the pope's guidance can have on public opinion in countries with large Catholic majorities and beyond."
The cables also reveal that the Vatican planned to use Poland as a trojan horse to spread Catholic family values through the structures of the European Union in Brussels.
The then US ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Rooney, briefed Washington in 2006, shortly after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, that "the Holy See hopes that Poland will hold the line at the EU on 'life and family' issues that arise" and would serve as a counterweight to western European secularism once the country had integrated into the EU.
The cable notes that Pope Benedict is preoccupied with Europe's increasing psychological distance from its Christian roots.
"He has continued to focus on Poland's potential in combating this trend. This was one of the themes of the visit of several groups of Polish bishops to the Vatican at the end of last year [2005]. 'It's a topic that always comes up,' explained Monsignor Michael Banach, the Holy See minister of foreign affairs country director for Poland. He told us that the two sides recognised that the Polish bishops needed to exert leadership in the face of western European secularism."
Across the Atlantic, the Vatican has told the Americans it wants to undermine the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, in Latin America because of worries about the deterioration of Catholic power there. It fears Chávez is seriously damaging relations between the Catholic church and the state by identifying the church hierarchy as part of the privileged class.
Monsignor Angelo Accattino, in charge of Caribbean and Andean matters for the Vatican, said Obama should reach out to Cuba "in order to reduce the influence of Chávez and break up his cabal in Latin America".In December last year, America's adviser for western Europe at the UN, Robert Smolik, said the Vatican observer was "as always active and influential behind the scenes" and "lobbied actively and influentially in the corridors and in informal consultations, particularly on social issues".
In 2001 another American diplomat to the Vatican stated: "The Holy See will continue to seek to play a role in the Middle East peace process while denying this intention." (1792)Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull after the High Court ruling. Credit:Andrew Meares Late on Friday, Mr Turnbull's planned weekend trip to Israel was under review as he grappled with the fallout from the verdict. If he does persist with the trip, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is likely to be acting prime minister. The court ruled five federal politicians ineligible over their dual citizenship: Mr Joyce, Ms Nash, One Nation's Malcolm Roberts and former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters. It spared Nationals senator Matt Canavan – despite confusion about his Italian citizenship status – who was quickly sworn back into cabinet as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. Mr Turnbull himself is taking over Mr Joyce's portfolio responsibilities of agriculture and water. Mr Turnbull said he was disappointed with the result, but refused to answer questions about his earlier misplaced confidence.
Malcolm Roberts with Senator Pauline Hanson after the High Court ruled him ineligible for Parliament. Credit:Andrew Meares "The decision of the court today is clearly not the outcome we were hoping for but the business of government goes on," he said. "We have a majority of members in the House of Representatives, even in the absence of Barnaby Joyce and, of course as you know, we have support from the crossbench." With no one occupying Mr Joyce's seat, the government has lost its one-seat majority in the now-149 member lower house. Barnaby Joyce at a press conference in Tamworth following the verdict. Credit:Peter Hardin/Northern Daily Leader It has 74 seats on the floor of the house, while Labor and the crossbench will have 74 seats as well - meaning the government may have to rely on Speaker Tony Smith for his casting vote. It risks losing motions or being defeated on legislation if there is a single defector on an issue.
Crossbench MP Cathy McGowan has indicated she will continue to back the government on matters of confidence and supply.
After High Court-ordered upper house countbacks, Ms Nash is expected to be replaced by Liberal Hollie Hughes; Mr Roberts by Queensland publican Fraser Anning; Mr Ludlam by 22-year-old disability advocate Jordon Steele-John and Ms Waters by former Democrat Andrew Bartlett. Mr Turnbull also announced a committee will review section 44 of the constitution - the clause that prohibits dual citizens serving in parliament. Illustration: Matt Golding
Mr Joyce apologised to voters in his seat of New England for causing a byelection and indicated he had expected the court case could be lost - despite repeatedly assuring people he believed he was safe as a means to justify staying in cabinet while the court considered his case.
"I was always prepared for this outcome. I don't actually stand here totally surprised. I always expected that this was going to be a tough game," he said. A Melbourne Cup-sized field of candidates – including from Labor, the Greens, One Nation and the Shooters and Fishers and Farmers – are tipped to run in the byelection. But Mr Joyce's bitter political rival, the former independent MP Tony Windsor who held the seat until 2013, has ruled himself out of the contest. "I actually love elections, I've enjoyed the eight that I have contested but my wife doesn't and she had a pretty rough time last time with the tactics and strategies that were used not only against me," he said.
Mr Turnbull said Mr Joyce was "the best person" for New England. "He has a passion for representation and while I know Barnaby will be disappointed with the outcome of the court case, it's as though he's been let out of the stalls and he's ready and raring to go," the Prime Minister said. Labor is all but certain to use Mr Joyce's ousting to its political advantage when Parliament next sits for a week from November 27. The opposition has suggested it will not offer the government a "pair" during Mr Joyce's absence and deputy leader Tanya Plibersek suggested that every decision taken by Mr Joyce and Ms Nash as ministers was now under a legal cloud.
Ms Plibersek said it had been reckless of Mr Turnbull to leave Mr Joyce and Ms Nash in cabinet – rather than asking them to stand aside as Senator Canavan had done – but claimed Labor was not planning any "mischief". It would however examine closely decisions made by the Parliament, she said.
"I think one of the extraordinary revelations this afternoon is Barnaby Joyce thought himself ineligible, he said he was prepared for this outcome, and yet day after day in the Parliament he's been voting on legislation, some legislation that has passed only very narrowly with very serious consequences," she said.
"He's been making decisions as a minister; all of those decisions are now perhaps subject to legal challenge." Senator Canavan released a statement saying he was "gutted for my colleagues Barnaby and Fiona" but he looked forward to "getting stuck back in to delivering long term results for all Queenslanders". Communications Minister Mitch Fifield will take on Ms Nash's regional communications portfolio and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester will add regional development and local government. The court also spared crossbench senator Nick Xenophon but he has already announced he is leaving federal politics to pursue a state seat. "This will be my last time seeing you as a senator. It's been an incredibly satisfying nine-and-a-half years," he said.
Loading All the court's rulings were unanimous. The court said it was adhering to the "ordinary textual meaning" of section 44 of the constitution in finding Mr Joyce and the four senators ineligible - effectively finding ignorance of one's status is no defence.Advertisement
Want to know what this thing is? Here's a hint: it's a miniature inchworm. And it's quite possibly the fastest miniature inchworm robot in the world, even though it uses just one single motor.
The "Mission: Impossible" music might be a bit much here, but the mechanical design is pretty clever: moving segments equipped with clamps alternately retract and extend, propelling the inchworm robot forward. All it takes a single motor to spin the thing, and since it's so simple, you can crank it up to 5 cm/s, which is seriously quick for a robot like this. But perhaps the biggest advantage is efficiency: with a small on-board battery, these kinds of robots can climb vertically for hundreds of meters.
The robots were developed at the Medical Robots Lab at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, by David Zarrouk, Oshri Ifergan, Yossi Baruch and Moshe Shoham. Look for roboworms to eventually show up in applications including maintenance of small pipes and medical procedures in biological vessels. So yeah, we're talking about these little things crawling around inside your intestines, blood vessels, and (I'm quoting from the abstract here) "urethra." Sweet dreams!
[ Paper ] via [ Technion ]Jeb Bush delivers remarks on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in Orlando, Florida on October 9, 2012.
As many Republican presidential candidates vowed to defund Planned Parenthood this fall, even if it means shutting down the government, Hillary Clinton accused the GOP of launching a “full-on assault on women’s health.” On Tuesday, Jeb Bush underscored that point for her. When asked about his support for cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood at the Southern Baptist Convention event in Nashville, Bush tried to explain why it isn’t a so-called “war on women.” “You could take dollar for dollar — although I’m not sure we need a half a billion dollars for women’s health issues — but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine organizations, community health organizations, that exist, federally-sponsored community health organizations, to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues,” he said. “But abortion should not be funded by the government.”
Democrats pounced on Bush’s unnecessary aside almost immediately:
We actually need a heck of a lot more than $3 per person for women's health care, @JebBush. https://t.co/zz5Z3YJ18D — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 4, 2015
And a few hours later, Bush released a statement walking back his remarks:
With regards to women’s health funding broadly, I misspoke, as there are countless community health centers, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded. They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need. I was referring to the hard-to-fathom $500 million in federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood – an organization that was callously participating in the unthinkable practice of selling fetal organs. Democrats and Republicans agree we absolutely must defund them and redirect those funds to other women’s health organizations.
Bush’s speedy response actually shows some progress, since it took him days to come up with the correct answer after he suggested in May that he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 even “knowing what we know now.” But he hasn’t figured out how to avoid such gaffes altogether. In the past three months, Bush declared “immigrants are more fertile,” said Americans “need to work longer hours,” and discussed a Medicare “phase out.” Gaffes are a part of every campaign these days (see Clinton’s “don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,”), but the severity and regularity of Bush’s flubs have drawn comparisons to the last GOP presidential nominee. “A few more months of this and the G.O.P. will be wishing for a candidate with the political skills of Mitt Romney,” Dan Pfeiffer, President Obama’s former communications director, tweeted on Tuesday.
Romney had a knack for serving up lines that supported the Democrats’ attempt to paint him as an out-of-touch CEO robot, from “47 percent” to “I like being able to fire people” and “corporations are people, my friend.” Like Romney, Bush is the Establishment favorite and has tried to position himself as the adult in the room. They also have some of the same liabilities. Jeb Bush’s support for Common Core riles conservatives much like Romneycare, one of the former Massachusetts governor’s biggest achievements. Bush is one of the few candidates with a background in finance, but unlike Romney’s long and successful career at Bain Capital, upon leaving the Florida governor’s mansion Bush spent seven years advising Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and was present as the former collapsed in 2008. Even Romney saw some troubling similarities. Sources told Politico that Bush’s business dealings were part of what inspired Romney’s brief 2016 campaign. “You saw what they did to me with Bain,” he reportedly said. “What do you think they’ll do to [Bush] over Barclays?”
As MSNBC notes, Clinton is trying to use the same strategy that Obama used against Romney in 2012. Rather than letting the election be a referendum on her, Clinton has launched aggressive attacks on Republican candidates. Over the past few weeks she’s been quick to hurl one-liners at GOP candidates in speeches and on social media, and Jeb Bush is one of her most frequent targets. “Now, he’s got no problem giving billions of dollars away to the super wealthy and powerful corporations, but I guess women’s health just isn’t a priority for him,” Clinton said at an event in Denver on Tuesday. “The truth is, what Jeb said, the other candidates believe, too.”
Despite the Romney-esque flavor of Bush’s campaign, there are many aspects where the two candidates differ. In June, FiveThirtyEight highlighted one of the biggest differences: Bush was faring much worse than Romney and other eventual GOP nominees were at that point in the race:
Mitt Romney was considered a weak front-runner in 2012, and he had three times the number of endorsement points as Bush has. John McCain, who was struggling in the summer of 2007, had 15 percentage points more of the endorsement share than Bush does right now. Meanwhile, Bush’s brother, George W. Bush, already had nearly 30 times the number of endorsement points and nearly 50 percentage points more of the endorsement share at this point in the 2000 race.
Of course, just a few weeks later, Donald Trump will be center stage at the Fox News debate on Thursday, and Trump led the latest CBS News poll with the support of 24 percent of Republican primary voters, compared to Bush’s 13 percent. It’s all the more reason to avoid handing your opponents sound bites for their attack ads.SAN DIEGO -- Donald Trump will go to trial in a class-action lawsuit against him and his now-defunct Trump University after the presidential election but before the inauguration, setting the stage for a president-elect to take the witness stand if he wins the White House.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on Friday scheduled trial for Nov. 28 in the suit that alleges people who paid up to $35,000 for real estate seminars got defrauded. The likely Republican nominee planned to attend most, if not all, of the trial and would testify, Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli said.
Web Extra: Donald Trump sets the record straight on Trump University allegations
"He has very, very strong feelings about this case," Petrocelli told reporters.
Petrocelli asked for a trial after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but the judge raised concerns about distractions if Trump wins the election. The attorney said the period between the election and swearing-in is extremely hectic for a president-elect but that it was preferable to holding a trial during the campaign.
The lawsuit is one of three that accuse Trump University of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate.
The California suit, initially filed by Orange County resident Tarla Makaeff, accuses Trump of misleading students at the university, which cost $35,000 for an "elite"' membership, CBS affiliate KFMB reported.
The suit says Trump University, which no longer operates and was not accredited as a school, gave seminars and classes across the country that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring students to buy more and, in the end, failing to deliver.
Behind Donald Trump's claims about Trump University
Trump, who appears on a list of defense witnesses for the trial, has repeatedly pointed to a 98 percent satisfaction rate on internal surveys. But the lawsuit says students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticize their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous.
Last year, CBS News conducted a three-month investigation of Trump University, reaching out to dozens of former students and reviewing hundreds of comments about the program.
Curiel, a judicial appointee of President Barack Obama, has been eager to get to trial and had planned for it this summer before Trump's surge in the primaries. The case was filed in 2010, making it the second-oldest on his docket.
Still, he expressed concern about a trial during the campaign, partly out of concern for jurors' safety.
"Will they be able to stay clear of the media frenzy?" he asked. "Ultimately that's my Number 1 concern."
Trump "University" attack ad labels Donald Trump fraud
Since the early 1980s, Trump personally has been sued at least 150 times in federal court, records show. Only a handful of those cases are pending, with the ones involving Trump University -- two in California and one in New York -- being the most significant.
Trump has railed against the judge in the San Diego case, calling him hostile and suggesting his positions may be the result of Trump's stance on border security. The likely GOP nominee has noted Curiel's ethnicity.
Trump said of the judge at an Arkansas rally in February: "I believe he happens to be Spanish, which is fine. He's Hispanic -- which is fine."
Petrocelli said he would not ask for the judge to be removed from the case, despite Trump's views.
"He's got very strong views about everything and he expressed his own views," Petrocelli said.
Jury selection may begin shortly before Nov. 28, and the trial was expected to last a month or longer, the judge said.
Trump University professors earned commissions to push training on students
The New York suit, filed in 2013 by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, accuses the billionaire and others of making phony claims to convince more than 5,000 people, including 600 New Yorkers, to "spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got."
The civil lawsuit, which seeks at least $40 million in restitution, accused the school of engaging in illegal business practices by running an unlicensed educational institution from 2005 to 2011 and making false claims about its classes.
Earlier this month, a New York judge A New York judge heard procedural arguments in the lawsuit, including a debate over whether the case should be decided by a judge or a jury.
Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern told both sides to return after a higher court rules on an appeal.
Schneiderman said Trump would be an "essential" witness when the case goes to trial.
"As we will prove in court, Donald Trump and his sham for-profit college defrauded thousands of students out of millions of dollars," Schneiderman said.A documentary film premiering Wednesday evening on Israeli television sheds light on a dark corner of what is already the blackest of historical events. “Screaming Silence,” which will be broadcast on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, is about a topic which few, even World War II scholars, have dared to broach in public before: sexual abuse of children during the Holocaust.
For the first time, Holocaust survivors who were raped or sexually abused as children and teens in the ghettos and concentration and labor camps speak on camera about what happened to them and how this sexual violence has scarred their lives over the 70 years since the war ended.
These individuals kept the sexual abuse they experienced a secret from everyone, including their spouses, children and grandchildren—who will learn for the first time about what happened to their loved ones from this film.
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Ronnie Sarnat devoted six years to producing “Screaming Silence.” She was determined to deal with a difficult subject that others have refused to research and speak about.
“The Holocaust research establishment doesn’t think that the Holocaust and sex go together,” she asserts. “But who decides what is permitted and what is not?”
Professor Gideon Greif, chief historian at Shem Olam: The Holocaust & Faith Institute for Education and Research and an expert on Auschwitz, concurs that indeed, there has been a tendency among Holocaust scholars not to touch upon the subject of sexual abuse of children.
‘There has been a lack of information about this topic because of a desire among those who study the Holocaust not to hurt the dignity of the victims’
“There has been a lack of information about this topic because of a desire among those who study the Holocaust not to hurt the dignity of the victims,” says Greif, who was a consultant to the film.
“Yad Vashem, for instance, has many testimonies that include accounts of rape and sexual abuse, but historians have been reluctant to deal with this. This film is really the first time that the subject is being dealt with so openly,” he says.
It took Sarnat a significant amount of time to locate survivors who were raped or sexually abused as children or teenagers. Once she found them, they had to decide they were ready to reveal publicly secrets they had buried so deeply and for so long out of shame and a paralyzing fear of being rejected by their children if the truth were known.
One elderly man in the film talks about how his son was such a “macho Israeli” that he felt he could never reveal to him what had happened.
“How could I let him think of his father as a ‘one of those Jews who went to the slaughter like sheep’?” he says.
Sarnat and her creative team decided to make the film using only the first-person testimonies of the survivors. There is no third-person narration and there are no talking heads providing historical context or psychological analysis.
“The witnesses wrote their own script, so to speak, and determined the limits of what they would or would not say on camera,” the producer says.
She believes this technique elevates the film beyond a horrific retelling of events to a more complex work in which the issue of rape is not necessarily more important than the question of whether a person should or should not tell a deeply held dark secret before he or she dies.
These survivors—both men and women—describe having been sexually abused, raped, gang raped or witnesses to prostitution at a young age
Watching and listening as these survivors—both men and women—describe having been sexually abused, raped, gang raped or witnesses to prostitution at a young age is difficult. Even more gut wrenching is hearing how these acts of violence damaged the rest of their lives and their images of themselves.
For instance, one man, who was raped by a German soldier as a 13-year-old boy in Tunisia, has struggled his whole life with his sexual identity. How could he be a man who goes out with women if he was in the position of being one, he asks.
One of the women speaks of how she never feels at ease and is always looking over her shoulder. She says she has never been able to have a sexual relationship. All she says about the fact that she has children and grandchildren is that “their father was a very cruel man.”
The man who was afraid of telling his “macho” son about his experiences in Auschwitz recounts what happened to him as a “piepel.”
According to Sarnat, no one is sure what the origin of the term is, but everyone in the camps knew what one was: A piepel was a pre-adolescent or young adolescent boy who was forced to serve one of the kapos (prisoner functionaries, who were Jewish or non-Jewish) in a concentration or labor camp. The boy was used to service all the kapo’s needs—including sexual ones. (Elie Wiesel included a scene with a piepel in his seminal Holocaust memoir “Night,” and the controversial Israeli Holocaust survivor writer Yehiel Dinur, also known by the pen name Ka-Tsetnik, wrote a novel titled “They Called Me Piepel” in 1961.)
The man who was a piepel tells about how, as a boy in Auschwitz, he was raped by an especially cruel kapo who forced bread into his mouth to shut him up during the rape. The man recalls how he was starving and readily ate the bread, and then says that he isn’t completely comfortable calling what happened to him rape because he willingly ate the bread.
“Child victims of rape are not like adult victims of rape,” says Sarnat. “They think it must be a punishment for what they have done.”
The man’s reaction is understandable from a psychological perspective, but Greif warns that it is imperative to always remember that the perpetrators, the Germans and their accomplices—and not the Jewish victims—were to blame.
…there is no way to really know how extensive this phenomenon was for the simple reason that the victims…never spoke about what had happened to them
According to Greif, sexual abuse and rape of Jews, including children, was a limited phenomenon because of the Nazi racial laws that prohibited Germans from having sexual relations with Jews.
“The sexual abuse that did occur was part of the Nazis’ drive to humiliate Jews, but there was no systematic approach to this,” he says.
Indeed, there is no way to really know how extensive this phenomenon was for the simple reason that the victims—like the ones in the film—never spoke about what had happened to them.
But Sarnat believes that if others go beyond the Holocaust research establishment as she has and do their own digging, they will find out more and more about this subject.
“Yad Vashem and the Germans both say that there were no Jewish girls used as prostitutes to service the Nazis. But I have testimonies that Jewish girls did work in bordellos in the camps,” she says. “They must have changed their names so the Germans wouldn’t know they were Jewish.”
Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to avoid the gas chambers and crematoria by being sex slaves.
“Screaming Silence” will air on Israel Channel 1 on April 15 at 10:20 p.m.
The writer has been asked not to use the names of the people in the film or to identify them in the photos out of respect for the fact that they have not yet revealed their secret to their families.Story highlights Sen. Rand Paul's amendment would repeal current war authorizations in six months
Paul argues the US war against Al Qaeda and ISIS is not authorized
(CNN) After threatening to scuttle all amendments on a massive defense policy bill, Sen. Rand Paul is likely to secure a vote on ending the war authorizations the US military uses to fight terrorism across the globe.
Paul's office announced he would get a vote Wednesday on the Kentucky Republican's amendment that would repeal the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations after six months, giving Congress time to pass a new Authorization for Use of Military Force for the wars against Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Mitch McConnell did not respond to confirm Paul's statement, but three Senate aides said a vote was likely on Paul's amendment.
The 2001 and 2002 AUMFs authorized the war against Al Qaeda and the Iraq War, and they provide the legal basis that the Obama administration and now the Trump administration has used for the fight against global terrorism.
Senate leaders appear to have agreed to give Paul a vote on his amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act after he threatened to object to all other amendments, which would have effectively prevented any amendments from getting a vote on the massive defense policy bill. The vote will be on whether to kill Paul's amendment.
Read MoreTop 10 Worst Pokemon Designs
The Pokemon Company, at this point in time, have released a total of sixth generations of Pokemon; the total number of Pokemon now exceeds 700. That's quite a bit more than the original 151.
The Pokemon Company have struck gold with numerous Pokemon: Pikachu, Charizard, Rayquaza, etc. The list goes on and on.
However, there has been quite a few Pokemon that have left Gamers wondering. Most of these Pokemon have a lackluster design, which came from either laziness or stupidity. No one's perfect, and that includes the Pokemon Company.
In this article, we will rank the Top Ten Worst Pokemon Designs and the reason behind their ranking.
Please remember that this article only includes Pokemon up through the sixth generation, and these rankings are solely based upon personal opinion.The data in this article may become outdated with future released generations. You just never know what horrible Pokemon design the Pokemon Company will release next.Want to voice how you feel about these rankings? Feel free to express your thoughts in the comment section below. Tell who you think should be ranked higher or lower, or who you think should have made the list. We'd love to see |
write.
After police interrogations lasting several hours, both boys signed confessions that had been written for them by detectives of Red Springs police department. In the confessions, they separately implicated each other and three other boys who had allegedly been their accomplices.
Yet when police came to investigate the movements of the three other boys, they found that they had watertight alibis. No charges were ever brought against them.
Payne told the Guardian the confession that Brown signed was riddled with inconsistencies. “It was inconsistent with the physical evidence, with the facts of the case, with his brother’s confession, and it contained details that were known by the police officers interrogating him at the time. When you combine that with the DNA evidence that we now have, it makes a very bold statement that both my client’s and McCollum’s confessions were false.”
At no point over the past 30 years has any physical or forensic evidence been produced to directly connect either man to Buie’s rape and murder. DNA testing was not available at the time of the original trial, and it is only in recent years that investigators have applied genetic testing techniques to biological evidence gathered at the crime scene.
The breakthrough came with the decision of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission to take on the cases of Brown and McCollum. The commission is an independent fact-finding body that has been invested by the North Carolina general assembly with full state powers to subpoena witnesses and evidence as well as the statutory authority to carry out DNA testing.
The executive director of the commission, Kendra Montgomery-Blinn, confirmed to the Guardian that extensive DNA testing had been conducted as part of an active and ongoing investigation.
Court documents show the results of the DNA testing that the commission ordered on materials gathered at the scene of Buie’s murder. All the items tested – including her panties and other items of clothes, hairs collected from her shoes, sticks used in the killing, three Schlitz Malt Liquor cans and the butt of a Newport cigarette – excluded McCollum or Brown. However, the tests did manage to produce a partial DNA profile from the cigarette butt that was consistent with having come from an unidentified male.
At the commission’s request, that DNA profile was then put through the national DNA database, known as CODIS, and in July a positive match was attained, connecting the cigarette butt to Roscoe Artis. When lawyers began looking into the life history of Artis, they discovered startling details.
Artis had a history of sexual assaults dating back to 1957. He is currently in prison on a life sentence for the murder of a young woman, Joann Brockman, on 22 October 1983, less than a month after Sabrina Buie died. Like Buie, Brockman was killed in Red Springs, and like her the cause of death was asphyxia due to manual strangulation.
Court documents record that Artis lived at the time of the murders with his sister in a house that was located a matter of feet from the field in which Buie’s body was found. Court filings also record that Artis has made statements to a former fellow prison inmate and to staff of the commission that he knows as a certainty that Brown and McCollum were not involved in the Buie murder.
The strength of the DNA evidence is such that even the present district attorney for Robeson County, Johnson Britt, is not opposing calls for Brown and McCollum to be released.
“The whole case rests on the confessions and the DNA evidence threw those confessions under the bus,” Britt told the Raleigh News Observer.
False confessions have been found to be a major source of faulty convictions. Research by the Innocence Project has found that in almost a third of DNA exoneration cases, innocent people incriminated themselves or made outright confessions to the crime.
Factors behind such false confessions include intellectual disability, youth and ignorance of the law – all of which applied in the cases of Brown and McCollum.
The Red Springs police department is likely to face some difficult questions at Tuesday’s hearing. Detectives who carried out the original interrogation of the two defendants in 1983 are accused in court documents of having added key crime scene details, such as the brand of the Newport cigarette butts that were found, into the boys’ “confessions” which they wrote for them.
Also serious are suggestions that the police department has failed to disclose vital evidence to prosecutors or to defence lawyers as recently as this year. Over the years, the police department has consistently denied having retained any evidence relevant to the case.
Yet only last month investigators with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission discovered a box full of potentially critical physical evidence at police headquarters; it was seized using statutory powers. The box, which had been stored by Red Springs police department since the early 1990s, contained clippings of Sabrina Buie’s hair and nails and a beer can and gum wrapper found at the crime scene.
In a court filing, Brown’s lawyers write that “from 1984 until 2014, the Red Springs police department was in possession of exculpatory evidence which is material to Leon Brown’s innocence. The Red Springs police department withheld exculpatory evidence from the state and from Leon Brown and his attorneys.”
In a final twist, it has also recently come to light as a result of the commission’s work that two fingerprints were discovered on a beer can found at the scene of Buie’s rape and murder. One of the prints belonged to Buie herself, while the source of the other print was unknown.
In the course of its investigations, the commission learned that on 5 October 1984, just three days before the trial of Brown and McCollum began, the Red Springs police department submitted a request to a forensic laboratory asking for the unidentified fingerprint to be compared with those of Roscoe Artis. On the same day, however, the request for a fingerprint comparison was cancelled without explanation. The existence of the print was never disclosed either to prosecutors or to defence lawyers acting for the two boys.
The Guardian understands that the unidentified fingerprint remains in the possession of the authorities and has never been tested to determine its source.In the spring of this year, Chris Cornell released "The Promise," a beautiful acoustic song he penned for the Christian Bale film of the same name that documents the last days of the Ottoman Empire and the genocide that swept through it. Cornell reflected on the Armenian Genocide in the track and used it as a vessel to further refugee advocacy, a cause close to his heart. Now, the Los Angeles Committee of Human Rights Watch will honor the late musician's efforts with the inaugural "Promise Award" at a dinner on Nov. 14.
"The award recognizes an outstanding song, television show, or film that advances the values of equity and justice in an original and powerful way," states a press release describing the purpose of the "Promise Award." System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who is of Armenian descent, will be on site at the Voices for Justice Human Rights Watch Annual Dinner to present the award. The singer served as the Executive Music Consultant for The Promise film and also contributed a song to the soundtrack.
Since Cornell's passing, celebrities like Cher, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Christian Bale, George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Tom Hanks and Oscar Isaac vowed to maintain the rocker's passion for refugee advocacy in a compilation video.
"'The Promise' to me is mainly about paying homage to those we lost in the Armenian Genocide, but it's also about shining a light on more recent atrocities. The same methods used in the Armenian genocide were used to carry out crimes against humanity in Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda and right now in Syria on multiple fronts, contributing to a massive global refugee crisis. Unfortunately, the words 'never again' seem like just words when we recall these mass executions of the twentieth century, as well as renewed racism and prejudice around the world," stated Cornell upon the song's release.
Rockers We've Lost in 2017Who’s Responsible?
Hillary Clinton told a mixed audience, “I mean, if we’re honest, for a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear” (http://tinyurl.com/ojxsrhm). Before we get into the nuts and bolts of that observation, I’d like to ask a question. Would well-meaning, open-minded white people have a similar fear at the sight of an elderly black man using a walker and wearing a hoodie?
Whether we like it or not, easily observed physical characteristics — such as race, sex, height and age — convey information. That’s because there is often a correlation between those characteristics and other characteristics not so easily observed. Say that you’re a police commander faced with the task of finding vandals responsible for slashing car tires and smashing windows. How much of the city’s resources would you expend investigating 60- to 70-year-old Chinese men? You probably wouldn’t spend resources on any men in that age group. So who is responsible for your decision not to investigate 60- to 70-year-old Chinese men and other men of the same age? If you said it’s the behavioral reputation of that demographic as a group, you’d be absolutely right.
When I had nearly completed my doctorate at UCLA, Mrs. Williams and I purchased a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a high-end, exclusive suburb of Washington. Our house was on the corner, and motorists often tossed debris on our lawn adjacent to the street. A Saturday chore was to pick up the trash. One Saturday, an elderly white man offered, “When you’re finished working here, can you come to work at my place?” I responded that I’d be busy putting the finishing touches on my doctoral dissertation and would not have the time. The man was embarrassed and apologized profusely.
Trending: The 15 Best Conservative News Sites On The Internet
The man took for granted, with a high degree of probability, that if one saw a black man picking up trash in Chevy Chase in 1971, he was a hired hand. The man’s action may have been annoying, but it would be an error to classify it as racism.
When I was awarded a national fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 1975, we moved to Palo Alto, California. I was determined to lose weight and shape up during my year at Hoover. I visited Stanford’s basketball court. White guys argued with one another to have me on their team, but that was the last time. I could barely run up and down the court, much less do anything constructive upon arrival. They appeared angry with me. No doubt their displeasure was, “How dare you be a 6-foot-5-inch black guy and bad at basketball?!” So who is responsible for such an expectation held by whites? If blacks didn’t have a reputation for basketball excellence, I wouldn’t have suffered the scorn. By the way, 10 months later and about 15 pounds lighter, I returned to the basketball court with my former excellence, dignity and racial pride.
So what are we to make of Clinton’s observation? Who is responsible for “a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people” experiencing a “twinge of fear” at “the sight of a young black man in a hoodie”? Before coming up with your answer, know that in cities such as New York, Chicago and Washington, black taxi drivers often avoid picking up young black males. A black female commissioner in Washington once warned cabdrivers against picking up “dangerous-looking” characters — for example, a “young black guy … with (his) shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants, (and) unlaced tennis shoes.” A black and Hispanic president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers told his drivers to “profile” their passengers. “The God’s honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics,” he said.
So we have black taxi drivers who get the same “twinge of fear” as Hillary Clinton’s liberal white people. Who is responsible for creating that fear? I hope you won’t say black taxi drivers and well-meaning white people.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
Also See,
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Type: Water
Species: The Guppy Pokemon
Abilities: Sniper or Swift Swim (Hidden: Guts)
Name origin: Fin + Minnow
Hp: 35
Att: 50
Def: 30
SpA: 25
SpD: 20
Spe: 60
Total: 220
Evolves into Flyfin at level 28
Aerofin
Type: Water/Flying
Species: The Flyfish Pokemon
Abilities: Sniper or Swift Swim (Hidden: Guts)
Name Origin: Aero (air) + fin
Hp: 70
Att: 85
Def: 65
SpA: 50
SpD: 60
Spe: 110
Total: 440
Evolves into Skiffin by leveling up while knowing Fly
Skiffin
Type: Water/Flying
Species: The Sail Pokemon
Abilities: Sniper or Swift Swim (Hidden: Guts )
Name Origin: Skiff(small boat) + fin
Hp: 90 Att: 110 Def: 85 SpA: 55 SpD: 65 Spe: 135
Total: 510
I have a moveset list thing, too if you really want to read a list of moves. >_>
Hope you guys like it!
Decided to re-vamp my favorite fakemon line! C:--Art and designPokemon - GamefreakA super-PAC looking to upset the Democratic establishment’s choice for Ohio senator is out with a new video bashing the past support of guns from the nomination favorite.
New Leadership for Ohio, the group backing Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld's bid against former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, is out with a new digital ad telling voters that "You have a choice" besides Strickland's past support for the National Rifle Association. A super-PAC aide told The Hill that the ad will be running online and a shorter version will be moving to television soon.
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It shows a handful of GOP congressional ads from the 2014 cycle with candidates firing weapons, before cutting to a 2010 ad from Strickland, also seen holding a gun.
"Last election, every time you turned around, there was an ad showing a Republican candidate with a gun," the narrator says.
"Ted Strickland ran the same kind of ad during his last campaign in 2010."
It goes on to claim that Strickland "has always bragged about his NRA support and his devotion to gun owners’ rights," including new audio from 2015 highlighted by Sittenfeld's campaign this week. The audio shows Strickland during a radio interview describing his past support of gun rights while not taking the opportunity to distance himself from those policies.
And the ad makes the claim that in the eyes of the NRA, Strickland and incumbent Sen. Rob Portman Robert (Rob) Jones PortmanAddressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win Texas senator introduces bill to produce coin honoring Bushes GOP Green New Deal stunt is a great deal for Democrats MORE (R) are equal.
David Bergstein, a Strickland campaign spokesman, brushed aside the audio by arguing that the former governor was only summarizing his record and that he's been vocal about the need for gun control during this election.
"Ted supports additional measures to address the epidemic of gun violence like background checks and closing the terrorist gun loophole that will help keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists, criminals and the mentally ill," Bergstein said in a statement after the Sittenfeld campaign held a press conference using that audio to question his support for gun control.
"The only candidate in this race who doesn’t support commonsense background checks and closing the terrorist gun loophole is Senator Rob Portman, and it is unfortunate that P.G. is resorting to a false, personal attack against former Governor Strickland in an effort to bring attention to his campaign."
New Leadership for Ohio is one of the few super-PACs playing in Senate primary races this cycle. It's looking to help boost Sittenfeld's fortunes as the candidate himself is struggling to fundraise.
The super-PAC closed 2015 after raising $733,501 in its three months of operation. Sittenfeld himself reported raising less than $300,000 in the final fundraising quarter of 2015, compared to $1 million for Strickland.
Neither candidate has filed their full disclosures as the deadline isn't until the end of the month, but The Columbus Dispatch reports that Strickland has about twice as much cash in the bank than Sittenfeld.
Strickland is the establishment pick for the race against Portman, having won the endorsement of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He holds a strong lead at the polls and in favorabilty.
A poll from Public Policy Polling done for the Ohio Democratic Party showed him leading the primary field with 61 percent compared to Sittenfeld's 10 percent. A slight majority of Democratic voters have a favorable view of Strickland, while almost three quarters don't know enough about Sittenfeld to form an opinion.
—Updated at 12:35 p.m.Email marketing strategy is the foundation of your organization. It’s an effective way to keep customers informed. It isn’t something marketers do just because they can and it is easy. It is a very effective tactic that helps business owners and consumers stay well-connected.
Come and join us for this epic panel!
Panelists:
Vincent D'Eletto, CEO, WordAgents
LeeVant Glass, Manager, Email Marketing/Newsletter Production, WebMD
Lisa Packard, Email Marketing Specialist, Gilt
Jennifer Chong, Email Marketing Associate Manager, GiltCity
Moderator:
Roy Weissman, VP Sales, SendPulse (https://sendpulse.com/#p=5908c70c10bd6)
As always, there will also be complimentary pizza and beer!
6:45-7:00 check-in & networking
7:45-8:15 Q & A
8:15 - 8:45 more networking
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Lifion, by ADP, invites you to visit our new home for big ideas, ambitious folks, and those who are truly committed to delivering finely made products at scale. Join us after-hours for provocative talks, engaging discussions and some great opportunities to connect with serious thinkers and doers. Visit us at www.lifion.com for a calendar of upcoming events and current job opportunities. We look forward to meeting you soon!
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If you can't make it to this event, but want to stay connected to our online marketing community make your way over to Online Geniuses (http://onlinegeniuses.com/).That Captain Smith believed the Titanic and the Olympic to be absolutely unsinkable is recalled by a man who had a conversation with the veteran commander on a recent voyage of the Olympic.
The talk was concerning the accident in which the British warship Hawke rammed the Olympic.
"The commander of the Hawke was entirely to blame," commented a young officer who was in the group. "He was'showing off' his warship before a throng of passengers and made a miscalculation."
Captain Smith smiled enigmatically at the theory advanced by his subordinate, but made no comment as to this view of the mishap.
"Anyhow," declared Captain Smith, "the Olympic is unsinkable, and the Titanic will be the same when she is put in commission."Why," he continued, "either of these vessels could be cut in halves and each half would remain afloat indefinitely. The non-sinkable vessel has been reached in these two wonderful craft."
"I venture to add," concluded Captain Smith, "that even if the engines and boilers of these vessels were to fall through their bottoms the vessels would remain afloat."Microsoft Warns Of Zero-Day Attacks Exploiting TIFF
'Fix it' released for protection until patch is prepared
Targeted attacks exploiting a zero-day flaw in the Microsoft Graphics component have been spotted in the wild hitting victims in the Middle East and South Asia.
Microsoft says the newly discovered remote code execution vulnerability, CVE-2013-3096, can be exploited via a malformed TIFF image. "Microsoft is investigating private reports of a vulnerability in the Microsoft Graphics component that affects Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Lync. Microsoft is aware of targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability in Microsoft Office products," the software company said in a security advisory issued today.
Bad guys can exploit the flaw that affects Windows, Office, and Lync by luring a victim into previewing or opening an email with a malicious file attachment or to visit a malicious URL. The end game is that the attacker can take over the machine. Microsoft has released a temporary Fix it patch for protection against attacks until it either issues a patch via its Patch Tuesday schedule or an out-of-band update.
"An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights," Microsoft says.
Microsoft says in the current attacks, the exploit requires a user to open the malicious Word attachment, which exploits the bug using a malicious TIFF image embedded in the document. The attack appears sophisticated in that it bypasses Microsoft's Data Execution Prevention and Address Space Layout Randomization mitigation defenses.
The flaw is in how Windows, Office, and Lync improperly handle "specially crafted" TIFF files, Microsoft says.
Users can install the temporary Fix it tool that blocks the attack, or employ Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET), which can stop the attack, Elia Florio with Microsoft's Security Response Center engineering group said in a blog post today.
"The attacks observed are very limited and carefully carried out against selected computers, largely in the Middle East and South Asia," Florio wrote.
Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, says the Fix it turns off TIFF rendering in the graphics library. "The listed software packages are not vulnerable under all conditions, so it is important that you take a look at your installed base and your possible exposure for the next couple of weeks into December," he advised in a blog post today. "Given the close date of the next Patch Tuesday for November, we don't believe that we can count on a patch arriving in time; we will probably have to wait until December, which makes your planning for a work-around even more important."
Microsoft's full security advisory on the new zero-day is here.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add Your Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.
Kelly Jackson Higgins is Executive Editor at DarkReading.com. She is an award-winning veteran technology and business journalist with more than two decades of experience in reporting and editing for various publications, including Network Computing, Secure Enterprise... View Full BioThis post is an introductory post in an upcoming and unfolding series regarding identity management.
Whether for Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Azure, or 3rd party apps, having an understanding of identities in Azure AD is a must have feather to have in your cap. These different identities require some decisions early on that are rather critical and based on core requirements that should be defined by business and security policies within your organization. The first thing to understand about Azure AD is that it is NOT a domain controller in the cloud. In fact, it isn’t operating on Active Directory Domain Services at all. For approaching 20 years, we have generally used “Active Directory” to mean what is now properly defined as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), but that was originally the proper name for the on-premise identity management service from Microsoft. This changed rather early in Active Directory’s life with the release of Windows Server 2008 as Active Directory became an umbrella for many on-premise services. With Windows Server 2003, Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) was released, which was a generic LDAP implementation from Microsoft built off of the same core components of Active Directory, but without many of the adjacent components, like Kerberos, Group Policy, time services, etc. ADAM became known as Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) with the release of Windows Server 2008. Other services include Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS).
Notably, it is AD LDS that is important to us in our understanding of Azure AD because it is the underlying technology upon which Azure AD is built. Azure AD does not have Kerberos, Group Policy, or time services. Further, Office 365 and Azure services are not joined to Azure AD; rather, they have their own AD DS forests (and many of them) to which Azure AD objects are synchronized. One item of note: things in the cloud change like Midwestern weather, if you don’t like it, wait 5 minutes; there is a product that is early in its life known as Azure AD Domain Services, but it is not without many compromises and has a long way to go.
So, why implement Azure AD? There are numerous reasons and they align with the reasons that organizationed implemented Active Directory in the first place. The old story was that of consolidating identities in an era when there was plenty of “identity sprawl” on-premise. We had largely conquered that problem, but it has resurfaced in the cloud era. Now, we have multiple identities for various cloud services. Managing multiple identities is a very real problem. First, IT organizations have to create these numerous identities and manage them for all of their users; it is tedious, error prone, and requires more knowledge of security in each system. Second, end users have to utilize and recall the identities and credentials for each system; this leads to password reuse, passwords that are too simple, and/or writing passwords down. These are all bad practices, but if we expect our end users to live in an environment with ever growing lists of identities, we’re asking for it to happen. While Azure AD is the core identity management platform for Microsoft cloud services, and it is the logical starting point for its implementation, Azure AD is much more than that. So, here is a list possibilities that is far from conclusive:
1. Office 365: this is the main gateway to Azure AD consumption. You plan to implement all or some of the services in Office 365 or perhaps even just deploy the Office 365 ProPlus software package for end users.
2. Exchange Online Protection and/or Exchange Online Archiving: perhaps you have an existing message hygeine service and you are looking to replace it with EOP, or you have the special license that gives you EOP and the Exchange Online Archiving feature.
3. Dynamics CRM: Microsoft’s customer relationship management software offered as a service.
4. Azure: Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service offerings from Microsoft.
5. Azure AD Marketplace: over 3000 applications from 3rd parties already integrated for use within Azure AD, including Salesforce, ServiceNow, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Concur, Egencia, and even G Suite (formerly Google Apps) and AWS.
6. Azure AD B2C: develop your own applications that integrate into Azure AD and Microsoft Accounts (consumer accounts).
So, a fairly compelling list, especially considering that it supports competing cloud products. What are the first things that you need to understand and decide when you have set the path to implement Azure AD? First and foremost, there are three types of identities in Azure AD: Cloud-only, Managed (or Synchronized), and Federated.
Cloud-only: this is the simplest model to implement and requires absolutely no additional infrastructure. An administrator logs into Azure AD and creates identities directly in Azure AD. This is straight forward and easily implemented for smaller organizations, but it only adds another identity and does not consolidate them. It is prone to all of the same issue we are trying to solve by consolidating identities… administrative overhead, errors, and end user problems with multiple identities.
Managed (or Synchronized): this is the most common identity type in new implementations. It requires that a single system be deployed with AAD Connect, a free product from Microsoft for synchronizing on-premise identities to Azure AD. You can synchronize password hashses and have same sign on (not quite the same as single sign on, but offers perhaps 80% of the benefits). This is a prerequisite for the next type.
Federated: this provides the most robust set of features and requires the most infrastructure. First, you must implement AAD Connect, then you install a federation infrastructure that is usually 8 systems in a minimal best practice setup that is defined by two locations with separate internet connections using two load balanced proxy servers in each location in front of two load balanced AD FS servers in each location. The reason for this is that if your federation infrastructure is unavailable, nobody signs into Azure AD. This price comes with some fairly compelling value for those that require it: Multi-Factor Authentication, real-time accounts disablement, real-time password updates, network location restrictions, time of day restrictions, and true single sign on (SSO). This was initially the most popular means to implement identities in Azure AD, but over time these requirements have slowly been eroded by capabilities in AAD Connect and Azure AD Premium (which requires an additional subscription).
It is worth noting that there are numerous 3rd parties that offer competing federation solutions for Azure AD. They have licensing fees and combined account for only 3% of all identities in Azure AD. For a supportability and simplicity standpoint, it makes sense to implement something that more of a known quantity… you will more readily find administrators that are familiar with the Microsoft offerings and there is a significantly larger body of knowledge available online to support it. Noteable 3rd party federation providers include: Okta, OneLogin, PingFederate, and Oracle.
Azure AD Premium is a subscription-based offering from Microsoft that offers many of the features available with federated identities without the need for a federation infrastructure, including: Multi-Factor Authentication, network location restrictions, time of day restrictions, and a self-service password reset portal. Combined with a new feature in AAD Connect called Pass-Thru Authentication (currently in preview), one could have nearly all of the capabilities of a federated infrastructure, including SSO.
The next thing to understand is how users sign in and the surrounding best practices. The username used in Azure AD is the UserPrincipalName (UPN); it looks like an email address. Within AD DS, this would be like username@activedirectorydomain. The first issue here is that many organizations have not aligned their Active Directory domain names with their public domain names, which is a requirement since we are using an internet-based service… you aren’t going to be using a “domain.local” option. You can rectify this by implementing an Alternate UPN Suffix in Active Directory Domains and Trusts. The ultimate best practice is to have UPNs match the primary email address of a user, because most users won’t know what a UPN is but they will know what an email address is and Microsoft has labelled the username fields as “email address.” This is almost never an issue for organizations because UPNs are rarely utilized on-premise.
Before going down the path to implement Azure AD, it is worth executing IdFix, a free utility from Microsoft to identify common issues that should be remediated before installing AAD Connect. Common issues includes duplicate values within your domain for fields that should be unique and invalid characters. The tool makes a recommendation on how to remediate and can fix the issue for you, but it is worth reviewing the recommendations and findings and remediating them yourself and then execute the tool again to determine if things have been addressed.
AdvertisementsThe Air Force will update enlisted special
duty assignment pay for
several career
fields
, locations
or special assignment duties effective Nov. 1,
following the most recent Air Force
semiannual
review
.
SDAP is a monetary allowance that compensates enlisted Airmen serving in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities that differ from the normal demands of their jobs. Airmen receive a minimum of $75 per month up to the maximum of $450 per month.
The review resulted in 13 additions to the pay table including a number of jobs with special experience identifiers such as flight engineer, special missions aviator, loadmaster and remotely piloted aircraft sensor operator. Other duties added to the pay table include airfield manager, digital network analyst, cyberspace mission forces, RPA cyber technician, special operations surgical teams and Korean cryptologic language analyst.
Modifications, particularly clarification to eligibility criteria, were made to an additional 23 duties.
“The Air Force meticulously evaluates this program to ensure we are accurately compensating our Airmen working in rigorous career fields with an unusual degree of complexity, difficulty or responsibility,” said Senior Master Sgt. Joey Williams, Airman Support branch superintendent at the Air Force’s Personnel Center. “We hope to provide an incentive for Airmen to volunteer for and perform duties in critical career fields in order to best support future Air Force missions.”
The specialty and individual assignment should meet one or more of the following criteria in order for SDAP consideration:
- Duties require extremely demanding personal effort to ensure successful mission accomplishment
- Positions are extremely demanding and require an unusual degree of responsibility over and above what would reasonably be expected in a military assignment for members with the same grade and experience
- The special duty assignment is different from the normal career progression and job description for the Air Force specialty code
- Duties requiring special qualifications that are met through rigorous screening and/or special schooling above the normal qualifications of the skill or grade to maintain proficiency
To see the full special duty assignment pay list and a summary of the changes, visit the enlisted compensation landing page on myPers. Alternatively, select “Active Duty Enlisted” from the myPers dropdown menu and search “SDAP.”
For more information about Air Force personnel programs, go to myPers. Individuals who do not have a myPers account can request one by following these instructions.In 1996, Scream pulled off the rare feat of achieving revolutionary status while offering nearly nothing new. Though many will point to Wes Craven’s most financially successful film as the pioneer of the self-aware horror flick—begetting not only three sequels but a host of imitators, all the way down to The Cabin in the Woods—Scream wasn’t even Craven’s first stab at going meta. Two years prior, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare blazed this metatextual trail that the director would embark upon, fittingly beginning his new Scream franchise (“Cause these days, you gotta have a sequel!”) on the heels of the re-imagined Freddy Krueger character that had cemented his name in the annals of horror.
Craven wastes no time conjuring up mental images of his most iconic creation. In Scream’s masterfully-shot opening sequence, the doomed Casey (Drew Barrymore) namedrops A Nightmare on Elm Street in the phone conversation with her soon-to-be killer, claiming that the first film was scary “but the rest of them sucked.” From the opening gun, Craven goes straight for self-reference, spicing it up with this in-joke about his distaste for many of the sequels. The references—both genre-wide and Craven-specific—only billow out further from there.
While horror movie tropes and pop cultural references flesh out the movie, Scream wouldn’t have become the highest-grossing slasher film of all time without a solid backbone. Craven’s crowning achievement is balancing the comedic elements with some truly grisly and frightening horror. With his starkly brutal opening scene, Craven proves that the slasher credentials of Scream will remain intact despite the accompanying mirth. A few references aside, there’s not much to laugh about in the opening scene, as Barrymore’s most memorable character since E.T.’s screaming Gertie is dispatched at the hands of a calculating killer. Much of the film may be tongue-in-cheek, but Casey’s liver is still going to end up in that mailbox.
The mastery of the opening scene cannot be overstated. As home-alone teen Casey makes stovetop popcorn in preparation for a flick on the couch, the urban legend of the call coming from inside the house (or in this case on the back patio) manifests itself. Casey plays along with the ominously-voiced random caller’s chat about scary movies (absentmindedly lifting a butcher knife out of the block as she does so), until flirtation turns to threats, much as Heather Langenkamp was tormented phone calls from Freddy in New Nightmare. Long tracking shots follow her throughout the spacious house as she locks doors and peers out windows. A trick question about Friday the 13th dooms her boyfriend, bound outside. Popcorn smoke clouds the house. After a short chase out into the yard, Casey runs directly towards the camera, where she is caught by her cloaked killer, who deftly plunges his knife into her chest. Unable to summon enough air to yell to her parents, who are returning home, Casey is dragged away. Her parents hear her last wheezing gasps through the landline phone, and they soon discover her hanging body outside, gutted like a fish.
The violence was so stark that Craven, after reading Kevin Williamson’s script, turned the movie down— twice. “I read the opening of Scream, and it was just brutal,” said Craven, who wanted to distance himself from slasher fare. “And I thought, ‘I can’t kill another poor girl.” What makes this opening sequence particularly shocking is that Scream offs its top-billed star in its first few minutes. The scene stands alone so well it could be an exemplary horror short; it’s truly a movie within a movie. After all, given that we eventually learn that the primary target is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Casey’s death is largely incidental. Craven maintains a sinister undercurrent, but the film turns far more comical as it goes along. We learn about sexless Sidney and her group of wisecracking friends, some of whom are victims and others, ultimately, the killers. That Skeet Ulrich, the poor man’s Johnny Depp, plays another bedroom window-climbing boyfriend (Billy) is another subtle callback to Nightmare.
Billy and Sidney define their relationship status by MPAA ratings (they progress to PG-13 when she flashes him), and every conversation that her pals Stu (Matthew Lillard), Randy (Jamie Kennedy) and Tatum (Rose McGowan) engage in invokes something cinematic. The film references are often direct (such as including attribution after a well-placed Psycho quote) and other times come off more jokey (“What is this, ‘I Spit on Your Garage’”). Craven turns up for a very brief cameo as a janitor in a Freddy Krueger sweater who is disturbed from his custodial duties by the school principal played by the Fonz. And at one point, a character cheekily conflates two masters of horror into a fictional “Wes Carpenter flick” reference. Scream dates itself with mentions |
Appeal in 2015 that police did not consider her a suspect in her ex-husband’s murder, an assertion police disputed. In 2014, she agreed to a confidential settlement in a legal dispute over how she spent $1 million in insurance money, which was meant to benefit their six children. Deborah Marion, Wright’s mother, told the Commercial Appeal that she believes Wright-Robinson killed her son over the insurance policy.
“Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus! They got her! They got her!’’ Marion said Friday after receiving word that her former daughter-in-law had been arrested. “They need to bury her.’’
Wright-Robinson had written a fiction book, “Mr. Tell Me Anything,” that featured what appeared to be a thinly disguised depiction of her ex-husband. According to the Commercial Appeal, it told the “story of a deceitful, philandering basketball player who grows up in Mississippi, moves to Memphis, marries an older woman and becomes a top pro draft pick.” She also had told the paper that she had finished a sequel to the book in which Mr. Tell Me Anything is murdered.
Lorenzen Wright's ex-wife has been charged with his murder. In 2015, SI investigated and asked Wright's ex-wife if she had any part in the murder.
Her response is chilling. https://t.co/CnhS2e7bQ2 pic.twitter.com/2Z1DwzHB6B — Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 16, 2017
Wright, who was 34 at the time of his death, was selected with the seventh pick of the 1996 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Clippers. He played for five teams in a career that lasted until 2009.
Read more from The Post:
Paul George’s return to Indiana overshadowed a better NBA story
Charles Barkley blasts LaVar Ball for ‘exploiting his kids’
Convinced he’s living with CTE, ex-NFL player Larry Johnson battles self-destructive impulses
Amid sexual assault scandal, USA Gymnastics loses major corporate sponsorsWhy is THC intoxicating and CBD is not? How can one cannabinoid alter the mind so profoundly, and the other seemingly not at all?
When we’re talking about cannabis and euphoria, we’re dealing exclusively with CB1 receptors, which are concentrated in the brain and the central nervous system. The difference between CBD vs. THC comes down to a basic difference in how each one interacts with the cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptor. THC binds well with CB1 cannabinoid receptors. CBD has low binding affinity for CB1 receptors. That’s where the two diverge.
Think of it like an electrical plug connecting to a wall socket. A THC molecule is perfectly shaped to connect with CB1 receptors. When that connection happens, THC activates, or stimulates, those CB1 receptors. Researchers call THC a CB1 receptor agonist, which means THC works to activate those CB1 receptors.
THC partially mimics a naturally produced neurotransmitter known as anandamide, aka “the bliss molecule.” Anandamide is an endocannabinoid which activates CB1 receptors. Animal studies have taught us that anandamide can increase appetite and enhance pleasure associated with food consumption, and it’s likely responsible for some of the rewarding effects of exercise (e.g. the “runner’s high”). Anandamide also plays a role in memory, motivation, and pain. THC is a “key” that so closely resembles anandamide that it activates CB1 receptors, allowing it to produce some of those same blissful feelings.
CBD, by contrast, is not a good fit with CB1 receptors. It’s categorized as an antagonist of CB1 agonists. This means that it doesn’t act directly to activate or suppress CB1 receptors—rather, it acts to suppress the CB1-activating qualities of a cannabinoid like THC. In other words, when you ingest THC and CBD, the THC directly stimulates those CB1 receptors, while the CBD acts as a kind of modulating influence on the THC. As Project CBD co-founder Martin Lee once wrote: “CBD opposes the action of THC at the CB1 receptor, thereby muting the psychoactive effects of THC.”
How does that work in real life? Let’s say you vaporize cannabis flower with 24 percent THC. If that flower has 0.2 percent CBD, the THC is going to excite your CB1 receptors with almost no interference from CBD. You may feel extremely high, and you might also experience some of the less desirable effects of THC, such as a heightened feeling of paranoia. If you consume cannabis with 24 percent THC and 6 percent CBD, though, the CBD should have a dampening effect on the THC. You’ll still feel high, but perhaps not stupefyingly so—and the CBD should help keep the paranoia in check.
This difference has had profound political implications. As the founders of Project CBD have noted, some have mistakenly labeled THC the “bad cannabinoid” and CBD the “good cannabinoid.” Legislators have passed many “CBD-only” laws in Southern states in an effort to allow patients access to this potent cannabinoid while prohibiting its euphoric sibling. But the pioneering cannabis researcher Raphael Mechoulam has often spoken of the “entourage effect,” the idea that cannabinoids and terpenes may work better together than in isolation. The GW Pharma product Sativex, for example, is a drug approved outside the U.S. for treatment of MS-related muscle spasticity. Sativex contains with a nearly 1:1 CBD-to-THC ratio.
As researchers learn more about CBD and the role of other cannabinoids and compounds in the treatment of conditions like MS, we may be able to more accurately dose CBD in combination with other cannabis-derived compounds.
References
Fuss J, Steinle J, Bindila L, et al. A runner’s high depends on cannabinoid receptors in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015;112(42):13105-8. PDF
Mahler SV, Smith KS, Berridge KC. Endocannabinoid hedonic hotspot for sensory pleasure: anandamide in nucleus accumbens shell enhances ‘liking’ of a sweet reward. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2007;32(11):2267-78. PDF
Englund A, Morrison PD, Nottage J, et al. Cannabidiol inhibits THC-elicited paranoid symptoms and hippocampal-dependent memory impairment. J Psychopharmacol (Oxford). 2013;27(1):19-27. PDFRather than an Indigenous centre, Mayor Jim Watson says he would have preferred 100 Wellington St. be turned into a portrait gallery.
CBC News has learned the former site of the United States embassy, closed for nearly two decades, will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities.
The building, sitting across from Parliament Hill, is one of the most prestigious pieces of real estate in the capital.
A formal announcement about the use of the property will come in June, but the proposed Indigenous centre is already disappointing the city's mayor.
"My preference would have been to see the portrait gallery revived, the idea that came about over a decade ago," Jim Watson said Tuesday. "But obviously if the government decided to go and make it a centre for Indigenous peoples or a centre for reconciliation, I think that's a good idea."
Jean Chrétien had proposed turning it into a portrait gallery, but the idea was scrapped when Stephen Harper took power.
Watson said he has no issue with the idea of an Indigenous centre, as long as it's constructed respectfully.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says he wishes the redevelopment of 100 Wellington St. would have included a portrait gallery, but he is happy about the proposed Indigenous centre. (CBC) "If they're going to go with an Indigenous centre, I think as long as it's done with great consultation with First Nations and it's open and accessible so people can go in and tour and learn more about our First Nations, then I think that would be a great addition to the downtown core."
Not the first choice
Public consultations have previously been done about the site. Using it to recognize Indigenous peoples was not the popular choice.
The survey found that a "Canada House" to display the best of the country's provinces and territories was the favourite option.
"My first principle is that the building should be open to the public — whatever is in that building — and it should be a draw for people to come to the downtown core," Watson continued. "So if it's going to be a centre for reconciliation and for Indigenous peoples then let's make sure we get it right, with proper consultations with Indigenous peoples."
A timeline for the project, as well as more details, have yet to be announced.Image copyright Reuters Image caption Karachi airport was damaged by a Taliban assault on Sunday
The Pakistani military has carried out air strikes in tribal areas in the north-west of the country, killing at least 15 militants, officials say.
The raids destroyed nine militant positions in the Tirah Valley in Khyber district, the military said.
The strikes came after the Taliban stormed Karachi airport, in an attack that killed at least 30 people.
The Pakistani Taliban said Sunday's assault was in revenge for the killing of their leader last year.
"Nine terrorist hideouts were destroyed by early morning military air strikes near the Pakistan-Afghan border," the military said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Khyber tribal region, near the Pakistan-Afghan border, is believed to be a base for several militant groups and foreign fighters.
It is not clear when the air strikes took place or which militant group was targeted, the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani in Islamabad reports.
'Charred beyond recognition'
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Security forces battled the militants for at least six hours
Late on Sunday, 10 heavily armed Taliban fighters attacked an area of Karachi's Jinnah international airport used mainly for cargo and private flights.
Security forces gained control in the early hours of Monday.
The airport reopened late on Monday.
Officials said at least 29 people were killed in the fighting which raged from Sunday into Monday, including all the militants. On Tuesday, officials said nine more bodies had been recovered from the airport.
The number included seven bodies found in the airport's cold storage facility. Officials said they were charred beyond recognition.
There were reports that the bodies belonged to a group of airport employees who were trapped in the facility after taking refuge from the attack.
'Renewed pressure'
Pakistan has been fighting an Islamist insurgency for more than a decade, with the Pakistani Taliban the main militant grouping.
The airport attack came against the backdrop of a major split in the Pakistani Taliban, and threats of retaliation following limited military operations against foreign militants in North Waziristan.
The brazen attack has brought the government of the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, under renewed pressure to order tough action against the Taliban militants, says the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani.
The Pakistan government began peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban in March, but little progress has been made and the violence has continued, with Karachi a frequent target.
Correspondents say that given the violence, it seems clear that any pretence at a peace process is now over.It's the question gripping Canberra right now: where is retiring Labor giant Stephen Conroy headed for his next stipend?
Obviously being Super Dad is priority numero uno, but if we're talking numbers, we hear his next gig will be as chief executive of the new and improved lobby group for corporate bookies, the Wagering Council: soon to be known as Responsible Gaming Australia.
The offer has certainly been made, its membership includes Bet 365, Tom Waterhouse's William Hill and James Packer's CrownBet. Whether he takes the gig remains to be seen.
Stephen Conroy. Angela Brkic
It will be a challenging one, given the Turnbull Government's proposed clampdown on live (or in-play) betting on sporting fixtures, state governments (particularly Jay Weatherill's in South Australia) looking for low-hanging "place of consumption" tax revenue and the ever-terrifying Nick Xenophon factor. Promises to be red underpants at 20 paces...
Elsewhere in betting land, changes aplenty up north-a-ways where the gold watch budget is about to blown with the departure from Tatts Group in Brisbane of its long-serving COO, Barrie Flettin - who has announced his retirement after 24 years. Tatts' CFO Neale O'Connell also announced his intention to fly the coop.Review copies of Electronic Arts's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning are starting to reach critics, who have made a surprising collective discovery: an insert containing a code to download a "House of Valor" content pack featuring "seven additional single player quests."
EA has confirmed to Ars Technica that this downloadable content will be included free with all new copies of the game, including digital copies purchased on the PC through Origin, Steam, or other services. Players who would rather purchase a pre-owned copy, however, will presumably have to pay an additional fee if they want to access to this portion of the game.
Charging used game players for such an "Online Pass" is nothing new in the game industry, of course. But implementing an Online Pass in the single-player Kingdoms of Amalur represents a continuing tumble down a slippery slope for the entire game industry.
A subtle redefinition
EA experimented with locking out used game purchasers from some limited downloadable content with Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network, but the company first embraced the idea of charging for Online Passes on a large scale in mid-2010, rolling out "Project Ten Dollar" to charge for online gameplay and features in its myriad sports games. In launching that program, EA justified itself by saying it had "made a significant investment to offer the most immersive online experience available," adding that it "want[s] to reserve EA Sports online services for people who pay EA to access them."
In other words, EA was saying that used game purchasers were actively costing it money in the form of continuing server costs, which the company deserved to recoup. Publishers including THQ, Warner Bros., Ubisoft, and Sony have used similar justifications in copying the system for their own online games.
Here's the thing, though—Kingdoms of Amalur is an exclusively single-player game. There are no multiplayer servers for used players to theoretically exploit as freeloaders. The original, stated justification for the Online Pass has disappeared, but, for some reason, the Online Pass itself is sticking around in games like Amalur.
The Arkham City defense
EA declined an opportunity to comment on its reasoning for expanding its Online Pass system from online modes to single-player quests. The company would do well to come up with a better defense than Warner Bros., which pulled a similar stunt by charging used purchasers for a set of Catwoman missions in last year's single-player Batman: Arkham City.
The company's official (and rather weak) justification for nickel-and-diming used gamers? "Playing as Catwoman is not required to complete the game."
When pressed by Wired.com to expand on that official defense, Arkham City director Sefton Hill emphasized that the Online Pass content is less than 10 percent of the entire game. But this kind of argument represents an extremely slippery slope that could lead to a further redefinition of what it means to buy a used game.
The slippery slope
Look how the concept has slipped already. Online Passes, which started as a way to pay for continuing online operating costs, are now used to lock used players out of small portions of the single-player game. As time goes on, what's to stop publishers from expanding the concept further, locking ever larger portions of a game behind a downloadable pass? Will we soon see a game that prevents used purchasers from finishing the single-player quest unless they pay to download a required mission? Where's the cut-off?
Used game fans would be justifiably irate if a publisher abruptly used Online Passes to completely hobble pre-owned copies of its games (or just abruptly stopped used games from working altogether). But by slowly and subtly moving the goalposts for what's "acceptable" to block from used game buyers, publishers like EA may be trying to acclimate customers to the idea that they shouldn't expect a used game to offer them a complete experience, or that they shouldn't be interested in the ability to buy used at all (hello, digital downloads).
If that's so, publishers may be betting that the easiest way to blunt the impact of used games might not be a technological fix, but rather a simple, methodical redefenition of the very idea of what a used game is.Packers Blog The Journal Sentinel's team of Packers beat writers provide the latest news, notes and analysis SHARE
By of the
Green Bay - Here is a summary of coach Mike McCarthy's Monday press conference:
Will have an update on Eddie Lacy on Wednesday.
(Brandon Meriweather hit on Lacy) Definitely used his helmet.
(James Starks collison with Meriweather) Same kind of thing. Different result. We'll leave it up to the league.
(Offensive line) First and second level blocking was good. James did a nice job with reads.
(100-yard rusher) Never drawn up a game plan and said I'd like to have a 100-yard rusher. Those are stats that point to things we're working on, but not something I worry about. Worried about scoring points. Every team is built differently. Need a system that weighs toward your prime-time players.
(Starks) Plan was to have Eddie and James play to a certain pattern of things we were trying to do. We'll contiue that. Had things for Jonathan (Franklin), too. Just didn't get to them. We have to make sure we have things up for every single back.
(Add a back?) We're putting together a game plan based on who we have.
(Defense) Fourth quarter, something I don't like with our football team. We gave up 20 points down the stretch. Unnecessary production. That's something we can learn from. There are things we need to take away from that game. I like the way we're playing physically. But mental performance and fourth-quarter production are our focus this week.
(Secondary) Davon House played a heck of a game. We have to do a better job of defining roles.
(Mental mistakes) That's coaching.
(Washington defense) They played a lot of three-shell. We didn't expect that. We thought they would play with both safeties back.
(YAC) I would have never known that was our best performance. I don't gauge the statistics. I get statistics during halftime. But I get outlier statistics. Not worried about the traditional stats.
(Jermichael Finley) He has matured as a player. His play on the sideline was fantastic. Took two or three guys to get him down. Guys who have had injuries, second year back is when you see them.
(Sacks) We had some movement that we had to handle. We had one that was two mental errors and one physical one. That was the Orakpo sack. We did not get off to the start we wanted.
(Playing Monday night team) I don't think it's a huge advantage.
(Watching game) There's things you can see on TV. The audio is enhanced. You can pick up some things. I used to never watch the TV copy. I'll be watching closely.
And that's it for McCarthy. We'll have updates from the coordinators later on the blog.The Fushimi Inari Shrine is home to 10,000 Torii gates that are seen as an enterance to a sacred shrine in Shinto religion.
By Kelsey Leuzinger Jun 2, 2014 3 min read
The Torii gates (鳥居) at Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社) give me one more reason to love historical Japan. These gates date back to 711 A.D., and as a foreigner with only a 250 year old country, 1300 years old is an age I can’t even fathom.
In addition to age, these grounds are said to hold over 10,000 Torii gates. Experiencing these numerous and well-preserved gates at Fushimi Inari Shrine are like touching a piece of human history; if only we could see all that they have seen over the years.
To give a little background, a Torii gate is seen as an entrance to a sacred shrine in the Shinto religion. They mark the pathway to shrines across Asia, and I’m sure you’ve come to know them as a symbol of Japan.
What is unique about the Torii gates at Inari Fushimi, though, is their background. Each gate has been donated by a company or organization giving thanks for their prosperity and in hope of good fortune in the future. I only wished I could read all of the names engraved on each gate, but for now it remains to be beautiful artwork representing Japan’s past.
The significance of the shrines located at Fushimi Inari is to honor Inari (稲荷), the Shinto god of rice. You will also see foxes places throughout these grounds, as they are said to be messengers for Inari.
But, if you’re more interested in sightseeing than knowing the history, you can still enjoy the Fushimi Inari shrine just as much. As you enter the large main Torii gate you will see multiple shrines and neat shops for souvenirs. Then you will start to make your way up the stairs on the journey through the 10,000 Torii gates. The varying sizes and faded colors surprised me the most. Since pictures don’t do it justice, you have to see all of it for yourself in person.
While taking the long hike through the gates and up the hill, you will see even more shops for souvenirs and food. This is all leading up to the top of the hill, which overlooks beautiful Kyoto. But be warned, this trek up the mountain is longer than you expect. To get to the top and return again to the bottom would take 3-4 hours; if you don’t stop to enjoy the food, that is.
Thankfully, you don’t have to walk the entire path, though. You can enjoy as much or little as you want, then make your way back down through the gates to enjoy the scenery and Torii gates all over again.
As for the crowds, there really were none. I don’t know if it’s the fact that my definition of “crowd” has changed since moving from a town of 2,000 people in Virginia to a Japanese city of 400,000, but it really seemed very pleasant. And as usual, the Japanese visitors were just as much tourists as we were, taking pictures and standing in awe at all the history and sights the grounds had to offer. I’ve heard New Year’s day is a little more crowded, though; with almost 3 million visitors in only 3 days. But hey, one man’s crowd is another man’s adventure, right?
After finishing our hike and picture taking, I noticed a side street to the right as you exit the shrine. I can’t find it on any tourist information websites, but it turned out to be the best place to find souvenirs and food at the shrine. It looks like a permanent market set up along the street, with family-owned shops that have probably been there for years. Just another great reason to see the lovely Fushimi Inari Torii gates.
When you visit Kyoto, don’t forget about this attraction that will give a whole new meaning to “Japanese history and culture.”
Access:
68 Fukakusa Yabunouchicho, Kyoto Fushimi-ku, Kyoto Prefecture
Via the JR Nara Line, 5 minutes, 140¥
Kyoto Station> Inari Station
As you exit the gate, you can probably just follow the crowd. The main Torii gate will be ahead and to your left.The metagame has not been kind to Metalfoes. Zoodiac Beast Drancia s is seeing play in any deck which pilots the Zoodiac Beast engine, and with the capability to destroy face-up cards, it hinders the process of pendulum summoning, which well… requires face-up accurate scales. Despite not being a pendulum monster archetype, Zoodiac Beast decks have no problem in recycling their resources. They can gain easy access to Daigusto Emeral with the use of a single card to spark off their combos, and at the end of the day, have sufficient cards in grave to fulfill the activation condition of Pot of Avarice. Unlike the recurring pendulum mechanics, Zoodiac Beast are able to replenish their resources by generating hand advantage and possible even not have to use up their entitled once-per-turn normal summon.
Nevertheless, Metalfoes remained to be one of my favourite archetype and decks. Having accumulated sufficient points to qualify for the Top 32 Rank-Up League Season 2 for Singapore, I went ahead with a 60-card Metalfoes deck hoping to achieve some results or at least understand if Metalfoes has what it takes to qualify as a contender for the metagame. But before we carry on, here is a look at my decklist.
Much like previous decks I had, I employed the “can’t beat them, join them” approach as I mixed Zoodiac Beasts along with Metalfoes. I was hoping that the inclusion of the Zoodiac Beast engine could level the playing field against the top tier Zoodiac Beast decks.
A 60card deck has always been an unorthodox method I wanted to try. Even now as I am typing this, I can already hear the insults from the Upstart Goblin fans. xD
Triple Pot of Desires aid in the deck’s consistency and speed up plays. However it is only best used after the Zoodiac Beast plays are made and all copies of Zoodiac Molmorat are filtered from the deck. A gamble can usually pay off too, as the large deck size cushions the impact of Pot of Desires’ banishing. During playtesting, plenty of times I started off with no combo pieces, resolved Desires, and managed to draw into a playable hand without losing any Zoodiac Beast Marmorat pieces.
Other than that, the rest of the deck feels pretty standard issue to me. A full Metalfoes monster lineup, with two Metalfoes Combination instead of one to keep the deck alive. I value it to be the most important Metalfoes spell/trap rather than Metalfoes Fusion, due to its search effect. I even tested the idea of Foolish Burial with Belongings to mill Metalfoes Fusion, for deck-thinning and also to keep it safe from being banished by Pot of Desires, but ultimately dropped it to make space for my floodgate traps.
Here are the reasoning behind my Side Deck choices:
Retaliating “C” acts as a searcher. In a turn one play, I can summon it for it to be destroyed by a Metalfoes pendulum effect. From there on I can opt to search Maxx “C” or Flying “C” off its effect. That way, I won’t be too vulnerable and useless when my opponent’s turn comes. System Down is prepared for any players that may want to try their luck with an ABC deck. It also doubles as an answer to potential players choosing the machine archetype Kozmo as their deck choice. Cosmic Cyclone should have been moved to the main deck, since it is a better spell/trap removal for the format. It plays around Starlight Road (a now very commonly played trap for protection), prevents Artifact monsters from triggering their effects and also deny Elemental Triangle of the Zoodiac from reusing itself as an xyz material. But I personally preferred Mystical Space Typhoon which is capable of triggering my Metalfoes Combination search effect. Wavering Eyes, available in the OCG at a single copy, is a staple in any pendulum deck’s Side Deck. Mainly for pendulum matchups. Imperial Iron Wall is reserved for Infernoids and Eidolon decks, both of which has a playing style revolving around the banishing of cards.
The glory of making it to the Top 32 of the country lies in the entry gift mat. Limited in stock, while being based on a popular theme, it has a simplistic but appealing design that attracted plenty of players to purchase or collect it.
Only the champion of the entire tournament would gain an additional prize in the form of the limited edition seasonal Championship mat. Hence, many players decided it wasn’t worth their time to try to aim for a chance and instead went ahead to drop out from the tournament upon receiving their entry door gift. This led to a turnout of less than eight pairs of players for the tournament. To fulfill the single-elimination tournament requirements, eight pairs still had to be generated, resulting in players obtaining a BYE for their first round. My friends belonged to the majority who enjoyed the free win on their first round. Whereas I, was one of the three pairs required to play the first round of the day. What luck…
For the first game, a decision to play more conservatively instead of betting on a random draw led to to summon Traptrix Rafflesia using the two Zoodiac Molmorat I summoned, instead of a standard Daigusto Emeral play. I got laughed at and criticized for not knowing how to pilot the deck properly by spectators, but I had no regrets making that move. My hand was terrible enough such that any miracle draw I manage to achieve wouldn’t help me field further. I did, however, still have a normal summon to spare, which I eventually didn’t use for that turn. A draw off Daigusto might not have been a bad move, but perhaps it was the stressful environment supported by the fact that being in a single-elimination tournament, I chickened out on the gamble of the mystery draw. Eventually, my field got tore apart and broken into pieces by my opponent whose weapon of choice was the strongest threat of the format – Kaiju Zoodiac Beast. I was punished for the conservative play which led to a sub-par field setup, hence unable to stop my opponent. I died from an onslaught shortly after.
Game two, I took the lead, but was left unable to perform any impressive plays with my poor opening hand. I managed to set a Metalfoes Spell/Trap from the deck – Metalfoes Combination, but that was the end of it. My opponent’s turn came, and I dropped my Maxx “C” during the standby phase, desperate to get some additional draws to compensate for my weak opening. But my opponent had other plans. He took the challenge head on, ignoring my additional draws and determined to finish me off this turn. Thankfully, I drew into Flying “C” which managed to stop him dead in his tracks. His plans came to a halt, and after giving me such a huge hand advantage, he decided to concede and both of us headed to the next game.
Game three of round one, I was forced to take a backseat as my opponent took the lead and I don’t have the ability to respond to his actions, having drawn no hand traps this time round. When my turn came, I was facing a board composing of Zoodiac Beast Drancia and three backrow cards. I had Speedroid Terratop in my hand and could thus, perform some plays to bait out the threats while maintaining my resources. So I went ahead… And at this point I realized I committed the most amateur mistake of all by failing to check my deck before the day begun. I neglected to include The Phantom Knights of Break Sword in my Extra Deck, which was crucial to my deck and a part of my game plan!!!
Hoping to keep calm and still be able to make it somehow, I changed my plan and went for M-X Saber Invoker instead, hoping to call forth Zoodiac Beast Marmorat. However, Plan B hit the brakes when my opponent activated Book of Moon, targeting Zoodiac Beast Marmorat, preventing it from partaking in an xyz summon. With that, still unwilling to just concede, I went ahead with a gamble using Pot Of Desires. I previously held onto it since I wanted to only activate it after I performed the Zoodiac Beast standard combo, unwilling to cripple my deck’s Zoodiac Beast engine by risking the chance of banishing any copies of Marmorat. But since the situation has tested my limits, I decided to go ahead with it. My draw landed me Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin and a viable scale, giving me yet another fighting chance. I had the option of tribute summoning Kirin to remove Drancia from the field. But that would only prompt my opponent to trigger Drancia’s effect to destroy my previously-placed scale, a Scale8 Metalfoes Volflame. I couldn’t remember exactly what happened after that, but I took a 50-50 chance hoping he would destroy the wrong scale via Drancia, but he aimed the lower pendulum scale after reasoning that the Metalfoes deck consisted of lesser lower scales, and I was thus statistically less likely to have a replacement scale in hand. Unfortunately for me, he was right, and with that, my adventures for the day came to a disappointing end.
Nevertheless, my opponent did had a Torrential Tribute awaiting me, which would have wiped my field empty except for Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin, surviving due to its own effect. I would end up being unable to deal sufficient damage to bring the game to a close and suffer an onslaught during the next turn anyway.
Plenty of reasons could have been attributed to my loss.
With a deck size of 60cards, I was obviously pushing the deck’s consistency to its limits. While 60cards may be beneficial to me by cushioning the impact of Pot of Desires, it has indeed resulted in a statistical decrease in chances of me opening with the cards I need, such as Maxx “C” to stop my opponent’s plays or the appropriate scales for me to set up for a pendulum summon. I was hoping that the deck thinning performed by Metalfoes could help the deck, but that was perhaps too optimistic on my part. The idea is still viable, but perhaps just not a full-on “all or nothing” approach. I was thinking of reducing the deck size count. After all, plenty of cards such Monster Reborn, the second copy of Metalfoes Combination & Speedroid Taketomborg are luxury options instead of necessities, allowing me to option of not including them in the deck if I were to revamp the deck.
Fortune favours the prepared. The idiom has never been more true. I did what I could and squeezed out time to get back into the game and catch up, but it wasn’t enough. Those who follow my social media would know that I had just returned from a personal trip, and even before that, I was distracted by my personal commitments and other hobbies. (Yes, Pokemon Sun & Moon was one of them) So the three weeks of absence from the game has indeed taken a toll on me and my gaming skills.
While I may not be new to Metalfoes, this new version of the deck involves a totally different playing style from the previous “let’s just summon Tzolkin Ultimaya and lockdown + let Majespecter Unicorn – Kirin join in the fun”. There are much more ways to go about and even more choices and game plans to embark on, with any given hand. I still haven’t came to a stage where I am able to pilot this deck with confidence and know it like the back of my hand, as I am still new to it. But I am definitely intrigued by the variety of plays and combos I can land, (which was what drew me to the deck in the first place) although I would have to work on my gameplay decisions – High Risk High Reward vs Playing It Safe
On top of piloting a new deck I am not totally familiar with, the crowd’s reaction and stares at my game only stacks onto the pressure I felt. I misplayed more than I realized, and time to time, some cards’ effect slipped my mind. My head was just not totally in the game, which was a pity since my opponent was a real friendly player and I really enjoyed the matchup.
This event, the Top 32 Rank-up League 2016 Season 2, was placed a week before the grand end-of-year premier event Asia Championship Qualifiers Winter (Singapore) 2017. Many players, like me, prefer to conceal the identity of our main deck that we would be piloting for the event next week, reluctant to give our opponents even the slightest piece of advantage and information. Knowledge of our decks could lead to different outcomes, as the opponent can makes choices out of the norm after taking the decks play style into consideration. For example, knowing that your opponent is playing Kaiju Graydles would prompt you to flip that set Vanity’s Emptiness as soon as possible to prevent the inherent special summon from wrecking your board monsters, as opposed to waiting to respond with Vanity’s Emptiness to a monster, spell or trap effect that would special summon a monster. A similar comparison can be drawn using the example of Maxx “C”. There are still others, who on the contrary, decided to take this opportunity to test their deck to determine how far it can go and fare against the meta, and how viable it is to play said deck in a large scale premier event like the Championship Qualifiers.
For readers interested and willing to try out this unorthodox method of piloting Metalfoes, don’t be disheartened by my loss. I haven’t given up on Metalfoes yet, but I have a craftier and more comfortable deck to play in the upcoming weeks. (Nope, still won’t reveal it~) So I will put Metalfoes on hold for now. Hopefully, the Forbidden and Limited list released at the end of the month will be kinder to our Psychic pendulum friends. And if I were to be greedy for more, I hope Konami can be warped up in the Christmas spirit and decides to give Metalfoes more support in the upcoming products. This is also a concern I share since Arc-V is rumored to end soon, signalling the possible emergence of a new summoning mechanic and method (which, personally, I am not in favor of). This could imply the imminent negligence of the pendulum mechanic and archtypes.
The Asia Championship Qualifiers is just next week! With the Yugioh Open Tournament in Thailand cancelled last month, many players like myself are hyped for the event even more. I will probably do an article detailing my journey throughout the day and I hope to bring good news!
Until next time!
Ken SirEcuador Says U.K. Threatened To Storm Embassy, If Assange Isn't Turned Over
Enlarge this image toggle caption Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
The diplomatic battle in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken a dramatic turn today: In an angry press conference streamed live on the Internet, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said Britain threatened to storm their embassy |
% TNT 1.71 -14% Discovery 1.55 11% HGTV 1.50 11% History 1.49 -19% AMC 1.38 4%
Viewership, in millions from 12/29/14 to 12/20/15, including 7-day DVR-delayed viewing. Source: Nielsen.
Top cable series
The Walking Dead (AMC) 19.5 Fear Walking Dead (AMC) 11.8 Game of Thrones (HBO) 9.5 Amer. Horror Story (FX) 6.7 Rizzoli & Isles (TNT) 6.6 Better Call Saul (AMC) 6.5 Into the Badlands (AMC) 6.5 Talking Dead (AMC) 6.1 Major Crimes (TNT) 5.9 Gold Rush (Discovery) 5.7
Viewership, in millions from 12/29/14 to 12/6/15, including 7-day DVR-delayed viewing. Source: Nielsen.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1OtAjnDPlease stop glorifying The Help & The Blind Side as progressive “diversity” movies. they are both literally movies made by white people for white people. Movies that took the narrative away from stories about black folks overcoming and changed it to white people saving black people from something that white people put them into in the first place. The Help is literally a rich white woman who’s never experienced racism a day in her life writing a FICTION from a black person’s perspective. How you gone tell me what it’s like to be black when you aint been black a day in your life? Further more how dare you make up a fictional story about MY history. Funny how she left out all the rape and abuse that those maids experienced from white people.
They’re all feel good white people movies and sure the fuck stop whipping them out for Black History Month like we appreciate them. Why don’t you get actual black history films, and non fiction ones as well. Why don’t you actually let BLACK people speak for BLACK people in our own BLACK history month.The Final Call | National News
Black union activists: Time to organize workers from the grassroots up
By Saeed Shabazz -Staff Writer- | Last updated: Jan 14, 2013 - 11:08:28 AM
What's your opinion on this article?
Bill Fletcher, Jr. long-time labor activist, and senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies recently authored a book titled “They’re Bankrupting Us - And 20 Other Myths About Unions” argues that unions are necessary for democracy and to ensure economic and social justice. In an earlier eBook “Reimaging Labor Unions: Busting Myths, Building Movements,” Mr. Fletcher said unions still play a vital role in American life.
However, Mr. Fletcher’s arguments may seem fleeting given the recent attacks against organized labor by Republican-dominated state Legislatures in the form of laws, such as the one passed in Michigan in Dec. 2012, barring public and private workers from being required to pay union fees as a condition of employment. Twenty-three states have laws restricting public workers’ right to bargain collectively.
“We have to build a new labor movement,” Mr. Fletcher explained to The Final Call. “We need a leadership that understands the labor crisis from the ground up—not this top-down module now in existence.” He also said that the traditional trade union may not be necessarily relevant to someone that’s unemployed or underemployed.
Dr. Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at the Univ. of Calif.-Berkeley told The Final Call that unions across the board have to change the way they relate to workers. “In this racially stratified society, union leadership must learn to deal with Black workers’ issues that oftentimes get lost, because unions only want to talk about wages not racism and discrimination,” Dr. Pitts said. “Race remains perhaps one of the most pressing issues for organized labor,” offers Mr. Fletcher
A March 2012 study which appeared in the American Journal of Sociology titled “Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the U.S.” it was stated that “African Americans join unions for protection against discriminatory treatment in nonunion sectors.”
Mr. Fletcher notes that one major nonunion sector in the U.S. today is Wal-Mart which he says is the largest employer in the USA, with an 18 percent Black workforce, and average salaries starting at $8.81 an hour.
Both Mr. Fletcher and Prof. Pitts, who earned his doctorate in economics, agree that Black and Latino workers continue to be on the sidelines of the organized labor movement in the U.S. The U.S. Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 15 percent of Black men and 14 percent of Black women were represented by a union in 2011, while the rate for Latino men was 10.8 percent, women at 10.7 percent.
Muhmet McClain, 63, is a retired construction union laborer in NYC, and he says that the union did nothing to help him maintain employment—often acting as if they really didn’t want his membership.
“If it weren’t for the community organization I joined back in 1990, I would never have worked long enough to retire with a pension,” he told The Final Call.
“I worked on Wall Street for 40 years, and I never knew a Black man could bring home $1,500 a week working as a laborer,” Mr. McClain admitted. “But, what is unbelievable are the roadblocks that the trade unions put up against Black and Latino workers,” he said.
“That’s because there is no labor movement, it’s been co-opted by the corporate fact-cats,” argues Jim Haughton, the octogenarian ‘Dean’ of the grassroots movement in NYC to Blacks and Latinos into the construction trades. A longtime labor activist and founder of Harlem Fight Back, who worked with A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Pullman Porters union, Mr. Haughton fought for the right of Blacks and Latinos to work on the construction of the original World Trade Center and the Harlem State Office Bldg.
“Today the plight of Black and Latino workers has us begging for jobs,” Mr. Haughton said. The DOL reports that in 2011 among full-time wage and salary workers – union median weekly income was $928—nonunion median salary $729.
Prof. Pitts understands Mr. Haughton’s position, and explains that is the reason for developing the National Black Workers Center Project with centers in New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Jackson, Miss., Los Angeles and Chicago. One of the stated purposes for the centers is to “promote a dialogue around innovative approaches to the Black job crisis”.
Saladin Muhammad of the North Carolina-based Blacks Workers for Justice told The Final Call: “What has become problematic in terms of the labor movement is that it has only identified itself as a trade union movement.” But, it is now apparent that the labor movement must become a new civil rights movement, he added.
Mr. Muhammad said that one of the conclusions from the three-day gathering, Dec. 7-9, 2012 in Charleston, NC, known as the Southern Workers Assembly was that a new labor movement must not just be about fighting for wages. “But, fight for empowerment at the workplace and in the community,” Mr. Muhammad said.
Royce Adams, a member of International Longshoreman Assoc. Local 1291 in Phila. argues that organized labor is in retreat. “But, that doesn’t mean that Black and Latino workers must follow suit,” he told The Final Call. “We have to use 2013 to get workers together, no more trade unionists not identifying with the service sector workers,” suggests Mr. Adams.
“The centers are perfect for us to just meet and discuss strategies,” Mr. Adams said.Faux-nobo: “Naked Bonobo” demolishes myth of sexy, egalitarian bonobos
Have you heard that bonobos are peaceful, matriarchal apes that use lots of free sex to obtain delightful egalitarian community? You’ve been lied to. The popular account of these wonderful apes is more faux-nobo than bonobo.
Last year, Lynn Saxon published “The Naked Bonobo“, a book debunking the feel-good, fact-light modern mythology surrounding bonobos in the public imagination. This is a review and summary of that book.
Preface
I have written twice on the subject of popular bonobo nonsense perpetuated by Christopher Ryan and the media. I recommend reading those short posts first [1] [2], particularly the second in which a primatologist who studies bonobos weighed in to correct the record (Questioning the Sexy Bonobo Hype, Part 2: A primatologist corrects Christopher Ryan).
If you’re just tuning in, this topic is highly politically-charged. Bonobo sexuality has been used (injudiciously, I would argue) to advance such worthy causes as greater sexual liberty, tolerance for polyamory, and reducing backward social norms of strict monogamy. My criticism isn’t motivated by opposition to these political and moral ideals- I support them. I think that Lynn Saxon would agree that this debunking is necessary because the faux-nobo mythos is dishonest, manipulative, anti-science, and feeds an unhealthy liberal dogmatism that misinforms the public and threatens free academic inquiry. Thus the original disclaimer from my first bonobo essay:
I am not arguing for monogamy or for conventional sex roles or any such thing, nor against casual sex. Indeed, the meaning that I think we should not trash is inclusive of the various arrangements. Regardless of the whys, humans have loads of variation in what sorts of relationships they want to have. Provide no harm is involved, adults should be at liberty to live as they choose and fornicate with whomever they wish to. We don’t need to believe anything about our species history to think that, we only need to reason about basic ethics of fairness and use a little common sense. All else the same, freedom is better. There’s no sound moral argument to the contrary, whether or not we survey what other apes think about it.
“Naked Bonobo” lives up to its title
Usually debunkings of pseudoscience and sensational claims are mundane, if satisfying. It usually sounds like “GMOs are fine” or “The psychic is a fraud.” Not this time. The truth about bonobos is more shocking, salacious, and captivating than the lies are. I knew that “Bonobo” was going to concern itself with correcting popular bonobo myths, but there were still many surprises. It’s one of the page-turniest debunkings I have ever read. As fascinating as the material is, Saxon delivers it with a steady grace and restrained humor that keeps it light, but not too light.
“The Naked Bonobo” is a meticulous summary of the published scientific sexuality and aggression research on bonobos. It is presented in a digestible pop-science book form. Saxon is to be commended for the herculean work of researching a sector of primatology and recounting it in this highly readable sub-200 page book.
Pt 2 both #TheClothedApe and #TheNakedBonobo are good reads. The Naked Bonobo has a very thorough review of bonobo socio-sexual behavior — Craig Stanford (@craigstanford7) April 12, 2016
Craig Stanford is Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at USC and Co-Director of the Jane Goodall Research Center
My strongest criticism is that the book bogs down in one or two points in which several statistics are presented serially within a passage. This makes for a thorough treatment, but it can be taxing on the reader. This information could probably have been presented better in other ways. However, this is a minor gripe that doesn’t detract from the overall product. I would also have liked an index.
Letter to the “wannabe”
The book addresses four popular beliefs about bonobos:
Bonobos are hypersexual apes… That are egalitarian and peaceful thanks to that hypersexuality. Bonobos are matriarchal, and that for all of these reasons… Humans are like or should envy bonobos.
Media sites reinforcing these beliefs: Huffington Post, Salon, LiveScience, CBS News.
These are seductive ideas for many progressivists and feminists. Saxon terms those who have been misled by deceptive bonobo popularizers “bonobo wannabes”. In the book, she regularly refers to the “wannabe”, challenging them to ponder if the bonobo way is really for them after all. The last chapter explores the logical entailments of the hyped “positive” aspects of faux-nobo, shattering the illusion using knowledge about actual bonobo life. It is sure to give any “wannabe” pause.
Saxon fact-checks the claims
A small sample of the evidences presented in “The Naked Bonobo”
1. Are bonobos hypersexual?
This is a bundle of related claims: sex is a “bonobo handshake”, bonobos are constantly interested in and having sex with whomever, and bonobos are more libidinous than chimpanzees or any other apes. According to Saxon, each of these claims is a great distortion of actual bonobo life:
At the Yerkes Regional Primate Center, observations led to the conclusion that sexual behavior occurred only when animals were fed... no sexual behavior was observed at any other time of the day between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. The bonobos even refrained from sex in 2 of the 17 observed feeding sessions. (p. 51)
A study of the E1 community covered 97 days… 109 copulations were recorded. …This total of 109 copulations over 97 days is hardly more than an average copulation rate of one per day amongst all of these bonobos. (p. 58-9)
This community included 19 sexually mature adults. That’s not ~1/day per bonobo, it is ~1/day for 19 adults. 88% of these observations took place away from the feeding site, which shows what a big difference the setting of observations can make.
A comparison of Gombe and Mahale chimpanzees with Wamba bonobos found the copulation rates of adult male bonobos to be equal to or lower than those of the adult male chimpanzees. As for the adolescent males, the young chimpanzees were getting more than their bonobo counterparts (Takahata e al. 1996).
What? Well, what about females?
…[oestrus] female bonobos were less actively interested in sex than were female chimpanzees. This finding has also been confirmed in a later study of the Kalunzi forest chimpanzees, as the females there were found to actively initiate sex more often than female bonobos (Furuichi and Hasimoto 2002). (p. 70)
In a study of the E1 community at Wamba, Furuichi found that 6 of the 10 females only mated when their swellings were at maximum firmness. (p. 68)
So what went wrong?
Observing bonobos in their remote forest habitat is very difficult. For this reason, writes Saxon, early research frequently focused on captive bonobos and artificial feeding sites. These groups were often quite small, had many sub-adult bonobos, and, of course, the captive bonobos were not living in natural settings. Juvenile and adolescent bonobos turned out to be far more sexually inclined than adults are. Rich concentrated food stores (artificial feeding sites) induce near-panic in bonobo groups and this provokes sexual behavior. It is not representative of typical bonobo life in the African wild.
2. Are bonobos egalitarian and peaceful due to their “make love not war” ways?
Let’s start with, are they peaceful? More than chimpanzees? Saxon writes that bonobos seem to be more peaceable than chimpanzees in a couple of respects. Chimpanzees form patrols and team up to battle rival groups. They do not tolerate overlapping ranges. Bonobos don’t patrol and tend to avoid contact with other groups; their ranges can overlap. Within groups, there is less lethal violence when fights do break out among bonobos and infanticide is rare at best.
That said, bonobo society is far from peaceful and bonobos are far from gentle.
Kano (1992) found a majority of one group’s individuals had “abnormalities” of the limbs, digits, ears, eyeballs, genitalia, and other parts. 28 counts of total loss of a finger or toe, 96 counts of partial loss. Only one of the 22 adult males had intact fingers and toes. 32 counts of ear lacerations which almost always result from fighting. (p. 117-8)
At Apenheul Zoo in the Netherlands, five female bonobos attacked a male and were seen gnawing on his toes; the flesh could be seen between their teeth as they chewed away. (p. 119)
At least two zookeepers have lost parts of digits (p. 119)
While releasing bonobos back into the wild after rehabilitation at a sanctuary, three trackers were attacked and mutilated. They lost noses, bits of fingers and one lost an ear. One of the men spent a month in the hospital and two required a year of reconstructive facial surgery. (p. 122)
Overall, male-male aggression rates are similar in chimpanzees and bonobos (p. 126)
Video: a gang of females attack an adolescent male as its mother tries to peel them off. The researchers observing said that the male appeared to have been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.” I wonder why these peaceful apes didn’t resolve their problem- a single adolescent male- with sex instead of mob violence.
Female aggression toward infants and other females
The alpha female at Twycross Zoo took the infant of the lowest ranking female, even though she was still nursing her own infant. After weeks of rough treatment at the alpha’s hands, she lost interest and the infant had to be removed for human rearing as it showed signs of “weakness and dehydration”. (p. 120-121)
There are at least 8 cases of infant abduction or victim of aggressive behavior at the Plankendael and Stuttgart zoos; the mothers of the stolen infants behaved nervously and showed signs of distress. While trying to get their infants back, some of the females would present for genito-genital rubbing. (p. 121)
Is there anything sexier than bartering a sex act for your baby’s life?
In one Lomako group, aggression between females was about 7 times higher when two or more oestrous females were in the party than when there was only one. (p. 124)
I thought that females were keeping the peace with sex, not causing fights over sex?
Next, are bonobos egalitarian? That is, are various goods and resources (food, sex, social support) more evenly distributed among individuals? Chimpanzees are thought to have the opposite arrangement, a more rigid rank system that greatly privileges the chimp elites. Saxon writes that bonobos are probably somewhat more egalitarian than chimpanzees, but much less so than is commonly supposed. Sometimes, it is not clear that there is a difference at all.
A female-biased sex ratio is taken to be evidence of male intrasexual competition. Competition is a physiologically taxing and risky enterprise that leads to early death for many males. The problem here is that, overall, the sex ratio of chimpanzees and bonobos is very similar.
Both females and males had higher mating rates when they were aggressors compared to when they were targets of aggression. (p. 124)
Bonobo society, including its females, rewards rank and aggression: Females strongly prefer high ranking males. When in oestrus, this preference intensifies. High ranking males are more aggressive, and actively block other males from access to fertile females.
Ranking female “wingmoms” aid their sons (but not daughters) in bullying and picking fights to advance their status. (p. 115)
Feeding is highly segmented by rank. Low ranking individuals may be charged or attacked if attempting to line-jump.
Female bonobos disperse to other groups around adolescence. When accepted in their new group, they solicit sex acts from higher ranking males at food sites. This behavior, and their total libido, drops substantially as they gain rank. In order words, they’re forced to barter sex for food. Not because they’re eager for sexual contact. When they don’t have to, they don’t. Few consider coerced prostitution a sign of gender equality.
3. Are bonobos matriarchal?
Some scholars would say that they are. Others disagree, asserting instead that rank and dominance aren’t really functions of sex. Saxon argues that across all bonobo studies, the idea that females are generally in charge and decide about who copulates with whom, is unsupported. Like the hyper-sexed image, these observations originated mostly in small, captive groups. In contrast, she writes, Research at both Lomako and LuiKotale has found little support for the view that females form these alliances to collectively defend themselves against males. [At LuiKotale] of the 136 acts of aggression by a male towards a female, only 2% led to a female coalition against the male (p. 157-8). Some other flies in the matriarchal ointment:
Females routinely treat other females with indifference, aggression, or outright brutality (see above).
Females are “sexy” often in a coercive context of needing to placate ranking females or males in order to eat or not suffer assault.
The primary beneficiaries of high female status are males: their sons. In what matriarchy do males inherit rank, but females do not?
High ranking males can outrank many females. The opposite does not happen in “patriarchal” chimpanzee society.
Rather than moderate, females often reward males for their aggression and dominance (as long as they are its beneficiary rather than its victim).
Egalitarianism means that rank hierarchies themselves are weak or absent. But it is impossible to sensibly discuss bonobo social life without constant awareness of rank and the associated social politics.
4. Should humans envy bonobos?
Perhaps the most important idea in this book is that the “great” parts of the faux-nobo lifestyle wannabes want us to emulate, properly understood, become disturbing if not nightmares outright:
“Sexy” bonobos have the most frequent sex as sub-adults and sexual contact between juveniles, infants, and adults is quite common and normal.
“Tension-reducing” sex among bonobos is most often not about fun. It is not about enthusiastic consent, but coercion on threat of aggression. Like humans, we know that bonobos have preferred sexual partners. But the social friction most likely occurs between two individuals who are not close or friendly. Bonobos are therefore required to offer sexual contact to individuals they do not like. Faced with an agitated, aggressive male you do not care for, how do you women feel about offering copulation to calm him? And men, how do you feel about offering a penis to rub or your rump for the same? This is the bonobo way.
The overwhelming majority of sexual actions involving genitals do not involve ejaculation or (so far as can be told) orgasm in bonobos. This includes masturbation and intercourse.
Paragon of inquiry
“The Naked Bonobo” is dissent done right: civil, competent, and constructive. While mildly cheeky with the “wannabe” framing device, the work is quite even-handed in its tone and charitable to those that it critiques. It contains no insults or recriminations. It foists no strawpersons, working to honestly represent the other side and to identify shared values and common ground where possible.
Saxon’s review of the literature is, by all indications, diligent and conscientious. She sent manuscripts to subject matter experts for feedback. She is quick to caution against hasty conclusions when the evidence is scant or ambiguous. She reminds the reader several times that we yet know very little about bonobos and must wait before getting too attached to notions about what they are like.
I would recommend “The Naked Bonobo” to anyone who cares at all about these apes. But it also stands as a skeptical exemplar that is instructive on how to debunk with integrity and class.
When the chimpanzee fell from grace as the peaceful vegetarian, who would have thought that lurking in the shadows was another hairy cousin, and a much better one at that.
“The Naked Bonobo” opens with this line. Saxon is retelling the history of the bonobo rise to stardom, but this is also a reminder that early ideas about chimpanzees often turned out to be woefully mistaken. What we know, or think that we know, can turn out to be wrong. That’s why it’s always a bad idea to base a moral value or a political goal on a conception of the facts. It can blow up in your face when that conception proves wrong. It can create a caustic ideology hostile to the truth and to academic inquiry. There is nothing sexy or egalitarian about that.
Further reading
Lynn Saxon’s blog | Goodreads
Swingers: Bonobos are celebrated as peace-loving, matriarchal, and sexually liberated. Are they? by Ian Parker | The New Yorker
Do bonobos really spend all their time having sex? by Henry Nicholls | BBC
In the Bonobo World, Female Camaraderie Prevails by Natalie Angier | New York TimesImage copyright PRONI Image caption The photographs include two of TE Lawrence astride the motorcycle he was fatally injured on in May 1935
A series of forgotten photographs of Lawrence of Arabia have been uncovered at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI).
TE Lawrence was made famous by his World War One exploits in the Middle East.
The images include two of him astride the motorcycle he was fatally injured on in May 1935 in Dorset.
He died six days after the incident, aged 46, only two months after leaving military service.
PRONI member of staff Colin Shaw said he found the photographs when he was researching a query.
The set of 58 pictures are from the notes and papers of Lawrence's biographer, Harford Montgomery Hyde, a former MP for Belfast North.
Mr Shaw said that although he had seen the David Lean directed film about Lawrence from the 1960s, he was amazed at how much more there was to the scholar, writer and soldier.
"For somebody who died at a relatively young age, 46, he achieved so much," he added.
"He was a practising archaeologist in the Middle East before he joined the army.
Image copyright PRONI Image caption Lawrence captured in Bridlington
"There is a lot of interest in the First World War at the moment because of the centenaries, so I was fascinated by his distinguished military career.
"After the war he experienced difficulties readjusting to post-war life, and enlisted in the RAF under the pseudonym of John Hume Ross, and then the Royal Tank Corps where he, again, enlisted under another pseudonym - T. E. Shaw."
'Pioneering study'
Mr Shaw added that Lawrence had "refused a knighthood, worked for Winston Churchill, and unlike the 6ft 3ins Peter O'Toole (who played him in the movie), he was only 5ft 5ins".
Image copyright PRONI Image caption This sketch was also among the items uncovered at the PRONI
"I subsequently found out that Hugh Cairns, the neurosurgeon who tended his injuries, would later write a pioneering study entitled 'Head injuries in motorcyclists - the importance of the crash helmet', which would led to the British Army ordering all despatch riders to wear safety helmets in November 1941," he said.
"I had no idea that there had been so much resistance to the wearing of helmets."Dear President Clinton:
I hold you as the greatest president to have served this country in my lifetime – not to mention being the coolest and the best musician. A great day for me was January 26, 2013, when a letter arrived on your official stationery and signed with your own pen (nice pen, by the way) regarding my book, Main Street Vegan. You wrote: “I’m delighted that you’re helping to make the vegan lifestyle more accessible and achievable for as many people as possible….”
You can imagine how dispirited I am that your recent appearance on Rachael Ray confirmed the rumors I’ve heard for months: you’ve given up on being vegan. Now, obviously, the way anyone eats is a personal choice, but I feel sad that you may never have been shown how this particular dietary choice is, well, way more than a diet. Sure, eating whole, plant-based foods is a profoundly healthful way for people to nourish themselves. It is the only practice – dietary or medical – proven, re-proven, and never disproven to reverse cardiovascular disease, the condition that got you looking at healthier eating to begin with. But it goes so much further, all the way to the essence of holistic health. How can we be genuinely healthy when we’re causing others to suffer?
There are plenty of ways to approach nutrition for general health and certainly for weight loss. Any of them is likely to be superior to the SAD (Standard American Diet), widely known for its soda and fried chicken, its pizza and Buffalo wings, and the 21st century “cup of coffee,” a 16-ounce caffeinated milkshake. But only in getting the animals off our plates are we eating for integrity as well as health. I know of no other dietary choice that puts compassion ahead of convenience.
In addition, only by moving away from animal agriculture can we stem the tide – if it’s not too late – of environmental disaster. I’m sure you’re as familiar as I am with the assessments of the UN and the World Bank that raising animals for food is the number one human-induced cause of climate change, not to mention water use and water pollution, topsoil erosion and rainforest loss.
Focusing on fish doesn’t solve the problem. Ninety percent of the fish that once swam our oceans have been fished away in the past century. The oceans are emptying so rapidly that the scientific consensus is that by 2048 there will be, for all practical purposes, no fish in the sea.
One of the statements you reportedly made on TV was: “It’s hard being a vegan to get enough good quality protein…”I know your current physician is of the low-carb school of thought. Dietary philosophies are largely that: philosophies. You’ve dealt with philosophies all your life, and with politicians clinging to one ideology or another, sometimes despite the facts, or when everybody had some piece of the truth and together might have had it all. Diets – and doctors – aren’t much different.
In this country, vegans get more than enough protein; non-vegans get way more than enough – and the excess may not be a good thing. Among the vegan athletes apparently getting protein of sufficient quality are MMA’s Mac Danzig, the NFL’s David Carter, strongman Patrik Baboumian who walked 10 meters (32.8 feet) with 550 kilograms (just over 1212 pounds) on his shoulders, and ultramarathoner Rich Roll who did five Ironman-style events in a week.
You also said, “I know a lot of fat vegans…” Come on, Bill: you know a lot of fat Democrats and you’re not leaving the party. When I went vegan back in the 80s, it seemed that everybody who did it lost weight – I’ve kept off sixty pounds since Reagan was in office. These days there are all kinds of vegan convenience and snack foods so vegans can choose to be as fat as other Americans. Democracy in action!
Those of us who want to be trim and fit limit the amount of processed foods we eat, and favor instead vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, and some nuts and seeds. Grains? OMG, aren’t grains the carbo-devil? Well, they haven’t been for all the human populations they’ve kept alive for millennia, but you know what? They’re not required. Raw-food vegans rarely eat them, and those whose take on veganism is more eco-Atkins (higher protein and fat, lower carb) go easy on them too. There’s plenty of food left to eat.
It’s all so American: about choice. And self-determination. Forging your destiny. And statistically, plant-eaters are still the BMI champs. In the huge Adventist Health Study-2, looking at dietary patterns of omnivores, fishivores (pesco-vegetarian is a contradiction in terms), lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and vegans, only the last group came in under the mean for being overweight.
As my husband – a grown-up Missouri boy who lived on steaks and burgers when I met him – said when we discussed this: “Being vegan isn’t about being thin. It’s about compassion and respect for all living beings.” And yet, compassion, blended with a modicum of good sense, has side effects. For me, these include effortlessly keeping off weight for a really long time, and being free of pathologies and pharmaceuticals.
Instead of retiring next month, which the calendar and the Social Security Administration say I could do, I’m planning the tour for my next book, The Good Karma Diet, and moving into production with a feature film, Miss Liberty. She’s a fictional cow who escapes from a slaughterhouse. Because more and more people are waking up to the fact that if we don’t have to kill in order to eat, let’s not.
When you wrote to me two years ago, you concluded your note with “All my best for continued health and happiness in the year ahead,” and I wish that to you right now.
~ Victoria Moran
Victoria Moran is longtime vegan, author, and radio host, as well as the director of Main Street Vegan Academy. Her 12th book, The Good Karma Diet, is available now for preorder. Follow her various goings-on on Twitter: @Victoria_Moran, @MainStreetVegan, @MissLiberty.Edmonton has officially dropped what advocates call a nearly impossible requirement for neighbourhood speed limit campaigns.
For years, it seemed Edmonton’s speed reduction program was written specifically to discourage applications. It required a 100-per-cent response rate to a survey asking neighbourhood residents if they would vote Yes or No to a 40 km/h speed limit.
In the future, the response requirement will only be 30 per cent, with two-thirds in support of the change, according to a private memo to council from transportation operations branch manager Gord Cebryk.
The 100-per-cent response rate — which theoretically includes landlords living out of town or even out of the country — “was very difficult to achieve,” said Cebryk. He was unavailable for further comment Monday.
“It looked to us like it was intentionally difficult,” said Allan Bolstad, former executive director of the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues.
The federation has been lobbying for a lower residential speed limit across the city since a 2010 city pilot project in six neighbourhoods proved popular. In five neighbourhoods, the majority of residents surveyed by city staff wanted to keep it, but only three met the two-thirds support requirement set by administration, Bolstad said.
Since then, no one has been able to meet the city’s 100-per-cent response rate for community support, though 45 communities expressed interest and nine meet the city’s internal criteria for traffic and speeding numbers, according to an email sent from transportation officials to Coun. Mike Nickel’s office.
Those nine neighbourhoods are Aspen Gardens, Bonnie Doon, Forest Heights, Holyrood, Laurier Heights, Queen Mary Park, Strathcona, Prince Charles and Hazeldean.
The change is a relief for Troy Pavlek, president of the Hazeldean Community League. He didn’t know he was fighting a near-impossible battle. He’s been door-knocking for months, trying to get signatures while running into dead ends asking city officials how many he actually needed.
As of Monday, he has 465 responses, 70 per cent in favour of lowering the limit, in a neighbourhood with 1,461 residences.
“Thirty per cent is hard. I’ve hit every door in Hazeldean and I’m at just over 30 per cent (response rate),” said Pavlek, who is also running for council against Nickel. “We don’t get that many people to vote in elections.”
Hazeldean roads are too narrow for a 50-km/h limit, Pavlek said, arguing the neighbourhood will be safer if drivers go slower.
Because the province sets all default speed limits to 50 kilometres per hour within city limits, changing limits by neighbourhood can cost $100,000 in traffic signs. The city needs signs at every entrance and throughout the neighbourhood.
Upcoming provincial changes might make the policy moot.
Municipal Affairs has suggested it might allow Edmonton and Calgary to set their own default speed limits in new city charters. That decision is expected next spring, but provincial spokesman Tim Seefeldt said this and similar traffic safety initiatives had strong support during the recent public consultation on the charters.
If that happens, speed limits could be an interesting election issue, said Bolstad. He’d like to see 40 km/h as a default speed with collector or arterial road posted 50 km/h or higher.
Many councillors have spoken in favour of dropping residential speed limits, and voted to formally consult the public. That report is due back at council in the spring.
Nickel said he supports a lower speed limit if that’s what local residents want. But it shouldn’t be just about speed. Traffic calming, painted crosswalks and pedestrian lights, “these are the kinds of tools we have at our disposal,” he said. “The 40 km/h thing can’t be just about a number.”
estolte@postmedia.com
twitter.com/estolteWallz Copenhagen is a concept for rethinking wall art as we know it. This is an art form with no limits to size, shape, style or images, it is entirely up to each individual how to use it and what to make of it
Not to worry, you do not have to be creative at all to enjoy this
How it works:
Go find you favourite design at the constantly growing online design library
at the constantly growing online design library Download the easy to follow template on your computer, tablet or smartphone
on your computer, tablet or smartphone Place the tiles directly on your wall according to the template
directly on your wall |
but up until the news, the token was still generating around $750,000 worth of trades. The price crash has left BT2 holders severely out of pocket which traders who took up significant BT2 positions losing the vast majority of their money.
Trading in cryptocurrency futures is extremely risky and it must be remembered that traders must offer up cryptocurrencies that they own, to trade a token that may never exist. Traders purchased BT2 expecting it to be transferred into B2X, the SegWit2x version of Bitcoin. This never took place, and speculators must remember never to put in more than they are willing to lose.V/A - Hit It Till It Bleeds (2014)
Here is a comp I made in 2014. I spent a month on Bandcamp listening to as many bands as possible under the "Noise Rock" & "Post-Punk" tags. This is the end result. 22 Bands from all over the globe.
01. Whores (Atlanta, GA) - Baby Bird
02. Auxes (Hamburg, Germany) - I Can't Stand You Any Longer
03. Cutthroats 9 (San Francisco, CA) - Dissension
04. Gay Kiss (Phoenix, AZ) - March Of The Pigs
05. Hands Up Who Wants To Die (Ireland, UK ) - No Big Deal
06. hepa-Titus (Los Angeles, CA) - Adam's Boogie
07. Arabrot (Rogaland, Norway) - Throwing Rocks At The Devil
08. Kowloon Walled City (San Francisco, CA) - Beef Cattle
09. Megachurch (Cleveland, OH) - The Gay Agenda
10. Hoarse (Melbourne, Australia) - I Sit In The Background
11. Davidians (Raleigh, NC) - Bummer Tent
12. Baxter Stockman - (Helsinki, Finland) - Ten Rock
13. Qui (Los Angeles, CA) - Mucho Sex In America
14. Merkabah (Warsaw, Poland) - The King
15. Magneto (Bordeaux, France) - Feel It
16. PigsAsPeople (Belfast, UK) - Dismemberments
17. Couch Slut (NYC, NY) - Lust Chamber
18. KEN mode (Winnipeg, Canada) - Your Heartwarming Story
19. Pord (Marvejois, France) - I'm Swimming Home
20. Throat (Turku, Finland) - Gift Gas
21. Mutoid Man (NYC,NY) - Friday The 13/8
22. Pile (Boston, MA) - The Browns
*As always, if you hear something you really like consider going to Bandcamp and throwing a few dollars the bands way.
VOLUME TWO COMING SOONA “substantial” number of Labour MPs do not think that Ed Miliband can win the next election, a senior Labour MP has said.
Diane Abbott has said many of her party’s MPs had “given up hope” that Labour would beat the Conservatives in 2015 and “most” harboured fears about Mr Miliband’s election prospects.
Miss Abbott said it was “problematic” for Mr Miliband that most of his shadow cabinet had not voted for him to be leader of their party.
The comments from the former frontbencher and mooted future Mayor of London will hit Mr Miliband who has been actively trying change the public perception over his image problem and deflect criticism of his leadership style.
The Standard reported that Miss Abbott attended a Labour fundraising dinner in West London Miss Abbott and was asked about the mood “inside the tent” of the Labour party at the moment.
She replied: “Most MPs are worried that we won’t win in May – and that’s not based on figures. Lets’s say a substantial minority of Labour MP’s don’t think we can win in May – despite the fact that statistically it can look like that. But then they tend to be MPs from outside of London.
“Ed’s problem, one of his problems, is that he had a shadow cabinet and most of them didn’t vote for him, so that is problematic.”
Miss Abbot said Ed Balls posed an issue for the party because he “reminds people of the Brown years” and allows Conservatives to attack their record on the economy.
She added: “It allows the Tories to say over and over again, ‘these were the people who crashed the car.’ But actually he is very able.”
Miss Abbott said she recognised the remarks but that that they had been taken out of context and insisted she and most Labour MPs were confident Mr Miliband would win May’s election.
She told The Evening Standard: “All the polls point steadily in the direction of Ed Miliband winning the election, I did say some Labour MPs are worried, but I don’t think they are the substantial minority.”
Last week Frank Dobson, another Labour veteran and a former cabinet minister, admitted that Mr Miliband’s Cabinet were “useless” and were failing in their mission to “knock lumps” of their opposition numbers.
His team, he said, were “not of sufficient quality and clarity” to fight a successful election campaign.Something is always at stake for someone, somewhere; four years ago, it was no different, but four years ago there was the sense that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for rationality, for humanity, for equality. Because he looked like me—he was brown—and then there was the eloquence of his speeches, sonorous and stinging, and the cool way he carried himself, the string-bean stature. The speeches were great speeches, speeches I downloaded and burned to disc for members of my family, speeches that still live on my hard drive.
In retrospect, that campaign season is a pregnant-pause blur riddled with incessant political talk, rallying emails, message-board throw downs. My wife would ask my son who we wanted to see become president; he would say “Obama,” and point at the screen whenever the junior Senator from Illinois appeared on television. Everything felt palpable and insane and explosive. There were mobs of Obama supporters out on medians on Electron Day after I left work, chanting and pumping their fists.
Then he won, and amidst some triumphs came the first of many capitulations. Even the most jaded of liberals—we who smirked inwardly at the early “Judas!” cries of the college-age kids who volunteered on the campaign—felt our hopes and dreams crumble slowly to dust as Obama went Clinton on us, governing from the center and leaving key Bush II doctrines in place. Wary empathy became worry, which turned into a cold-fury anger that gave way, eventually, to resignation, then indifference. All those kids who volunteered for Obama four years ago are organizing for the Occupy movement or rocking Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music in their cubicles today.
In 2008, scoring and securing an Obama/Biden bumper sticker was a mission, a point of pride. In 2012, scoring and securing an Obama/Biden bumper sticker is hardly as high a priority. Scouring campaign briefs and reports—even the erudite ones on this site—is like having teeth pulled, and thinking about it is worse: it’s difficult not to believe that we’re all doomed regardless of how things turn out. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s time that could be better spent building one’s own career or pursuing a creative enterprise or rearing children or moving to Canada.
Nobody I know is talking about this election, because everyone realizes that even the most worthy candidates for the highest political office in this country are no match for business lobbies, poisonous partisanship, and an empire in its early death throes. The truth is that we all probably knew better, but some part of us needed to believe.It seems strange, but cold, thin wires are one of the best materials when an artist wants to represent the human form. These elegant and fluid wire sculptures by Richard Stainthorp, an artist based in Richmond in the U.K., seem like dancers or woodland spirits captured in mid-stride.
Wires are perfect for imitating the muscles and curves that we associate with the human body. As excellent as Stainthorp is with this sculptural medium, he isn’t the only artist who’s discovered its many uses – we have an entire list of wire sculpture experts.
To see more of Stainthorp’s artwork, be sure to check out his website! Read on for his answers to Bored Panda’s questions about his work.
More info: Facebook | stainthorp-sculpture.com (h/t: mymodernmet)
“Wire is an extremely difficult medium to work with,” Richard Stainthorp told Bored Panda. “It is not automatically what one would consider as a ‘material’ for creating solid, three dimensional sculptures. It was the fact that it was so difficult that made it a challenge for me”
“I knew that if I could get a sculpture looking right from all angles then I would have mastered the material, however 16 years later I am yet to achieve that goal, although I’ve been close at times. It is this challenge that is my ongoing motivation”
“My work is all about the beauty of the human form. I chose to use more detailed female forms for achieving the ‘correct from all angles’ goal, as replicating a smooth curve and getting it right with a dense mass of wire, from all angles, is almost impossible, but a great challenge”
“Most of my male forms or ‘unisex’ forms are action pieces, where the sex, or fine detail is of secondary importance to the sense of movement, or the emotion I want to portray in a particular piece”
“Most of my work is the result of experimenting with different poses, and I have a long progression of work that has built up to the exact poses and forms I currently use. For example, female forms with highly arched backs – because of the nature of wire as a sculptural medium, it became clear over time that slightly exaggerated poses resulted in more life-like pieces”
“It is something to do with the contrast between a completely foreign material and the pose itself that seems to combine to make something realistic, and because wire is such a strange material compared to, for example, clay or stone, the pose needs to be exaggerated more than corresponding sculptures in these materials, to attain that balance that makes something seem ‘real'”
Thank you, Richard Stainthorp, for talking to Bored Panda about your work!SIBALE ISLAND, Romblon—Armed with knives and long bamboo sticks with pointed ends, residents of this isolated island in the central Philippines mount nightly patrols to protect its dwindling goat population against deadly attacks of suspected werewolves, a senior police official said on Tuesday. Insp. Brian Odien, Sibale chief of police, said hundreds of volunteers in nine barangays, working under the supervision of policemen, make regular patrols in their areas looking for the werewolves, which have killed more than 200 goats, sucking the blood and tearing out only the heart and liver. “Sa ngayon po, puspusan ang pagsagawa ng patrolya, public information tips para malagay sa ligtas ang kanilang alagang kambing, ugnayan ng kapulisan at ng barangay officials lalo sa mga tanod upang magsagawa ng ronda lalo na sa gabi,” Odien said. The mysterious animals attack only on nights before the full moon. The last attack was on July 9 in Barangays Poblacion and San Vicente where a total of 27 goats were killed. Residents wanted nightly patrols because of fear that the werewolves would attack humans after the goats were gone. People started to accept the werewolves story because of “sightings of the mysterious animal that looked like dogs, but bigger and they move differently.” Department of Agriculture Regional Director Cipriano Santiago ordered an inventory of the goat population in the island and the list of farmers, who lost their goats since 2012, according to municipal agriculturist Nelia Yap.She said 57 farmers lost a total of 209 goats in the past two years and the Department of Agriculture will replace the animals, which were killed by “dogs or creatures pretending to be dogs. Odien said the goats were easy preys because they were free to roam in this small island of 4,500, which can be reached by six hour ride on outrigger boat from the provincial capital of Romblon. “People have been advised to hold their goats in a fenced area or under their houses where they can be given protection,” Odien said. He called on people to immediately report sightings of mysterious animals or unusual movements in their neighborhoods and to ensure the safety of members of their families inside their homes. “People have been told not to confront the animal on their own but to call for help,” Odien said.Some Republican convention delegates are complaining that pro-Trump thugs harassed and threatened them for not falling into line behind the nominee.
This is not a new phenomenon; there’s even a Delegate Defense Hotline set up by the Ted Cruz campaign in April that bullied delegates can call.
Kera Birkeland, a delegate from Utah, said she was confronted by two women in the bathroom at the Quicken Loans Arena Monday night. “They yelled at me, called me names,” she wrote on Facebook. “They said I should die. They said the police should be pulled from the Utah delegation and we should all die. They never touched me. They did not say they would kill me. They just said I should die.”
Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, joked about the incident on Tuesday. “I think I have a pretty good sense of what’s going on in this convention, but I haven’t gone in to the bathrooms yet,” he told reporters.
Birkeland was part of a group of delegates who unsuccessfully called for a roll call vote on the convention’s rules on Monday – widely seen as the last gasp of a #Nevertrump movement. Birkeland initially supported Rand Paul for president, then Ted Cruz.
Tommy Valentine, a 22-year-old Virginia delegate, told ThinkProgress that representatives from the Trump campaign threatened him about the petition for a roll call vote: “I had one Trump staffer who came to me and said, ‘When Trump becomes president, he will remember,’” Valentine said. “They were going around to the delegates who would sign the documents intimidating them and telling them to take their names off it.”
Last week Trump backer Carl Paladino sent an email to Stefani Williams, a delegate from Utah. “You should be hung for treason Stefani,” Paladino wrote. “There will not be a Republican Party if you attempt to replace Trump. I’ll be in your face in Cleveland.”
Back in April, Tom John, a “Never Trump” delegate from Indiana, received an email: “You know traditional burial is polluting the planet. Tom hope the family is well.”
And Trump ally Roger Stone said that delegates who didn’t support Donald Trump in Cleveland would find trouble. “We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” he said.
At that point, the Trump campaign denounced the threats: “They’re deplorable and we condemn any kind of act of intimidation or any kind of threat. There’s no place for that in politics,” Trump Indiana co-chairman Tony Samuel told CNN.
But in late April, not long before he quit the race, Ted Cruz sent an email to supporters announcing a hotline called the Delegate Defense Hotline, intended to make sure that Republicans who did not support Trump would be safe in Cleveland. The Cruz campaign also launched a Delegate Defense Fund, asking for help to raise $500,000.
“Those of us who play by the rules, stick to our principles and fight hard to defend liberty and freedom do not deserve to be attacked by Donald trump (sic) and his goon squad,” Cruz wrote in the email.
When you call the hotline, the phone doesn’t ring; it goes straight to the answering machine: “You’ve reached the official Ted Cruz for President delegate defense line which has been set up for our supporters to report any intimidation, threats, or attacks on them or their families by supporters of Donald Trump. Please leave a detailed message about any issues you’ve faced as well as the best way to reach you and we will be in touch as soon as we can. Thank you for your support of Ted Cruz for President.”
The Intercept called the hotline 12 times and left three voicemails, but got no response. The Intercept also reached out to Cruz’s presidential campaign office, his Senate campaign office, and his Senate office but did not receive responses. Cruz received 559 delegate votes, compared to Trump’s 1,543.
As for Birkeland, she said she’s getting over the encounter.“It shook me at first,” she wrote on Facebook. “I came out of the bathroom crying, which is how people from Utah found out. The story spread. News crews caught me crying. I was just in shock. But I was and I am ok. Yesterday, while riding the bus downtown, a democrat said to me; “You’re a young republican, we should kill you before you produce off spring”. (sic) It’s just been a great two days.”I’m a sucker for Bay Rum. There’s just something about the scent that says to me “freedom,” “rogue,” and “classic”all at the same time. Maybe it evokes a bit of the image of the classic rakehell for me. So when BebeLush asked me to try their Bay Rum shaving soap, naturally I obliged.
Bebelush Bay Rum
BebeLush’s Bay Rum is a bit different from the “classic” scent, with a pronounced orange citrus note on the puck. Lathered up the scent “flip-flops” for me: it’s more of an orange scent with a pronounced Bay Rum note! Either way it is a pleasant, lingering scent (but it does not linger too long). The ingredients also list clove essential oil along with shea, cocoa, and mango. No synthetic fragrances, dyes, or preservatives are used.
The lather is very good–perhaps not quite as luxurious as some other artisan-made soaps I have, but that’s a nit pick because I found the performance excellent. I am able to get my normal, multi-pass shave completed with plenty of lubrication and cushion. And lather builds reasonably quickly, even with my hard water.
BebeLush Bay Rum shaving soap should appealing if you enjoy Bay Rum or citrus-scented products.A $50,000 bid could get you a barge on the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga, though you'd have to move it.
An attorney for a company owned by Chattanooga businessman Allen Casey proposes in U.S. Bankruptcy Court papers to put the controversial barge up for sale for no less than $50,000.
David Fulton said in court papers that a prospective buyer also will need insurance for any damage caused in relocating the run-down barge, which Casey had hoped to turn into a riverfront restaurant and bar.
Bankruptcy Court Judge Shelley Rucker has set a hearing for 10 a.m. Thursday on Fulton's request.
The court papers also said that a lawyer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has revoked the vessel's permit, is looking at fixing a date by which the barge must be moved, or it will hire a contractor to do so.
Fulton said the corps attorney didn't give him the date. The corps declined to weigh in, saying that it "can't address the status of an ongoing enforcement action or comment on pending litigation."
Fulton said he set the $50,000 figure after another attorney representing a group of investors suing Casey indicated there was a potential buyer who would pay that amount.
A former restaurant barge, purchased by Allen Casey and docked at his property on the North Shore of the Tennessee River for several years, is seen from the Olgiati Bridge. A former restaurant barge, purchased by Allen Casey... Photo by John Rawlston /Times Free Press.
"I made it the floor," Fulton said.
Attorney Gary Patrick, who represents the investors, has challenged the assertion that Casey company River City Resort owns the barge. He has said that his clients have ownership, and that Casey can't sell what he doesn't own.
In March, the corps ordered the vessel be removed from its mooring on the river next to a vacant tract of land across from Ross's Landing.
But Casey and his company later filed bankruptcy petitions as they faced a civil trial in Hamilton County Chancery Court over the lawsuit brought by the investors. Patrick said Casey and his company defrauded his clients relating to a portion of the 11-acre tract, claims that Casey has denied.
Casey had the barge floated to Chattanooga from Pittsburgh in 2009. Nothing was built on it and it became dilapidated, drawing wide criticism and calls for its removal.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.A new survey has identified tens of thousands of bits of debris — mostly plastic — along the shorelines of the main Hawaiian islands. (Hawaii DLNR)
A new study of the Hawaiian Islands has made a disturbing, if not entirely surprising, discovery: Hawaii’s paradisal beaches have a major plastic problem. The results of an aerial survey, released this week by the state’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), identified more than 20,000 bits of debris on the main Hawaiian islands — and most of it is plastic, a form of waste that’s considered particularly harmful to marine life.
The study, which was commissioned by the DLNR and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization, aimed to determine how much debris from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which struck Japan in 2011 and is perhaps most famous for triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster, was washing up on Hawaiian shores. Debris from the tsunami has turned up throughout the Pacific over the past few years, and the new survey was intended to serve as part of a wider effort to investigate the ecological effects of tsunamis.
Between August and November 2015, researchers conducted surveys by plane, using mapping software to identify debris along the shorelines. Although the researchers didn’t walk along the shore examining debris by hand, they achieved a high image resolution from their flights, at about 2 centimeters per pixel. They classified each bit of debris by size, with the largest bits having an area greater than two square meters — about 21 square feet — and the smallest ones being less than half a square meter, or about 5 square feet.
The survey found that very little of the debris on the Hawaiian coastline was associated with the 2011 tsunami. In fact, most of it seemed to be ordinary garbage carelessly tossed away by humans.
Altogether, the island of Niihau suffered the most, with nearly 8,000 pieces of debris identified along its shores, 46 percent of which was plastic. Most of the shoreline had a trash density of anywhere from one to 175 bits of debris per square mile, and the majority of the debris spotted fell into the smallest size category.
The island of Molokai was the runner up, with nearly 3,000 bits of debris. Oahu, on the other hand, fared the best, with just 984 bits of debris identified by the survey — although a whopping 63 percent of it was made of plastic.
Although the density of trash on the beach is almost certainly worse in other places, the biggest takeaway from the survey is that plastic accounted for so much of it. All in all, plastic accounted for 47 percent of the debris identified on the Hawaiian shorelines. Other objects found include buoys and fishing lines, tires, foam and other bits of wood, metal, and fabric.
Plastic pollution in the oceans is a rising concern among environmentalists because of the serious harm it can cause to marine organisms. Plastic debris is frequently found tangled up in the stomachs of birds who mistook it for food or wrapped around the bodies of drowned sea turtles and other swimming animals.
One of the biggest concerns in recent years has been the issue of microplastics — these are tiny bits of plastic, less than 5 millimeters in diameter. The problem with plastic is that it doesn’t decompose in the way that organic material does. Instead, when it’s dumped into the ocean or other bodies of water, it tends to break down over time into smaller and smaller pieces. These tiny bits of plastic can easily be mistaken for food by birds, small fish or filter feeders, such as clams and sea cucumbers.
This is bad enough, as plastic obviously carries no nutritional value for the animals who eat it — but certain types of plastics are also known to pick up other types of chemical contaminants in the water, making them especially toxic. Scientists suspect that they might then leach these toxins into the bodies of animals who consume them. So far, there’s been a major lack of research on the ecological effects of microplastics, but recent studies have suggested that they might bring about reproductive problems in oysters, reduce survival in baby fish and cause a variety of similar complications in other shellfish, marine worms and even algae.
Altogether, research has suggested that millions of metric tons of plastic make their way into the oceans each year. And a report earlier this year from the World Economic Forum predicted that plastic in the oceans might outweigh fish, pound for pound, by the year 2050.
The findings on the Hawaiian islands are just the latest symptom of the world’s plastic problem. In a statement on the survey’s findings, Hawaii’s DLNR Chair Suzanne Case said: “Hawaii is recognized around the world for our beautiful beaches. Unfortunately we cannot say they are pristine, because they’ve been so seriously impacted by our trash.”
And it’s not necessarily just trash that’s been generated by people on the Hawaiian islands, either. The report points out that Hawaii is in a part of the Pacific strongly affected by a system of rotating ocean currents known as the Central Pacific Gyre, which is fed by currents stretching from Japan to California.
“Because a circulating body of water collects debris in its center, the coastlines of Hawaii receive significant quantities of debris each year,” the report notes. The survey found that much of the resulting debris tends to wash up on the islands’ northern- and eastern-facing shores.
The report adds that the debris problem could threaten human health by creating obstacles for boating and other forms of recreation. And, ultimately, it could have major detrimental effects on Hawaii’s economically important tourism industry. But perhaps most important, the findings highlight what many scientists and conservationists are citing as an increasingly alarming environmental problem — one that could have far-reaching consequences on marine ecosystems for years to come.
Read more at Energy & Environment:
The world is about to install 700 million air conditioners. Here’s what that means for the climate
Over a third of coral is dead in parts of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists say
Some states may be making a big mistake about rooftop solar
For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.Guards have intercepted two carrier pigeons carrying mobile phones to detainees at a prison in Sorocaba, 62 miles from Sao Paolo, a spokesman for the state penitentiary system said.
"Penitentiary agents found the pigeons outside the Danilo Pinheiro prison but, fortunately, the birds did not have time to enter the prison building with the material," said Rosana Alberto.
Each pigeon was carrying a small bag containing a mobile phone and charger, she said. The birds were caught on two successive days, last Wednesday and Thursday.
The use of pigeons to smuggle contraband into jail is the latest twist in a ongoing struggle by criminal networks to deliver forbidden goods into Brazil's prisons.
Criminal organizations like "Red Commando" in Rio de Janeiro or the "First Commando of the Capital" in Sao Paulo, which are well established in the detention centres, have extensive supply networks.
In the past they have use accomplices, from lawyers to corrupt prison guards, to smuggle in drugs, weapons and mobile phones to the detainees, according to the police.
The goods are then traded or used to organise crimes from inside the jails.2.02% may not seem like much compared to Windows, but compared to MacOS with 3.07%, Linux is looking very good. And speaking of Linux and MacOS, recently, the Defender's Quest Steam Linux sale results were made public, revealing that Linux users have made 16% of the sales, while MacOS users only 6%, showing once again that Linux shouldn't be underestimated.
According to the survey stats, the most used Linux distribution is Ubuntu 12.10 64bit (0.71%), followed by Ubuntu 12.10 32bit (0.19%) and Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS 64bit (0.31%). In total, Ubuntu accounts for 1.71% of the whole Steam OS market share, followed by Linux Mint (which, by the way, is the only Linux distribution in the stats, besides Ubuntu and a generic "Linux 64bit" with 0.14%) with 0.17%. There's also an "other" section with 0.82% which I'm sure it includes various other Ubuntu versions and other Linux distributions.The complete Steam Hardware & Software Survey stats can be found HEREMoney promised for federal programs but never spent, referred to as "lapsed funds," is a normal part of the budgeting process and has nothing to do with politics, federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver says.
"It's not unusual for money to lapse from one year to the next," Oliver said in Summerside, P.E.I.
"We have a $291-million budget and sometimes programs aren't ready to receive the money, so this is the sort of thing that happens every year. It's not a political decision, it's more of an administrative, bureaucratic result."
Oliver's comments came as the government fended off criticism that it did not spend $97 million in 2013-14 that it had earmarked for a series of key social programs, including one to fight youth unemployment and another to help the disabled.
The shortfall amounted to more than five per cent of the budget for programs at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), CBC News reported based on an internal document obtained under access to information laws.
Opposition called reckless
The minister for ESDC dismissed sharp questions in the House of Commons by suggesting opposition parties are spendthrifts.
"The NDP and the Liberals judge their success by the amount of taxpayers' money they can spend recklessly," he said during question period. "We judge our success by the results for the young people we help."
New Democrat MP Jinny Sims said the lapsed funds at ESDC are part of a larger pattern in which departments attempt to save dollars on the backs of the vulnerable while helping to pay down the deficit.
"From veterans to the unemployed, they make big promises and then they break them," she said. "They made the photo-op commitment and then they didn't spend the money."
Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, later suggested that the lapsed funding is a sign of good economic management.
"We're not going to go on a spending frenzy at the end of the budget year," he told host Evan Solomon on CBC News Network's Power & Politics. "We've come in under budget on certain programs.… This isn't an unusual thing."The world’s second largest cellular carrier Britain’s Vodafone says many countries have unfettered access to private communications. (Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)
Britain’s Vodafone revealed Friday that several governments are collecting surveillance data directly from its networks without any legal review and publicly urged more safeguards against such unfettered access to the private communications of its customers.
The declarations, made by the world’s second-largest cellular carrier, show that the type of access to telecommunications networks enjoyed by the U.S. National Security Agency also occurs in other countries where legal protections almost certainly are lower. Vodafone’s networks span much of Europe and parts of Africa and Asia.
The company said that voice, Internet and other data could be collected without any court review in “a small number” of nations. Although the company does not name them, news reports suggested that one is Britain, whose GCHQ intelligence agency is a close partner of the NSA in filtering the world’s Internet traffic.
“It is a healthy reminder that no amount of legal reform in the United States will solve the problem if there isn’t an international solution,” said Peter Eckersley, director of technology projects for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that is based in San Francisco.
Vodafone’s statements, coming in the company’s first report on data demands made by authorities in the countries where it operates, were unusually pointed, detailed and sober by the standards of the “transparency reports” issued by a growing number of companies since the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The Vodafone report includes an 88-page annex detailing laws and experiences in 29 nations where, collectively, government agencies have made millions of data requests of the company.
In several of those countries — South Africa, Turkey, Egypt and others — publishing even such rudimentary totals of requests are prohibited by law. The report merely summarizes the legal standards there rather than quantifying the extent of government data collection.
“Refusal to comply with a country’s laws is not an option,” the company said in its report. “If we do not comply with a lawful demand for assistance, governments can remove our licence to operate, preventing us from providing services to our customers. Our employees who live and work in the country concerned may also be at risk of criminal sanctions, including imprisonment.”
Privacy advocates praised Vodafone for issuing such a thorough report but expressed dismay about the revelations of “direct access” that allowed governments to intercept any communication without seeking a court order or making a formal request to the company. Governments could use such access to collect increasingly massive troves of personal information — voice calls, e-mails, video chats, search histories and online address books — without any form of oversight.
“This is the kind of practice that needs to end,” said Eric King of Privacy International, an activist group based in London.
Governments have been gaining increasingly intrusive access to communications for at least two decades, when the United States and other nations began passing laws requiring that powerful surveillance capabilities be built directly into emerging technologies, such as cellular networks and Internet-based telephone systems.
Those demands became even more forceful in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when intelligence agencies scrambled to prevent a similar tragedy. A burgeoning surveillance industry, with regular conferences around the world, grew to meet the well-funded appetite for gathering information on criminals and possible terrorist threats.
Such systems can collect and analyze almost any information, including the content of most phone calls, that flows over the Internet when it’s not encrypted. As a result, governments can learn virtually anything people in their nations say or do online and frequently can learn where they are using location tracking, which is built into most cellular networks.
The Vodafone report distinguishes between content — words or other information conveyed over its networks — and metadata, which reveals who is contacting whom and what kinds of communications systems they are using.
Metadata tends to be more useful in establishing relationships among surveillance targets and, even in countries with rigorous frameworks for protecting personal information, can be gathered more readily by governments with a lower legal standard.
In the Czech Republic, for example, the government compelled Vodafone to turn over the content of conversations 7,677 times during the 12-month reporting period, from April 2013 to March 2014. Hungary collected metadata 75,938 times. Italy, with its government investigations into organized crime, led the Vodafone list with 605,601 demands for metadata.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper, relying on documents provided by Snowden, reported last year on GCHQ’s Tempora Program, in which the British intelligence agency taps into the fiber-optic cables that carry much of the world’s Internet traffic — the kind of “direct access” that Vodafone’s report argues should be curbed.
American technology and telecommunications companies have been scrambling to protect their reputations in the year since Snowden’s revelations began appearing in news reports by The Washington Post and the Guardian.
U.S.-based technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook have adopted new encryption measures, demanded more latitude to report on government data requests and lobbied Washington for legal curbs on surveillance.
Big telecommunications providers, such as Verizon and AT&T, have been less assertive in their responses, although both companies over the past year have issued their own “transparency reports,” for the first time tallying up government data requests.
Verizon listed 320,000 requests in the United States in 2013 and several thousand collectively in 11 other nations. AT&T listed more than 300,000 requests. (Vodafone was a partner of Verizon in the largest U.S. cellular network, Verizon Wireless, before selling its share to Verizon this year.)
The close relationship between the NSA, the FBI and major telecommunications companies long has been a sore point with privacy advocates.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington, said the Vodafone report “underscores the much closer relationship between communications providers, both in the United States and outside the United States, with national intelligence agencies.... It’s time to rebuild the wall separating church and state in surveillance.”
Eckersley said that most global telecommunications companies are “handmaidens of their governments’ surveillance apparatuses,” and he expressed little hope for a global treaty. Only new technical solutions capable of thwarting even the most aggressive intelligence agencies could significantly curb the spying of the Internet, he said.In the weirdest start of a gubernatorial debate, Florida Gov. Rick Scott initially refused to take the stage Wednesday night because Democrat Charlie Crist insisted on a fan to keep him cool.
The Republican governor finally emerged at least six minutes late as flummoxed moderators struggled on live TV to figure out what to do with a bemused Crist standing solo on stage at Broward College.
“Are we really going to debate about a fan? Or are we going to talk about education, and the environment and the future of our state?” Crist asked. “I mean, really.”
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The sharp elbows started almost as soon as Scott walked out, looking rattled. His campaign contended “electronic” devices were not allowed in the debate. On stage, Scott went on offense quickly, but some of his supporters privately fretted the fan incident could be a defining and damaging moment for the incumbent in the final stretch of a close race.
Scott stayed on message: Jobs.
“Charlie is the zero-wage governor: 832,000 people went from wages to zero wages when he was governor,” Scott said.
Crist was having none of it.
“Rick, there you go again: Trying to blame the global economic meltdown on me,” Crist said. “You just can’t trust Rick. It’s sad. And it’s unfortunate.”
Scott shot back with a one-liner: “Charlie’s campaign slogan should be ‘Charlie Crist — powerless for the |
) Blomqvist 43'Report Räsänen 46'Stadium: Matinkylä TN
Attendance: 30
Referee: Tuukka Hannukkala
NJS v Kontu 11 February 2016 0–1 Nurmijärvi 19:00 (EET) Report Tolppa 29'(pen.) Stadium: Klaukkala 1 TN
Attendance: 70
Referee: Peiman Simani
Härmä v Ilves 2 13 February 2016 2–1 Hämeenlinna 17:15 (EET) Thusberg 6 '
Lindroos 22'Report Järvelä 20'Stadium: Pulleri tekonurmi
Attendance: 62
Referee: Juuso Vuorinen
PEF v NuPS 18 February 2016 2–3 Vihti 19:00 (EET) Syväoja 24 ', 31'Report Koivulahti 7 ', 14 ', 22'Stadium: Ratapuisto TN
Referee: Gezim Arifi
Legirus Inter v LPS 18 February 2016 8–0 Vantaa 20:00 (EET) Heikkilä 3 ', 40 ', 49 '
Ojeda 7 '
Kibona 27 ', 37 '
Subirats 47 '
Cózar 78'Report Stadium: Kalmuuri TN
Attendance: 50
Referee: Tuukka Hannukkala
SC Wolves v MynPa 19 February 2016 1–0 Paimio 19:30 (EET) Vainio 64'Report Stadium: Paimio KHT
Attendance: 15
Referee: Aleksi Makkonen
SJK-j Apollo v JBK 19 February 2016 0–2 Seinäjoki 20:00 (EET) Report Knuts 30 '
Strömbäck 80'Stadium: WallSport-Areena
Attendance: 105
Referee: Kevin Östergård
JFC v Töölön Vesa 19 February 2016 0–2 Helsinki 21:00 (EET) Report Rahko 58 '
Malmström 80+5'Stadium: Tali halli TN
HauPa v OTP 19 February 2016 0–0
(2–3 p) Oulu 21:00 (EET) Report Stadium: Heinäpää PH TN
Attendance: 200
Referee: Pietu Niinimäki
Gnistan/Ogeli v EPS 20 February 2016 2–3 Helsinki 11:00 (EET) Forsen 10 '
Selin 22'Report Hollmen 30 '
Jalonen 51 ', 64'Stadium: Oulunkylä TN
Attendance: 45
Referee: Larbi Boughdiri
Tervarit-j/JuPa v Kiisto 20 February 2016 0–2 Oulu 16:00 (EET) Report Lombo 66 '
Ruin 80'Stadium: Heinäpää PH TN
Attendance: 80
Referee: Esa Suoyrjö
LoPa v PPJ 20 February 2016 3–1 Vihti 19:45 (EET) Talvasto 53 '
Ruokonen 57 '
Vuorela 80+2'Report Koivisto 77'Stadium: Ratapuisto TN
Attendance: 25
Referee: Sami Katko
Peimari United v P-Iirot 21 February 2016 1–4 Paimio 14:00 (EET) Salonico 14'Report Patola 25'(pen.)
Valtanen 51 '
Ojanen 65 ', 80+3'Stadium: Paimio KHT
Attendance: 70
Referee: Ville Käldström
Kasiysi/Rocky v Atletico Malmi 21 February 2016 1–2 Espoo 14:30 (EET) Ruotsalainen 68'(pen.) Report Tenkanen 26 '
Ketonen 38'Stadium: Laaksolahti TN
Attendance: 45
Referee: Kadir Kosar
ToTe v I-HK 21 February 2016 3–1 Helsinki 16:15 (EET) Lehtonen 45 '
Komu 80 '
Reitala 80+3'Report Lehtinen 25'Stadium: Tali halli TN
Attendance: 120
Referee: Joona Manninen
Kuopion Elo v PeKa 21 February 2016 0–3 Kuopio 18:30 (EET) Report Nykänen 35'(pen.)
Liski 43 '
Oksanen 70'Stadium: Kuopion kuplahalli
Attendance: 20
Referee: Matti Roth
Fourth round [ edit ]
52 teams played in the fourth round.[4]
NuPS v HIFK 5 March 2016 0–6 Vihti 12:30 (EET) Report Korhonen 9 ', 43 '
Peltonen 10 '
Jurvainen 14 ', 39 '
Salmikivi 21'Stadium: Kuoppanummen nurmi
Attendance: 400
Referee: Dennis Antamo
P-Iirot v Härmä 5 March 2016 5–1 Rauma 14:00 (EET) Patola 8 ', 48 ', 52'(pen.)
Pertola 79 '
Kuusio 83'Report Ramadani 28'Stadium: Äijänsuo Stadium
Attendance: 120
Referee: Saku Peltonen
Tampere United v TPS 6 March 2016 0–4 (a.e.t.) Tampere 18:15 (EET) Report Sjöroos 104 '
Blomqvist 110 '
Rähmönen 117 '
Mettälä 120'Stadium: Pirkkahalli C
Attendance: 441
Referee: Atte Jussila
ToTe v JäPS 6 March 2016 0–3 Helsinki 20:00 (EET) Report Lähde 55 '
Partonen 62 ', 80'Stadium: Tali halli
Attendance: 100
Referee: Oskari Hämäläinen
JIPPO v PeKa 11 March 2016 3–1 Joensuu 20:00 (EET) Tolvanen 45 '
Sormunen 52 '
Pussinen 90+3'Report Balkiran 49'Stadium: Joensuu Arena
Attendance: 384
Referee: Hannu Kettunen
Korso United v JJK 11 March 2016 0–5 Vantaa 20:00 (EET) Report Järvinen 11 '
Abahassine 22 '
Lähitie 27 '
Manninen 50 '
Tahvanainen 73'Stadium: Tikkurila TN
Attendance: 220
Referee: Tuukka Hannukkala
SalPa v Ilves 12 March 2016 0–2 Salo 13:15 (EET) Report Hilska 80 ', 85'Stadium: Salon Urheilupuisto
Attendance: 283
Referee: Pouria Notash
JBK v AC Kajaani 12 March 2016 1–5 Jakobstad 13:45 (EET) Remesaho 88'Report Hajizadeh 33 '
Joksts 36'(pen.)
Ibiyomi 47 ', 80 '
Lahnalakso 62'Stadium: Tellushallen
Attendance: 102
Referee: Jockum Nygård
Atletico Malmi v Gnistan 12 March 2016 1–0 Helsinki 16:00 (EET) Ketonen 18'Report Stadium: Tapanila TN
Attendance: 255
Referee: Tommi Grönman
SC Wolves v MuSa 12 March 2016 0–2 Paimio 16:00 (EET) Report Vainionpää 25 '
Rostedt 81'Stadium: Paimio KHT
Attendance: 69
Referee: Samuli Stenman
OTP v Närpes Kraft 12 March 2016 1–2 Oulu 16:30 (EET) Dziadulewicz 11'Report Mujkić 37 '
Granfors 84'Stadium: Heinäpään jalkapallohalli
Attendance: 80
Referee: Atte Räinä
RiPS v Lahti Akatemia 12 March 2016 0–8 Hyvinkää 17:00 (EET) Report Saastamoinen 11 ', 56 '
Hyvönen 35 ', 86 '
Tanskanen 67 '
Sadik 75 '
Köse 78 '
Camacho 82'Stadium: Kankurin TN
Attendance: 150
Referee: Gezim Arifi
Kontu v KäPa 12 March 2016 1–4 Helsinki 20:00 (EET) Miettinen 79'Report Mäkinen 42 '
Tainio 45+1'(pen.)
Akbar 82 ', 90+3'Stadium: Tali halli TN
Attendance: 157
Referee: Topias Tuira
GBK v PS Kemi 13 March 2016 1–3 Kokkola 15:30 (EET) Carlsson 43'Report Ions 47 ', 67 '
Jovović 82'Stadium: Kippari Hall
Attendance: 201
Referee: Daniel Enkvist
EsPa v FC Haka 13 March 2016 3–6 (a.e.t.) Espoo 16:00 (EET) Pirhonen 32 '
P.V.Korhonen 43 '
Ngum 86'Report Fowler 11 '
Mäkelä 83 ', 120'(pen.)
Mäenpää 84 '
Intala 101 '
Mbachu 118'Stadium: Matinkylä TN
Attendance: 445
Referee: Peiman Simani
LoPa v Honka 13 March 2016 0–5 Lohja 18:45 (EET) Report Jouini 54 ', 78 ', 85 '
Melo 62 '
N'Sombo 90'Stadium: Kisakallio TN
Attendance: 189
Referee: Tuukka Hannukkala
KTP v PK-35 Vantaa 18 March 2016 1–2 (a.e.t.) Kotka 18:30 (EET) Ikävalko 6'Report Kaufmann 13 '
Heimonen 114'Stadium: Arto Tolsa Areena
Attendance: 365
Referee: Jussi Vainikka
MP v KuPS 18 March 2016 0–3 Mikkeli 18:30 (EET) Report Alaharjula 48 '
Mahanen 75 '
Egwuekwe 78'Stadium: Urpola TN
Attendance: 387
Referee: Mikko Matilainen
Kiisto v Hercules 19 March 2016 2–2 (a.e.t.)
(3–5 p) Kokkola 14:00 (EET) Lombo 4 ', 72'Report Ogbuefi 21'(pen.)
Haapala 90+6'Stadium: Botniahalli
Referee: Rasmus Hietanen Penalties Lombo
Karri
Inki
Takala Haapala
Suomela
Tapio
Ogbuefi
Karhunen
TPV v EIF 19 March 2016 1–0 Tampere 16:30 (EET) Kiiveri 41'Report Stadium: Pirkkahalli C
Attendance: 295
Referee: Veli-Matti Kanerva
TP-47 v KPV 19 March 2016 0–3 Tornio 20:00 (EET) Report Luokkala 39 '
Sirbiladze 51 '
Palosaari 72'Stadium: Junkohalli TN
Attendance: 124
Referee: Sami Väntti
Fifth round [ edit ]
32 teams played in the Fifth round.[5]
FF Jaro v VPS 19 March 2016 0–2 Jakobstad 15:15 (EET) Report Vahtera 56 '
Tamminen 65'Stadium: Tellushallen
Attendance: 641
Referee: Mikko Lehtola
AC Kajaani v P-Iirot 20 March 2016 4–0 Kajaani 18:30 (EET) Ibiyomi 26 ', 36 '
Hajizadeh 65 '
Heikkinen 80'Report Stadium: Kajaanin Pallohalli
Attendance: 82
Referee: Matti Roth
KäPa v Inter Turku 22 March 2016 0–2 Helsinki 18:30 (EET) Report Källman 57 ', 61'Stadium: Oulunkylä TN
Attendance: 231
JJK v JIPPO 24 March 2016 4–1 Jyväskylä 18:30 (EET) Itkonen 11 '
Markkula 24'(pen.)
Abahassine 41 ', 48'Report Makkonen 26'Stadium: Vehkalampi
Attendance: 110
Referee: Ville Nevalainen
Hercules v RoPS 29 March 2016 0–8 Oulu 18:30 (EEST) Report Taylor 5 '
Kokko 11 ', 13 ', 29 '
John 58 '
Jammeh 74 '
Nganbe 80 '
Heikkilä 85'Stadium: Heinäpään jalkapallohalli
Attendance: 350
Lahti Akatemia v JäPS 30 March 2016 2–4 (a.e.t.) Lahti 18:30 (EEST) Saastamoinen 40 '
Salimäki 99'Report Norring 86 '
Lähde 111 '
Tuuliainen 113 ', 120'Stadium: Vierumäki TN
Attendance: 87
MuSa v KPV 2 April 2016 0–5 Pori 16:00 (EEST) Report Myntti 10 '
Banner 19 '
Tshibasu 55 '
Ceesay 68 '
Palosaari 81'Stadium: Pori Urheilukeskus TN
Attendance: 187
TPV v KuPS 5 April 2016 2–3 (a.e.t.) Tampere 19:00 (EEST) Korsunov 28 '
Näykki 77'Report Rannankari 55 '
Hakola 87 '
Savolainen 105'Stadium: Pyynikki
Attendance: 539
Sixth round [ edit ]
16 teams played in the sixth round.[6]
KPV v Honka 19 April 2016 1–2 (a.e.t.) Kokkola 17:30 (EEST) Myllymäki 48'Report Huhtala 90+6 ', 102'Stadium: Santahaka
Attendance: 419
VPS v SJK 21 April 2016 1–2 Vaasa 18:15 (EEST) Hertsi 36'Report Ngueukam 26 ', 58'Stadium: Botniahalli
JäPS v KuPS 21 April 2016 0–1 Järvenpää 18:30 (EEST) Report Savolainen 80'Stadium: Koivusaari TN
Attendance: 750
KuPS v HJK 15 June 2016 1–4 Kuopio 18:30 (EEST) Salami 78'Report Kolehmainen 40 '
Morelos 53 ', 73 ', 85'(pen.) Stadium: Väinölänniemi
Attendance: 3,673
Semifinal [ edit ]
Final [ edit ]
Scorers [ edit ]
As of match played 21 April 2016
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Own goals:TAKE a car, add an electric motor and some batteries. Build in a special gearbox which combines the output of the motor with that of an internal-combustion engine. Now all you need is a sophisticated electronic control system, and the result is a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius. It saves fuel, because when the driver brakes the car stores the lost kinetic energy in the battery, and when the driver hits the accelerator the electric motor kicks in, using that stored energy. But it took Toyota 13 years to convince customers that the Prius principle is the technology of the future.
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Now, it seems, it has convinced builders of railway engines, too. Like carmakers, they are trying to combine internal-combustion engines and electric motors to save fuel. “Development is so advanced now, that we can use it, too,” says Peter Rieger of MTU, a German engine-builder. The main difference is that whereas the carmakers were able to design new vehicles around their new technology, locomotive-builders have had to construct their hybrid engines as packages that can replace the original motors of existing machines.
As with cars, Japan leads the way. After a three-year trial JR East, a privately owned railway company, announced that it would introduce ten diesel-battery hybrid railcars. This would be the first fleet of hybrid diesel multiple units. The system is expected to reduce fuel consumption by 10% and to be much quieter than the current arrangement. But, unlike the European car industry, the European rail industry is not far behind Japan. MTU, for example, has developed a hybrid engine-gear package which can simply replace a conventional motor. Its engineers added an electric motor and a special gearbox to combine the output of both engines. All the components are built into a frame, which can be put into the space the old engine occupied.
Other manufacturers have similar ideas. Voith Turbo, a German company known for its diesel-hydraulic transmissions, has linked up with MAN, an engine-builder, to develop a hybrid power-pack that could replace conventional drives. And, in America, General Electric (GE) is also working on a hybrid engine. This will be equipped with a large number of batteries that store the kinetic energy otherwise dispersed when the locomotive is stopping long freight trains. That will reduce fuel consumption by about 15%.
Which is not enough for the engineers at the German branch of Alstom. They have converted an old heavy shunter into a hybrid, slashing its fuel consumption by 40-50%, according to Klaus Hiller, who is in charge of the project. To do so, the company turned the Prius principle upside down. The main motive power comes from two large batteries. The diesel is merely a backup.
The problem of hybrid trains, however, is the same as that of hybrid cars: the batteries add weight. Admittedly, this is not quite such a hardship in locomotives. They need a certain amount of weight in order to keep a tight grip on the rails. But railways are supposed to carry people, not batteries, says Mr Hiller. So those batteries have to weigh as little as possible.
One way round this is to use lithium-ion batteries, which are also favoured by those making the latest generation of electric cars. These batteries, however, have a short lifespan. At the moment, they last about five to seven years, compared with a train's average life of 30 years.
There is also the question of whether lithium-ion batteries are tough enough for the world of railways. According to Mr Hiller, his shunter has to withstand decelerations of 5g (ie, five times the force of the Earth's gravitational field). It is not clear that lithium-ion cells can withstand such forces for long. Alstom has therefore turned to tried-and-trusted nickel-cadmium ones instead, and GE is testing sodium and iron-chloride batteries.
One way or another, however, the problem needs to be solved soon. Emission regulations for railways have recently been tightened in Europe and will become even stricter in the future. From 2012 diesel trains will have to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides by 39% and of soot by 88%. Hybrids may be the only way to meet these requirements. For the Prius principle, then, the future looks bright.Fluttershy is one of the most forgiving of the Mane 6 to draw. No extra details (other than the props) to draw. However her eyelashes did provide some more work.Fluttershy's attire is pretty vaguely defined. Just a simple one piece dress. Animal caretaker and someone who's in tuned with nature, it's not easy to come up with the right attire. But when I saw the humanization from, this is probably the only thing I can come up with. Though I did modify a few things.Most other humanizations seem to have her in a turtleneck sweater though since she's a pegasus, I decided to keep her no sleeved. So both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have no sleeves (Pegasus); Rarity and Twilight Sparkle have long sleeves (Unicorns); Applejack and Pinkie Pie have short sleeves (Earth pony). I kinda grouped them according to sleeve lengths in a way.I kind of thought of Rapunzel from Tangled for subtle reasons. Her pose is kinda inspired by the "When Will My Life Begins (Reprise)". That feeling of freedom seemd appropriate for Fluttershy, so I decided to apply it.This one is the most well drawn out of the Mane 6. The other 5 was made first in order for me to get more experience to make it the best. After all, Fluttershy's the fan favorite of the Mane 6, she's gotta have the best of care if I want to please the fans.Finally of the Mane 6 are completed! It took a long time, but I got it done. Xp Then it's off onto that LOOONG request list...About the squee and yay face, I didn't put them in cause I feel that they're overrated and they're not that interesting or wacky.Here's the list of expressions from the top, left to right (the last one that I'll ever do):1. "Come out!" (The Best Night Ever)2. *sob* (Hurricane Fluttershy)3. *eating cake* (Sweet and Elite)4. Original expression5. "Am I right?!" (Putting Your Hoof Down)6. "I'm a monster..." (Putting Your Hoof Down)7. "She stole Fluttershy's voice so that she can scream when she gobbles her up" (Luna Eclipsed)8. "Do me! Do me! (A Canterlot Wedding Part 2)9. *cry* (A Bird in A Hoof)10. *blush* (The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000)If anyone's interested in seeing the original sketch, it's under this link:***********************************************"Fluttershy"belongs toLauren Faust, Hasbro Inc., and DMX Media***********************************************Citation
For extraordinary heroism against an armed enemy in the vicinity of Sommocolonia, Italy on 26 December 1944, while serving as a member of Cannon Company, 366th Infantry Regiment, 92d Infantry Division. During the preceding few weeks, Lieutenant Fox served with the 598th Field Artillery Battalion as a forward observer. On Christmas night, enemy soldiers gradually infiltrated the town of Sommocolonia in civilian clothes, and by early morning the town was largely in hostile hands. Commencing with a heavy barrage of enemy artillery at 0400 hours on 26 December 1944, an organized attack by uniformed German units began. Being greatly outnumbered, most of the United States Infantry forces were forced to withdraw from the town, but Lieutenant Fox and some other members of his observer party voluntarily remained on the second floor of a house to direct defensive artillery fire. At 0800 hours, Lieutenant Fox reported that the Germans were in the streets and attacking in strength. He then called for defensive artillery fire to slow the enemy advance. As the Germans continued to press the attack towards the area that Lieutenant Fox occupied, he adjusted the artillery fire closer to his position. Finally he was warned that the next adjustment would bring the deadly artillery right on top of his position. After acknowledging the danger, Lieutenant Fox insisted that the last adjustment be fired as this was the only way to defeat the attacking soldiers. Later, when a counterattack retook the position from the Germans, Lieutenant Fox's body was found with the bodies of approximately 100 German soldiers. Lieutenant Fox's gallant and courageous actions, at the supreme sacrifice of his own life, contributed greatly to delaying the enemy advance until other infantry and artillery units could reorganize to repel the attack. His extraordinary valorous actions were in keeping with the most cherished traditions of military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.tech2 News Staff
Reliance Jio is in early talks with Chinese contract manufacturers to introduce a sub Rs 1,500 4G LTE feature phone. According to a report in the Financial Express, Reliance Jio is in talks with Techchain, FortuneShip and Uniscope. According to a report in the Economic Times Spreadtrum Communications is promoting concepts of phones with partners, and aims to reduce the price of 4G feature phones by at least half.
Current 4G feature phones in the market are available at around the Rs 3,000 price point. A few of the Lyf Flame 4G smartphones are actually available for less than Rs 3,000. About 55 percent of the mobile phone market in India is still made up of feature phones, and introducing a cheap 4G feature phone would put Reliance Jio in a position to capture a significant portion of the market. Sub Rs 2,000 4G feature phones are expected from domestic smartphone manufacturers Micromax and Intex by June.
It is unclear what kind of contract will be in place for the manufacturing of the 4G feature phones. Currently, Reliance Jio initially imports the smartphones with the understanding that the manufacturer will eventually start making the phones in India. Spreadtrum Communications has enjoyed a two year partnership with Reliance Industries, and its technologies are used in the affordable Flame 5 smartphone.
Disclaimer: Reliance Jio is owned by Reliance Industries, who also own Network18, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2.
Tech2 is now on WhatsApp. For all the buzz on the latest tech and science, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Tech2.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.California’s Plan For Unlimited Pesticide Spraying
California is proposing unlimited future pesticide spraying. PGIAM / ISTOCKPHOTO
SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Food and Agriculture has published a draft of an environmental plan giving the agency authority to spray toxic pesticides anywhere in California, at any time into the indefinite future. The blanket approval would allow no opportunity for affected communities to stop the spraying.
According to the plan, the state’s agency would have the right to approve new pesticides and other expansions of the spray program with no public review, notice or analysis of the health and environmental impacts in specific locations to be sprayed.
The plan, described in the Statewide Plant Pest Prevention and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Report, relies on a list of 79 pesticides and other chemicals, including substances linked to cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and reproductive system impacts. Many of the pesticides are also lethal to bees and other pollinators, fish and other aquatic life, birds, and mammals. Among the PEIR pesticides are several neonicotinoids, which many scientists believe are directly linked to the collapse of honeybee populations.
The environmental review’s cursory analysis of the health and ecological impacts of these chemicals fails to answer many essential questions, such as the effects of pesticide exposure on:
Infants, pregnant women, and other sensitive populations;
Children whose schools could be sprayed under the plan;
Rivers, streams, and drinking water wells.
The plan directly threatens organic farming—one of California’s fastest-growing industries—because organic farmers could be forced to spray non-organic pesticides as part of state treatment programs. Although the state’s review admits that “treated products would not command the typical premium prices demanded for organic produce in the marketplace,” it dismisses the impact of spraying on organic farmers by asserting that they could simply switch to conventional farming.
Public comment on the draft environmental impact report is open until Oct. 31, 2014. This comment period is the only official opportunity for the public to voice concerns about the Pest PEIR.
“This plan’s analysis of health and environmental impacts is so general and cursory as to be useless for determining the actual impact of the Department of Food and Agriculture’s spraying in any specific location in California,” said Earthjustice Attorney Elizabeth Forsyth. “Its provisions for future environmental review attempt to prevent public scrutiny of future program activities, including the agency’s approval of new pesticides, new treatment areas, and new target pests.”
“This document attempts the impossible: to analyze every impact on water, air, soil, sensitive species, and human health, anywhere in the state, now and into the future, including for pesticides that have not yet even been identified,” said Attorney Jason Flanders of Aqua Terra Aeris Law Group. “In particular, the agency’s discussion of the impacts of pesticide spraying on water quality is so generalized as to be meaningless, failing to inform local citizens what actual impacts will occur to their local water bodies and drinking water sources, and failing to adhere to basic state and federal water quality laws.”
“If the Department of Food and Agriculture is allowed to approve this plan, it will set a precedent for sweeping, unchecked power by state agencies in matters involving human and environmental health,” said Debbie Friedman, founder of Moms Advocating Sustainability (MOMAS). “In view of the agency’s recent example of poor judgment, aerially spraying populated areas for the light brown apple moth, an insect that has turned out to pose no threat; it would be a grave mistake to grant the agency such sweeping authority.”
“Although the Department of Food and Agriculture claims to use ‘least-toxic’ pest management, the management methods and chemicals in this plan continue the same ‘spray first, ask questions later’ approach that the agency has been using for decades—and that has failed, according to a recent study of the agency’s own fruit fly treatment data,” said Nan Wishner of the California Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI).
“This plan’s assertion that organic farmers who are forced to spray pesticides can simply sell their harvest as conventional instead, or grow other crops, is unrealistic and jeopardizes the livelihood of organic farmers,” said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate, Via Organica. “Moreover, the statement that organic farms that have been sprayed could sell later harvests from the same season as organic undermines the meaning of the organic label and consumers’ trust in it.”
“Even tiny amounts of pesticides can cause serious health risks. Some can cause serious long-term problems for children, including cancer, asthma and IQ loss,” stated Caroline Cox, Research Director for the Center for Environmental Health. “State programs should be based on sound scientific evaluations of the actual risks posed by introduced species and should recognize that repeated chemical treatments in neighborhoods and on food are unsustainable, weaken the resilience of our state’s agricultural system, and put us on a never-ending toxic treadmill.”
“Pesticides continue to poison some of California’s most threatened wildlife,” stated Jonathan Evans of the Center for Biological Diversity. “California has better solutions than business-as-usual pesticide application, to minimize the toxic legacy in our environment.”
For more information about the PEIR, visit the websites of the California Environmental Health Initiative and Moms Advocating Sustainability.The Panamanian golden frog (Atelopus zeteki) is a species of toad endemic to Panama.[3] Panamanian golden frogs inhabit the streams along the mountainous slopes of the Cordilleran cloud forests of west-central Panama.[4] While the IUCN lists it as critically endangered,[1] it may in fact have been extinct in the wild since 2007.[5][6] Individuals have been collected for breeding in captivity in a bid to preserve the species. The alternative common name, Zetek's golden frog, and the epithet zeteki both commemorate the entomologist James Zetek.
Description [ edit ]
Despite its common name, the Panamanian golden frog is a true toad, a member of the family Bufonidae. It was first described as a subspecies of Atelopus varius, but is now classified as a separate species.[3][7][8]
The Panamanian golden frog is a national symbol and is considered to be one of the most beautiful frogs in Panama.[9] The skin colour ranges from light yellow-green to bright gold, with some individuals exhibiting black spots on their backs and legs. Females are generally larger than males; females typically range from 45 to 63 mm (1.8 to 2.5 in) in length and 4 to 15 g (0.14 to 0.53 oz) in weight, with males between 35 and 48 millimetres (1.4 and 1.9 in) in length and 3 and 12 grams (0.11 and 0.42 oz) in weight.[10]
Toxicity [ edit ]
The Panamanian golden frog has a variety of toxins, including steroidal bufadienolides and guanidinium alkaloids of the tetrodotoxin class. One of the latter, zetekitoxin AB, has been found to be a blocker of voltage-dependent sodium channels several orders of magnitude more potent than its analog saxitoxin. Their toxin is water-soluble and affects the nerve cells of anyone who comes in contact with it. Panamanian golden frogs use this toxin to protect themselves from most predators.[9] Due to the risk of testing the poison on humans, it has been done with mice. Large doses can be fatal in 20 or 30 minutes. Death is preceded by clonic (grand mal) convulsions until the functions of the circulatory and respiratory systems cease.[11]
Distribution [ edit ]
The Panamanian golden frog is endemic to Panama, living close to mountain streams on the eastern side of the Tabasará mountain range in the Coclé and Panamá provinces.[1] Its geographic range previously extended as far east as the town of El Copé in western Coclé Province before the onset of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis, which caused the El Copé population to rapidly collapse in 2004.[1] Vital habitat is lost each year to small farms, commercialized agriculture, woodlot operations, livestock range, industrial expansion, and real estate development.[12] Individuals are kept in captive-breeding programmes in more than 50 institutions across North America and Panama.[13][14]
Ecology [ edit ]
The lifespan of the Panamanian golden frog is 12 years.[10] This toad is unusual in that it communicates by a form of semaphore, waving at rivals and prospective mates, in addition to the sounds more usual among frogs. This adaptation is thought to have evolved in the Panamanian golden frog because of the noise of the fast-moving streams which formed its natural habitat.[6] The male tends to stay near the streams where breeding occurs, while in the nonbreeding season, the female retreats into the forests. The male uses a soft call to entice prospective mates, then grabs the female and hangs on when she crosses his path. If she is receptive, she will tolerate amplexus; if not, she will attempt to buck him off by arching her spine.[citation needed] Amplexus can last from a few days to a few months, with oviposition usually taking place in a shallow stream.[5]
Life history [ edit ]
The development of A. zeteki can be divided into four stages: larva or tadpole, juvenile, subadult, and adult. During the larval stage, individuals emerge from their eggs after 2 to 10 days of development. They are entirely aquatic creatures at this stage and are found in waters with a temperature range from 20.4 to 21.3 °C and with depths of 5 to 35 cm. After emerging, they mostly spend time resting in shallow pools below cascades. This behavior is similar to A. certus. Wherever water pools in a stream, they are likely to be found, as long as it is connected to moving channels. The tadpoles, however, do not venture into the moving channels. Clinging to surfaces by suction of their flattened bellies, the larvae can be characterized as gastromyzophorous. They are typically around 5.8 mm in length and 4.3 mm in width. Their snouts are rounded, as well as their tails. The longest caudal fins on their tails are about three-fifths the length of the tail. Their mouths are large and ventral surrounded by labia which form an unbroken oral disc about 3.6 mm wide. The posterior lip has no papillae, but other lips are lined with single rows of small, blunt papillae. They are colored from dark brown to black dorsally, with golden flecks on their bodies. They develop this black and gold coloration as melanin floods their dermal layers, giving the larvae protection from the sun. When metamorphosing, |
I understand and empathize with him. But in the end, I’m no Prufrock. Bystander apathy is half the problem. I’d much rather be part of the solution. I don’t know which came first: the coarsening of the culture or the worsening of behavior.
Either way, what we need is a radical change in attitudes -- on the internet, mobile platforms and in the society of which they are a part.
Actually, what we really need is a cultural revolution. Online, we’ve got a compassion deficit – an Empathy Crisis -- and something tells me that matters a lot more to most of us.
Oscar Wilde wrote: “I have said that behind sorrow there is always sorrow. It were wiser still to say that behind sorrow there is always a soul. And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing.”
My feelings, exactly.
Thank you for your time.
Also on Forbes:By
I apologize that it took so long for me to give an official announcement on this issue. Many have asked me on this matter on Novelupdates and Discord.
Firstly, I am officially dropping this series. I have been in talks with QI since awhile ago, and eventually, we decided to just get a new translator from their side on this series. I was intending to announce this after a translator has been found, but the other side has been facing difficulty finding a translator who is interested in this project. Eventually, this matter dragged on for month after month. I've replied this query on many other platforms, but I should have posted an official announcement on GT, and I apologize for my mistake.
I do thank you all for reading this series, it's truly one of my favorite pieces, and I sincerely apologize for failing to go on ahead with it.
I have a hate and love relationship with this series, as many of my colleagues would know.
It's been awhile since I've started looking for another translator on this project, and I stopped updating after it was decided that I'll pass this series on to QI.
It's a wonderful story, as many of you will know, and not to mention, it's my maiden piece. However, it's exactly because it's my maiden piece that I made many unintentional mistakes in it. I've tried multiple times to look for people to help me correct them, and I even tried correcting them myself, but the results didn't turn out too well.
The good thing about joining QI is that they would send editors to vet through the series they accepted, so in a way, this will dispel most of the regrets I have for the series.
I would like to thank GT for hosting this work, many of the other translator's help in pointing out the references for me, and my editors, Crow, Milkbiscuit, and Hweirdo, for bearing with the 5k~6k long chapters. (Which are really unbearable)
It's not an easy project, with the huge world building and many references, though that's what that makes the series.
I hope that the translator after me will do a better job than me for this project.
In any case, I've been rushing them on this matter, and the most recent news I got from QI on this matter is that they have found a translator for this project. Even though I'm not sure when they'll start the project, I hope that it'll be soon.Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) has admitted that he hopes his switch from track to road racing is permanent, and that if he goes to the 2016 Rio Olympics it will be to ride the road events rather than the team pursuit, in which he is a double gold medallist.
“I’m leaving the track behind now, hopefully permanently,” he said in Doha before stage one of the Tour of Qatar. “I’d love to ride the road race and time trial in Rio, but not to make up the numbers – only if I’m in with a chance.”
The Welshman is a member of Team Sky’s ‘Classics Group,’ who remained in Adelaide after the Tour Down Under, arriving in Qatar late last Thursday. From here they will travel back to Europe and have a week off before a training camp in Tenerife that will see them skip Paris-Nice and Tirreno Adriatico.
The Tenerife camps were credited as a major factor in Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France win last season, not least because the conditions, and climbing, replicate those found in France in July.
But as a place to go to prepare for one-day races held in northern Europe in March, the benefits appear less obvious.
“There is the weather, but it’s about committing to the programme,” said Thomas. “Tim [Kerrison, the team’s head of performace support] is a clever guy, and he looked at what Brad needed for the Tour. Obviously the Classics are totally different, but we’ll be doing training specific to the type of things you need for the Classics.”
Servais Knaven, the team’s sports director, elaborated: “Tenerife is different to Belgium, it’s true, but in March it’s not that warm, so there’s not a big difference in temperature. They’ll look for climbs that are similar to the Flemish ones, but I think a training camp is the best preparation. It’s something new.”
Thomas was bullish about the potential gains. No one else has tried it, he said, because “it’s the typical cyclist mentality; they do what they used to do in the Merckx era. Cycling’s like that. No one wore skinsuits in road races. We started doing that three years ago and all of a sudden everyone’s got one.”
The Tour of Flanders is the Classic that “excites me most,” added Thomas. “That’s the one I enjoy the most, and that I’ve got the best result in so far.”
As Knaven said, they have other cards to play: Edvald Boasson Hagen in Flanders and Roubaix; Ian Stannard and Mat Hayman in Roubaix. It gives them strength in numbers and should allow them to take a different approach to previous years, when the now departed Juan Antonio Flecha was the team’s leader in the cobbled classics.
“I told them that when I won Roubaix I was not the best rider that day, by far,” said Knaven, the Paris-Roubaix winner in 2001. “There were maybe four or five riders who were stronger than I was, but I had a strong team around me, with a strong leader [Johan Museeuw] who was happy for me to win. That’s also important and that’s what we try to create: a solid group who are happy for their teammates to win.”
Thomas thinks Flecha’s departure will be to their advantage. “A guy like Flecha had has his own personal ambitions and I think with him leaving it is similar to when Brad crashed out of the Tour [in 2011]. Everyone sort of came up then and had a free role; Edvald won stages, Rigo had a chance of [the] white [jersey for best young rider]. Now a lot of more people are thinking, ‘I can actually get some of my own results.’ We are all pushing for the same goals.”
Related links
Geraint Thomas: Rider profile
Comment: Is there anything Thomas can’t do?After fighting for his life against humans in “The Hunger Games,” Dayo Okeniyi is now ready to fight for his life against cyborgs in Paramount and Skydance’s “Terminator.”
Best known for his role as Thresh in Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games,” Okeniyi has been tapped to play Miles Dyson’s son in the latest installment in the “Terminator” franchise.
He joins Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke, who had already signed on to the pic. Alan Taylor is directing.
Plot details have not been revealed, other than this is the first film in a standalone trilogy. In “Terminator 2: Judgement Day,” Dyson, played by Joe Morton, was the scientist who helped in creating Cyberdyne Systems, the computer system that started the war between the machines and humans.
Dyson is killed in the pic, but his son is featured briefly in the film. How he plays into this new standalone trilogy is unknown.
Skydance will finance along with the studio, with David Ellison producing for Skydance. Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier penned the script.
Dana Goldberg and Paul Schwake are on as exec producers. Paramount will handle distribution.
Besides “Hunger Games,” Okeniyi’s past credits include “The Spectacular Now,” “Runner Runner” and most recently Universal’s “Endless Love.” He is repped by UTA and Sweeney Entertainment.The Bayt.com 'What Makes a Company an Attractive Place to Work?' poll has revealed that companies should invest more in branding themselves as top employers and work on their corporate culture to attract and retain the best talent in the market.
Data for the Bayt.com ‘What Makes a Company an Attractive Place to Work?’ poll was collected online from20 December2013 –30 January2014, with8,853 respondents from the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.
Highlights:
7 in10 professionals wouldn’t work for a company they aren’t proud of.
6 in10 professionals give importance to an employer’s brand name when judging a new job offer.
90% of the poll’s respondents are attracted to companies that offer supportive and great work environments.
76% of professionals will always turn to the internet to research a company when considering a job opportunity.
60% of professionals feel that the most harmful thing a company can do for its brand is to not follow up or communicate after a job application.Story highlights An international team of scientists discovered the first evidence of dinosaurs in Saudi Arabia
Among the fossilized findings were the teeth of a carnivorous abelisaurid -- a 20-foot tall bipedal dinosaur
Scientists also uncovered the fossilized vertebrae from the tail of a "Brontosaurus-like" sauropod called a titanosaur
Experts say the new evidence could reveal more about the how the Earth was formed
For palaeontologists, the Middle East has long proven a bit of a blind spot.
Evidence of dinosaurs has proven scarce, and what little surfaces from time to time have been traditionally difficult to itemize. That changed recently when an international team of scientists uncovered the first evidence of dinosaurs in Saudi Arabia near the coast of the Red Sea.
The findings were published last month in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
"To say that finds (in the Arabian Peninsula) are rare is an understatement. What's been discovered, you could almost fit inside a shoebox," notes Dr. Benjamin Kear, a palaeontologist at Uppsala University in Sweden, and the study's lead author.
"The problem in the past is that what's been found are just bone fragments, and you can say they're dinosaur, and vaguely what kind, but we've been unable to reconstruct and assemble them. This is therefore the first time that we can confidently identify an Arabian dinosaur fossil with any degree of accuracy," he says.
Kear and his team uncovered 72-million-year-old fossils. The first was of a series of vertebrae from the tail of a "Brontosaurus-like" sauropod called a titanosaur, the second, a few teeth from a theropod. The latter belonged to an abelisaurid -- a bipedal carnivorous dinosaur some 20 feet long.
Kear, who has excavated in the region before, says he was following up a lead on potential dinosaur fossils found by oil geologists who stumbled upon an outcrop.
"They had found an accumulation of fossils that mostly weren't from dinosaurs, but rather giant marine reptiles," he says.
As it happens, much of the Arabian Peninsula was underwater when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and those rare remains that were discovered were washed downstream and out to sea by rivers, probably during a flash flood long ago in the Late Cretaceous period
"We systematically worked this area over the last few years in the hope that a dinosaur would turn up. It was a matter of time to be honest; dinosaurs do often turn up in marine rocks washed out to sea," he says.
"There are a handful of blank spots on the dinosaur map, and the Arabian Peninsula is among the very biggest blank spots," notes Dr. Anne Schulp, a palaeontologist and researcher at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. In 2008, Schulp led a team that unearthed the first dinosaur tracks found in the region near Sana'a, Yemen.
"Even the tiniest scrap of bone is something to get excited about," he says. "The picture is slowly filling in, but it's a very large area and there remains much more to be discovered."
Louis Jacobs, a vertebrate palaeontologist and professor at Southern Methodist University, explains that the discovery could also help find much sought-after answers about the history of the Earth and its land formations.
This fossilized tooth belonged to an abelisaur -- a carnivorous, bipedal animal that stood 20 feet tall
This fossilized vertebrae belonged once formed part of the tail of a "Brontosaurus-like" sauropod called a titanosaur
Jacobs explains that when the fossils were first buried, Saudi Arabia was part of Gondwana -- the subcontinent that made up the southern half of Pangaea, and included parts of modern-day Africa.
"India started out much further south, and through time it moved north and slammed into Asia, creating the Himalayas. But it passed by the Arabian Peninsula about the time that dinosaurs lived," explains Jacobs.
"Part of the interest in dinosaurs from Arabia is to get at that relationship between Gondwana and India during that time."
Several factors explain the scarcity of dinosaur-related material in the Arabian Peninsula.
One issue is that the richest sites aren't always the most accessible. Fragments have previously been found in Syria (currently a no-go zone) and Yemen, which discourages certain travelers. Meanwhile, visitors to Saudi Arabia need a sanctioned invite.
Kear notes that in Saudi Arabia part of the problem is that the most prevalent types of rocks aren't the right types for capturing millennia-old land-based animals. He also notes that until recently, the country suffered from a lack of interest in this type of research.
"Let's say the geological view has been skewed in the past towards oil exploration," he says. Still, he says, paleontological research is gaining more traction, as evidenced by the government-run Saudi Geological Survey recently adding a palaeontology division.
"For the first time, you can see the work is going somewhere, and leading to a lasting legacy. In the future, we can expect to see Saudi dinosaur displays and museums so people inside the country can understand the riches they possess."By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
Whatever you thought of President Obama's recent speech on Afghanistan, it is now increasingly clear that the United States is winding down its massive military commitments to the two wars of the last decade.
We are out of Iraq and we will soon be largely out of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self. Threats remain but these are being handled using special forces and intelligence. So, finally, after a decade, we seem to be right-sizing the threat from terrorist groups.
Or are we?
While we will leave the battlefields of the greater Middle East, we are firmly committed to the war on terror at home. What do I mean by that? Well, look at the expansion of federal bureaucracies to tackle this war.
Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for the intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet – the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. The largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.
The rise of this national security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government's powers that now touch every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism. Some 30,000 people, for example, are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications within the United States.
In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is, of course, a war without end.
So we continue to stand in absurd airport lines. We continue to turn down the visa applications of hundreds of thousands of tourists, businessmen, artists and performers who simply want to visit America and spend money here, and become ambassadors of good will for this country. We continue to treat even those visitors who arrive with visas as hostile aliens - checking, searching and deporting people at will. We continue to place new procedures and rules to monitor everything that comes in and out of the country, making doing business in America less attractive and more burdensome than in most Western countries.
We don't look like people who have won a war. We look like scared, fearful, losers.Ohio State forward Jae'Sean Tate is out for the season with a left shoulder injury, the school announced Tuesday.
Tate initially injured his shoulder while a senior in high school, undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum, according to the Columbus Dispatch. He left Ohio State’s game against Nebraska on Saturday after attempting to throw a pass with his left hand. He returned later in the contest and reportedly re-aggravated the injury while slapping the floor on defense. Later on Tuesday, Tate refuted that he injured his shoulder on that particular play.
To clarify I did not hurt my shoulder from slapping the floor...happened weeks ago 😴 — O_T8TE (@o_tate_) February 24, 2016
Tate had played in all 28 games for the Buckeyes so far this season, averaging 11.7 points and 6.4 rebounds. He was leading Ohio State in scoring during conference play.
Tate will undergo surgery on his left shoulder Friday. He is expected to be ready for the start of next season.
• BELLER: Will LSU make the tournament?
The Buckeyes entered Tuesday in fourth place in the Big Ten.Bubble, Bubble, China’s in Trouble
The Chinese dream, like the American dream, has taken shape around the promise that each new generation will live better than the one before it. In recent years, that has meant more job options, more material comforts, and increasingly, home ownership. Last fall 80 percent of respondents to a China Youth Daily online poll said that home ownership was a prerequisite for happiness.
Today’s frenzied housing market in China’s top-tier cities is rattling that aspiration, threatening to create a generation of agitated young people who work hard, play by the rules, but feel angry at the system and priced out of their chance at the Chinese dream. With residential prices and commercial prices in top-tier cities jumping 11.7 percent over the last year — and jumping more than 50 percent in some particularly hot eastern cities — the government in Beijing is worried.
Chen "Aggie" is a 20-something marketing professional in Beijing. The daughter of shopkeepers, she hails from a small village in the western province of Guizhou. She came to Beijing for college, and has since made the great leap forward that so many families in China hope for their children: moving from blue-collar to a white-collar job. Stories like hers are regular fodder for state-run media. But real estate is where the vision of upward mobility smashes against unhappy reality. Ten years ago, even five, her salary would have made buying an apartment feasible, but not now. "I was born too late," she says. "I missed the train."
According to the investment bank Goldman Sachs, in recent years housing prices in Beijing have risen 80 percent faster than wages. Chen’s friends from well-to-do families — "second-generation wealthy," as they’re called — have been able to borrow money for hefty down payments; her friends from humbler backgrounds cannot. When I met her at a Beijing Starbucks, she was dejected and making plans to leave the city. In some senses, her struggles mean the Chinese capital is just like any other world-class city — London, Paris, New York — where only the wealthiest and most established can own homes. But this realization is crashing hard on a generation of little emperors and empresses that have been told they could have everything.
The agitation of China’s young professionals is a politically sensitive subject. Recently the government banned one of the most popular shows on television, Wo Ju (Narrow Dwelling), a sort of Chinese Friends set in a city much like Shanghai. The show chronicles the exploits of a young couple with good jobs and degrees from China’s finest universities who still can’t afford a home, until a young woman has an affair with a well-connected government official. Wo Ju drew millions of viewers and sparked controversy; prominent Chinese writer Xiao Fuxing has denounced the show’s equation of home ownership with happiness as a "thorn" in Chinese society. (In big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, it’s a truism that a man who can’t afford a home isn’t worth marrying.) The fact that Wo Ju was deemed so dangerous by the censors only reveals how deeply it struck a chord with China’s aspiring classes.
Last month, a representative of the Communist Youth League told a gathering of Chinese reporters that the government was launching a propaganda campaign to convince young people to lower their expectations for success. The message: Let them rent. "Everyone worries about the 1980s generation — the young generation," says Yang Xiao, a reporter with Beijing Youth Daily newspaper. "What if they become cynical or have no dream?"
Meanwhile, it’s not only the young and restless in China for whom real estate represents a source of frustrated ambitions. Economists say one significant driver of China’s soaring real estate prices has been wealthy investors in China snatching up property, because they have few other investment options. Current laws — based on longstanding Chinese economic doctrine that regards capital inflow as good, outflow as bad — forbid Chinese citizens from making most kinds of overseas investments. Meanwhile, stock markets in China are unstable and immature, and there are few tax incentives for philanthropy. As a result, the wealthiest in China are faced with a problem unimaginable a generation ago: what to do with their money.
The answer, for many, has been to invest in one of the few options available to them — an asset whose value, within their lifetime, has only gone up and up: real estate. "Property is being held by many as a store of value, like gold," explains Patrick Chovanec, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management. "This bids up prices and also skews development toward high-end properties, as opposed to affordable housing."
Ms. Wang, the wife of a successful Beijing businessman who gave only her surname, has purchased four homes in recent years. There’s the apartment she and her husband live in, and three others they hold as investments. All three are vacant; she’s making no attempt to rent them out. No property taxes are assessed in China, and so there’s no financial penalty for simply buying and holding. The rental market in Beijing, in comparison to the red-hot real estate market, is fairly weak, and besides, renting out those apartments — putting them to use and risking some wear and tear — could diminish their value. So they remain pristine and empty.
Ms. Wang’s thinking is not unique. Many of China’s wealthiest see empty apartments as their best investment option. China’s nouveau-riche, which have benefited from the country’s rising tide, are now bumping up against its limits. The economy hasn’t diversified enough to afford them many options for building their wealth. Privately, some are beginning to grumble; as one corporate tax analyst in Beijing told me: "The government is to blame."
Massive immigration into China’s fast-growing cities, as well as emerging investment pressures and lingering housing-welfare programs favoring government employees, all combine to drive up both residential prices. In the case of commercial properties, additional forces are at work; with an underdeveloped credit and risk-assessment system in China, business loans are issued not on the basis of expected earnings, but on collateral — usually property. Companies have multiple incentives to acquire property, and commercial realtors have an incentive to keep the asking price for office space high, even if offices remain vacant, because lowering prices (and thus the value assigned to a property) could bring unwanted scrutiny of outstanding loans. Across from the vaunted Olympic Aquacube in northern Beijing sits an impressive five-tower commercial property; it was built three years ago, but many of the offices remain empty. Still, several new commercial properties are under construction not far away.
Beijing is worried about both the economics and the political implications of the real estate frenzy, and has lately announced several measures to cool off the market. The government is walking a tightrope — on the one hand wanting to prevent a total meltdown ("The government has to move before the bubble bursts and destroys the overall economy," said private-sector economist Zuo Xiaolei in unusually frank comments to state-run China Daily newspaper), and on the other hand not quite wanting to slow down an economy so heavily dependent on construction, property-rights sales, building materials, and other construction-related jobs.
There are holes in the new regulations. Efforts to limit the purchase of multiple homes are easily circumvented: Ms. Wang, for instance, purchased one of her homes in her daughter’s name (using easily obtained false documents about her daughter’s place of employment). Higher down-payment requirements won’t ward off wealthy investors who pay in cash up front.
True reform won’t be easy because it involves a painful re-examination of core aspects of the Chinese economic system, Chovanec argues: "The government is dealing in terms of edict, not root causes — but it’s not easy to just order water to stop flowing downhill."
Over time, some regulatory holes will likely be closed, but reining in local governments and corruption pose additional challenges. With many city governments deriving between one-quarter and one-third of their annual revenues from the sale of land-use rights for development, it will be hard to wean localities across China from such a giant cash cow. The incentives for graft are high.
Zhang Xin is co-president of SOHO China, Beijing’s largest property developer, and has made her fortune on the property boom. Yet the former Goldman Sachs investment banker, who last year made Forbes magazine’s "Top Ten "Billionaire Women We Admire" list, admits she is worried about the engine of her wealth. As she told China International Business magazine in January: "We do have a view that this is a bubble. Real estate is very much driven by government policy … I am sure the government is worried about it, but what do you do? They want the stimulus and if you want to create jobs then this is a by-product." She finds the empty apartment syndrome troubling: "These buildings are not fully occupied and people should be worried about it … Because of where China is with asset bubbles, people want to buy the assets regardless of whether they can be leased out or not. People just want to hold [property], even if it is empty."
Of course, if China’s real estate is a bubble scenario, it won’t necessarily pop in the same way as the U.S. housing market, or as immediately — residential borrowers aren’t as highly leveraged (down-payment requirements are relatively higher), and state-run banks won’t call in bad loans as quickly. Some observers, such as hedge-fund guru Jim Chanos, see an immediate danger ("What we’re talking about is a world-class — if not the world-class — property bubble," he recently told PBS host Charlie Rose, adding that he expects a dramatic slowdown in China within a year). Some argue the danger is overstated; others think the day of reckoning may be 5 or 10 years off.
But one thing is clear now: The political frictions are already evident — and both China’s haves and its have-nots are fuming.This book claims to follow a Swiss teacher named Paul Amadeus Dienach in his 360 days in the future. In his diary, he took over the body of one Andrew Northam, a resident of the year 3906. This is actually the claim made by Georgio Papachatzis. Of the two, Georgio was an actual person, although Dienach I am not so certain.
Papachatzis makes the claim that, as a student of Dienach's tutelage teaching the German language in Greece, circa 1920. According to Papachatzis, Dienach left his diary to Pap
This book claims to follow a Swiss teacher named Paul Amadeus Dienach in his 360 days in the future. In his diary, he took over the body of one Andrew Northam, a resident of the year 3906. This is actually the claim made by Georgio Papachatzis. Of the two, Georgio was an actual person, although Dienach I am not so certain.
Papachatzis makes the claim that, as a student of Dienach's tutelage teaching the German language in Greece, circa 1920. According to Papachatzis, Dienach left his diary to Papachatzis before his death, explaining only to the student should read them to improve on his understanding of German. When Papachatzkis read the diary, he discovered the amazing story of Dienach's experiences in the future, while the latter resided in the body of Andrew Northam. Papachatzis purportedly translated the diary, which was actually released in 1922 in as "Valley of the Roses".
Reading this book, I found the story to feel very much more of a work of prose than a diary. As for its validity as a presentation of an actual journey to the future, I cannot bring myself to agree that this is likely. It may be that there was a man called Paul Amadeus Dienach who went comatose for an extended period, and that he left his diaries to Papachatzis exactly as described, yet there is little here to suggest Dienach actually visited the future. Most of the predictions are largely unsurprising to a science fiction writer of the era, containing a feel not too dissimilar to Bellamy's "Looking Backward" written in the late 19th century.
As a piece of relatively engaging Radium Age Speculative Fiction, I would recommend it as a good read. As a factual account of the future, I would not recommend it at all. Without a confirmation from Dienach that the diary entries were anything more than a fiction, it's impossible to corroborate. Even with that, it's possible Dienach only dreamed he visited the future while in his comatose state, believing the events as having occurred.I was recently reading an interview with Norman Cook (it seems very weird to call a 51-year-old “Fatboy”) where he was talking about, inter alia, time spent in rehab and giving up drinking. In the accompanying picture he was wearing his usual Britpop uniform – and he’s still pretty slim. But the face? The face says it all. The face is that of a man who has partied hard and long.
This got me thinking. I’m about five years younger than Cook. Unlike him, I really am a fatboy, but I don’t yet have the face – and the fat is, in theory at least, reversible. Which raises the question: when should a man stop partying? Is there an acceptable level of partying a man should be doing as he approaches his sixth decade? One which won’t leave him with a pub face?
This is actually one of the great questions of our times. It used to be that our 30s were our new 20s. Then it was our 40s. Now, I suspect it’s our 50s. Perhaps even our 60s and 70s. Look around you. Not only have the old people flogged off the all the family silver, they’re still partying like it’s 1999.
You have the likes of Mick Jagger bouncing around on stage like a hyperactive teenager and Madonna mixing gym-toned arms and carefully choreographed falls. You have concern over pensioners binge drinking. You have 50-somethings who still want to be sorted for Es and whizz. And, most startlingly, you have STDs spreading like wildfire in nursing homes as the originators of the sexual revolution move into assisted living complexes, presumably with pampas grass planting.
Age gives you the wisdom to know that you shouldn’t stay up much beyond 3am Alex Proud
Now, all that’s gone. From debs to plebs, we all want to party on – and on and on. We have tabloid tales of grannies in Magaluf and Benidorm. We have our ageing celebrities locked in an endless cycle of drying out and loving it until they realise how dull other people are when you’re sober. I myself see it. A few rock stars I know still do tons of drugs (OK, so it’s to keep awake until 2am, not for three days, but still) and hoof Viagra by the bucket because, let’s face it, those 23-year-old groupies aren’t going to shag themselves.
The midnight oil and a Fender Stratocaster are comfortable bedmates (Photo: Alamy)
The most surprising thing about this is what a mess about it makes of your putative life mileposts. I’m pretty sure that, when I was 18, I had a mental date in my diary that I would stop partying hard at the then unimaginably old age of 32. At 32, I thought I’d stop when I had kids. When I had kids, it did stop for a bit (as you get to stay up all night anyway). But then the kids started sleeping and the partying restarted. And so, I’ve realised that it ends... well, never.
Should we care? Maybe not. I’m not suggesting we live like Keith Richards or Jack Nicholson, but then you think a few beers, the odd spliff, a few glasses of wine and, oh, you just remembered that wrap of coke in your wallet... it doesn’t sound that bad, does it? It doesn’t sound entirely incompatible with that 50th birthday which is lurking just over the horizon. Also, age gives you the wisdom to know that you shouldn’t stay up much beyond 3am, drink your weekly unit allowance in a single night or batter the gak until your only desire in the world is to find more gak, even though you know full well that its only effect will be to keep you unpleasantly, irritably awake until noon the next day.
Besides, all that government advice... well it’s hard to know, isn’t it? Is cannabis Class B or C these days? When is a legal high not a legal high? And then there’s the endless anec-data, all those stories about granddads who drank like fishes and lived to 100, while joggers drop dead in their 50s.
And that’s before I consider the sheer and utter boredom of living with my sober self for another 40 years. I mean, I know drug stories can sometimes be boring. But exercise stories are always boring. I never, ever, ever want to hear about your marathon. Full stop.
As for the indignity of it, well, most things look better on the young. I’m not sure that seeing a 54-year old on ecstasy is any worse than seeing a 54-year old on a £3000 bike or in a swimming pool. Besides, as you get older you can do it in nice restaurants and houses in Crouch End and private clubs and you can afford the good stuff. It’s a bit like fashion. When you’re young and beautiful, anything goes, but as you age you need to wear Chanel jackets and tailored suits.
Age has not dampened Jack Nicholson's party animal image (Photo: Rex)
In a related vein, I suppose, you should resist the urge to share. An arch comment on Twitter is fine. Your son’s 15-year-old friends finding a Facebook picture of dad clubbing in a state of possibly artificial excitement really isn’t. Leave the exhaustive social media documentation of your partying to the kids. Not least because, as mentioned earlier, they look cute even if they’re acting like idiots. History is often surprisingly kind to pictures of youthful indiscretion.
I was going to end by saying something mealy-mouthed about setting an example. But what sort of example? I don’t want to be the dull healthy uncle who lived to 100, I want to be the lovable rogue who lived to 85, drank a bit too much and charmed the ladies. I suppose I’d say it’s a case of balance. If you’re going to indulge a bit too much on a night out, try to make sure you have an extra helping of leafy greens and go for a bracing walk the next day.
There is one thing though. One ironclad no-no. One thing you should never do as you party into your 50s. Don’t be cool about drugs with your kids. Don’t tell your kids you took drugs. Don’t be the cool parents who openly let their teenage kids dabble (though there may be something to be said for turning a blind eye). And for God’s sake don’t take drugs with your kids, even if they are over 18.
Drugs are like porn. You absolutely should tell your kids about the risks of indulging, but you absolutely should not share in any sense. Never, ever, ever. So, fine, take a bit of coke at that dinner party if you have to. But the next day, tell your teenage kids that you drank too much and that it bought on the cold you’d been fighting and that’s why you’re sniffling. And keep telling them this even if they notice a few telltale streaks of white dust on the glass coffee table. They’ll know you’re lying – and what’s more, they’ll be thanking God that you have the decency to do so.Emerging Ireland will travel to Romania in June to take part in the 2014 IRB Nations Cup which will see a development squad play three matches in nine days.
Connacht’s Dan McFarland has been appointed as head coach and he will be assisted by Ulster’s Neil Doak. McFarland formerly coached Ireland’s U20’s. Doak, backs’ coach at Ulster has formed part of the coaching ticket for the Irish Wolfhounds.
Emerging Ireland’s first game of the tournament takes place on Friday, June 13th, against Russia. Five days later Emerging Ireland take on Uruguay on Wednesday June, |
6) MOCS* Khans of Tarkir Block Constructed Saturday, December 13, 2014 Player of the Year event Khans of Tarkir Sealed Saturday, December 20, 2014 Last Chance Qualifier #1 Khans of Tarkir Sealed Sunday, December 21, 2014 June (S7) MOCS* Holiday Cube Sealed Saturday, December 27, 2014 Last Chance Qualifier #2 Holiday Cube Sealed
*Indicates Make up Season
**The February (S3) MOCS Season already ran Preliminary events. There will only be a Finals event for this season.
All MOCS Finals, Player of the Year and Last Chance Qualifiers Finals start at 7 a.m. Pacific.
Full information on MOCS events, including MOCS Prelim times.
The Return of the Pro Tour Qualifier Events
With the return of Pro Tour Qualifiers to Magic Online, we have adopted a new system for running PTQs on Magic Online, beginning with the February 2015 Pro Tour Qualifier season. Magic Online PTQs will now consist of a set of Preliminaries that grant invitations to the PTQ Finals. Winners of PTQ Finals receive invitations to the associated Pro Tour,as well as the Pro Tour Challenge for that Pro Tour (described below).
New Magic Online PTQ Structure:
Each PTQ Finals will have ten Preliminaries events earlier in the week.
Each Finals event will have the same play format as the Preliminaries that qualify players for the Finals.
Preliminaries will be 128 players and five rounds. All players who go 4–1 or better will qualify for the associated Finals.
Winning a Preliminary will qualify that player for the associated Finals event.
Players may participate in as many Preliminaries as they like (even if you have already qualified for the associated Final), but can only earn a single invitation to the PTQ Finals.
Preliminaries will typically cost 30 Event Tickets to enter.
Finals will have no entry fee but will be invitation only. They will have rounds determined by the number of players with a cut to Top 8.
For PTQ Finals being held on a Saturday, the Preliminaries will be held during the week leading up to the PTQ Finals at Wednesday 4:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m.; Thursday 8:30 a.m., 12:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m.; Friday 8:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m. (all times Pacific).
For PTQ Finals being held on a Sunday the Preliminaries will be held during the week leading up to the PTQ Finals at Wednesday 3:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m.; Thursday 10:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m.; Friday 10:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m.; Saturday 10:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m. (all times Pacific).
As announced in this article, Magic Online PTQs will no longer be awarding +1,000 Planeswalker Points to the winner of PTQ Finals.
Magic Online will typically host sixteen Pro Tour Qualifier Finals following each set of Preliminaries that will have the same format as their Preliminaries. On weeks that there are both Constructed and Limited PTQ Finals, the Constructed Preliminaries will qualify players for only the Constructed Finals and the Limited PTQ Preliminaries will qualify players for only the Limited PTQ Finals.
Participation in Magic Online PTQ Preliminaries and Finals is open only to players who have not been invited to the corresponding Pro Tour.
See the complete event rules here.
Here is the schedule for PTQ Finals for the PTQ February PT season on Magic Online:
Date Type Format Sunday, August 31, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Magic 2015 Sealed Sunday, September 7, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Magic 2015 Sealed Sunday, September 21, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Magic 2015 Sealed Sunday, September 28, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Magic 2015 Sealed Sunday, October 5, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Saturday, October 11, 2014 PTQ February PT—Standard Standard Sunday, October 12, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Saturday, October 18, 2014 PTQ February PT—Standard Standard Sunday, October 19, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Saturday, November 1, 2014 PTQ February PT—Standard Standard Sunday, November 2, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Sunday, November 9, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Saturday, November 15, 2014 PTQ February PT—Standard Standard Sunday, November 16, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Sunday, November 23, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed Sunday, November 30, 2014 PTQ February PT—Limited Khans of Tarkir Sealed
Pro Tour Challenge
Players who earn an invitation to a Pro Tour will also receive an invitation to the Pro Tour Challenge. This in-person event is held during the Pro Tour event and pits Magic Online Pro Tour Challenge invitees against one another in two-player, single-elimination tournaments for a chance to win prizes.
Prizes for the Pro Tour February 2015 Challenge and beyond have increased! Players can now win $1,500 USD plus Magic Online booster packs. Pro Tour Challenge tournaments will be scheduled around the applicable Pro Tour main event to ensure players are able to participate in both.
See the complete schedule and event rules here.
See You Online!
We are excited to bring premier play back to Magic Online. If you have any comments, concerns or feedback on this update, please direct them to MTGOFeedback@wizards.com. On Twitter, you can also follow Magic Online (@MagicOnline) or use the #MTGO tag for discussion.
Thanks,
Mike Turian
Digital Product Manager—Magic Online
Twitter: @mturianThis article is about the celebration. For other uses, see Father's Day (disambiguation)
Father's Day is a celebration honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. In Catholic Europe, it has been celebrated on March 19 (St. Joseph's Day) since the Middle Ages. This celebration was brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Latin America, where March 19 is often still used for it, though many countries in Europe and the Americas have adopted the U.S. date, which is the third Sunday of June. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the months of March, April and June. It complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Mother's Day, Siblings Day, and Grandparents' Day.
History and traditions [ edit ]
Early history [ edit ]
A customary day for the celebration of fatherhood in Catholic Europe is known to date back to at least the Middle Ages, and it is observed on 19 March, as the feast day of Saint Joseph, who is referred to as the fatherly Nutritor Domini ("Nourisher of the Lord") in Catholicism and "the putative father of Jesus" in southern European tradition. This celebration was brought to the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese, and in Latin America, Mother's Day is still celebrated on 19 March. The Catholic Church actively supported the custom of a celebration of fatherhood on St. Joseph's day from either the last years of the 14th century or from the early 15th century[citation needed], apparently on the initiative of the Franciscans[citation needed].
In the Coptic Church, the celebration of fatherhood is also observed on St Joseph's Day, but the Copts observe this celebration on July 20. This Coptic celebration may date back to the fifth century.[citation needed]
In the United States [ edit ]
Beginnings [ edit ]
Father's Day was not celebrated in the US, outside Catholic traditions, until the 20th century. As a civic celebration in the US, it was inaugurated in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day by celebrating fathers and male parenting.
After Anna Jarvis' successful promotion of Mother's Day in Grafton, West Virginia, the first observance of a "Father's Day" was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church.[1] Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father, when in December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested that her pastor Robert Thomas Webb honor all those fathers.[2][3][4][5]
Clayton's event did not have repercussions outside Fairmont for several reasons, among them: the city was overwhelmed by other events, the celebration was never promoted outside the town itself and no proclamation of it was made by the city council. Also, two events overshadowed this event: the celebration of Independence Day July 4, 1908, with 12,000 attendants and several shows including a hot air balloon event, which took over the headlines in the following days, and the death of a 16-year-old girl on July 4. The local church and council were overwhelmed and they did not even think of promoting the event, and it was not celebrated again for many years. The original sermon was not reproduced by the press and it was lost. Finally, Clayton was a quiet person, who never promoted the event and never talked to other persons about it.[3][4][5]
Failed attempts at establishing a Father's Day [ edit ]
In 1911, Jane Addams proposed that a citywide Father's Day celebration be held in Chicago, but she was turned down.[6]
In 1912, there was a Father's Day celebration in Vancouver, Washington, suggested by Methodist pastor J.J. Berringer of the Irvington Methodist Church. They mistakenly believed that they had been the first to celebrate such a day.[1] They followed a 1911 suggestion by the Portland Oregonian.[6]
Harry C. Meek, a member of Lions Clubs International, claimed that he had first come up with the idea for Father's Day in 1915.[1][6] Meek said that the third Sunday in June was chosen because it was his birthday.[6] The Lions Club has named him the "Originator of Father's Day".[1] Meek made many efforts to promote Father's Day and make it an official holiday.[1][6]
Establishment of the holiday [ edit ]
On June 19, 1910, a Father's Day celebration was held at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington by Sonora Smart Dodd.[7][8] Her father, the civil war veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there.[7] She was also a member of Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church),[9] where she first proposed the idea. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909 at Central Methodist Episcopal Church, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday to honor them.[7] Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday in June.[1][6] Several local clergymen accepted the idea, and on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day, "sermons honoring fathers were presented throughout the city".[10]
Bangladeshi father with son and daughter
However, in the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane.[11] In the 1930s, Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level.[12] She had the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present for fathers.[13] By 1938, she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the holiday's commercial promotion.[14] Americans resisted the holiday for its first few decades, viewing it as nothing more than an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes.[15] However, the said merchants remained resilient and even incorporated these attacks into their advertisements.[16] By the mid-1980s, the Father's Day Council wrote, "(...) [Father's Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."[17]
A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.[18] In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak at a Father's Day celebration[19] and he wanted to make it an officially recognized federal holiday, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.[20] US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed throughout the entire nation, but he stopped short at issuing a national proclamation.[19] Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.[19][21] In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a Father's Day proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents".[21] In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.[20] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.[19][20][21][22]
In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 in honor of men and boys who are not fathers.
Spelling [ edit ]
In the United States, Dodd used the "Fathers' Day" spelling on her original petition for the holiday,[7] but the spelling "Father's Day" was already used in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the U.S. Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday,[18] and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by the U.S. Congress.[23]
The officially recognized date of Father's Day varies from country to country. This section lists some significant examples, in order of date of observance.
*Officially, as the name suggests, the holiday celebrates people who are serving or were serving the Russian Armed Forces (both men and women). But the congratulations are traditionally, nationally accepted by all fathers, other adult men and male children as well.
**There is no official Father's Day of the P.R. China. During the Republican period prior to 1949, Father's Day on August 8 was first celebrated in Shanghai in 1945.
International history and traditions [ edit ]
Argentina [ edit ]
Father's Day in Argentina is celebrated on the third Sunday of June.
There have been attempts to change the date to August 24, to commemorate the day on which the Father of the Nation José de San Martín became a father.[29] In 1953, the proposal to celebrate Father's Day in all educational establishments on August 24, in honor of José de San Martín, was raised to the General Direction of Schools of Mendoza Province. The day was celebrated for the first time in 1958, on the third Sunday of June, but it was not included in the school calendars due to pressure from several groups.[44]
Schools in the Mendoza Province continued to celebrate Father's Day on August 24, and, in 1982, the provincial governor passed a law declaring Father's Day in the province to be celebrated on that day.[44]
In 2004, a proposal to change the date to August 24 were presented to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies as a single, unified project.
Aruba [ edit ]
In Aruba, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Australia [ edit ]
In Australia, Father's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September, which is the first Sunday of Spring in Australia, and is not a public holiday. At school, children often handcraft a present for their fathers. Consumer goods companies have all sorts of special offers for fathers: socks, ties, electronics, suits, and men's healthcare products. Most families present fathers with gifts and cards, and share a meal to show appreciation, much like Mother's Day.
YMCA Victoria continues the tradition of honouring the role fathers and father figures play in parenting through the annual awarding of Local Community Father of the Year in 32 municipalities in Victoria. The Father's Day Council of Victoria annually recognises fathers in the Father of the Year Award.[45]
Austria [ edit ]
In Austria, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of June and it is not a public holiday.
Belgium [ edit ]
In Belgium, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of June and it is not a public holiday.
Brazil [ edit ]
In Brazil Father's Day (Dia dos Pais, in Portuguese) is celebrated three months after Mother's Day, on the second Sunday of August. Publicist Sylvio Bhering picked the day in honor of Saint Joachim, patron of fathers. While it is not an official holiday (see Public holidays in Brazil), it is widely observed and typically involves spending time with and giving gifts to one's father or father figure.
Canada [ edit ]
In Canada, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Father's Day typically involves spending time with one's father or the father figures in one's life. Small family gatherings and the giving of gifts may be part of the festivities organized for Father's Day.
China [ edit ]
In People's Republic of China, there is no official Father's Day. Some people celebrate on the third Sunday of June, according to the tradition of the United States.
Prior to the People's Republic, when the Republic of China governed from Nanjing, Father's Day was celebrated on August 8. This was determined by the fact that the eighth (ba) day of the eighth (ba) month makes two "eights" (八八, ba-ba), which sounds similar to the colloquial word for "daddy" (ba-ba，爸爸). It is still celebrated on this date in areas still under the control of the Republic of China, including Taiwan.
Costa Rica [ edit ]
In Costa Rica, the Unidad Social Cristiana party presented a bill to change the celebration of Father's Day from the third Sunday of June to March 19, the day of Saint Joseph.[46] That was in order to give tribute to this saint, who gave his name to the capital of the country San José, Costa Rica, and so family heads will be able to celebrate the Father's Day at the same time as the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.[31] The official date is still the third Sunday of June.
Croatia [ edit ]
In Croatia, according to the Roman Catholic tradition, fathers are celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day (Dan svetog Josipa), March 19. It is not a public holiday.
Denmark [ edit ]
In Denmark, Father's Day is celebrated on June 5.[28] It coincides with Constitution Day.
Estonia [ edit ]
In Estonia, Father's day ("Isadepäev") is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is an established flag day and a national holiday.
Finland [ edit ]
In Finland, Father's Day (Isänpäivä, Fars dag) is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is an established flag day.
France [ edit ]
In France lighter manufacturer "Flaminaire" introduced the idea of father's day first in 1949 for commercial reasons. Director "Marcel Quercia" wanted to sell their lighter in France. In 1950, they introduced "la Fête des Pères", which would take place every third Sunday of June (following the American example). Their slogan « Nos papas nous l'ont dit, pour la fête des pères, ils désirent tous un Flaminaire » (Our fathers told us, for father's day, they all want a Flaminaire). In 1952, the holiday was officially decreed. A national father's day committee was set up to give a prize for fathers that deserved it most (originally, candidates were nominated by the social services of each town hall's/mayor's office); This complements "la Fête des Mères" (Mother's day) which was made official in France in 1928 and added to the calendar in Vichy in 1941.
Germany [ edit ]
Hiking tour on father's day with smaller wagons
In Germany, Father's Day (Vatertag) is celebrated differently from other parts of the world.[47] It is always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), which is a federal holiday. Regionally, it is also called men's day, Männertag, or gentlemen's day, Herrentag. It is a tradition for groups of males (young and old but usually excluding pre-teenage boys) to do a hiking tour with one or more smaller wagons, Bollerwagen, pulled by manpower. In the wagons are wine or beer bottles (according to the region) and traditional regional food, Hausmannskost. Many men use this holiday as an opportunity to get drunk.[47] According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, alcohol-related traffic accidents multiply by three on this day.[48] The tradition of Father's Day is especially prevalent in Eastern Germany.[47]
These traditions are probably rooted in Christian Ascension Day's processions to the farmlands, which has been celebrated since the 18th century.[49][50] Men would be seated in a wooden cart and carried to the village's plaza, and the mayor would award a prize to the father who had the most children, usually a big piece of ham.[49] In the late 19th century the religious component was progressively lost, especially in urban areas such as Berlin, and groups of men organized walking excursions with beer and ham.[49] By the 20th century, alcohol consumption had become a major part of the tradition.[49][51] Many people will take the following Friday off at work, and some schools are closed on that Friday as well; many people then use the resulting four-day-long weekend for a short vacation.
Greece [ edit ]
Father's Day, is observed on the feast day of Fathers. It is celebrated as a public international day, like in many other countries including the U.S., on the third Sunday of June. In Greece, like in other European countries, this day is named (Fête des Peres/Feast of Fathers)
Haiti [ edit ]
In Haiti, Father's Day (Fête des peres) is celebrated on the last Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Fathers are recognized and celebrated on this day with cards, gifts, breakfast, lunch brunch or early Sunday dinner; whether enjoying the day at the beach or mountains, spending family time or doing favourite activities.
Children exclaim "bonne fête papa", while everyone wishes all fathers "bonne Fête des Pères". (Happy Father's Day)
Hong Kong [ edit ]
In Hong Kong, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Hungary [ edit ]
In Hungary, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
India [ edit ]
Father's Day [[(Telugu: ఫాదర్స్ డే)], Tamil: Thanthaiyar Thinam, தந்தையர் தினம்]is not celebrated in all of India. But is observed the third Sunday of June by mostly westernized urban centers. The event is not a public holiday. The day is usually celebrated only in bigger cities of India like Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kanpur, Bengaluru, Kolkata and others. After this day was first observed in the United States in 1908 and gradually gained popularity,[52] Indian metropolitan cities, much later, followed suit by recognising this event. In India, the day is usually celebrated with children giving gifts like greeting cards, electronic gadgets, shirts, coffee mugs or books to their fathers.
Indonesia [ edit ]
In Indonesia, Father's Day is celebrated on November 12 and is not a public holiday. Father's Day in Indonesia was first declared in 2006 in Solo City Hall attended by hundreds of people from various community groups, including people from community of inter-religion communication. Because of its recent declaration, there is not very much hype about the celebration, compared to the celebration of Mother's Day on December 22.
Ireland [ edit ]
In Ireland, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Israel [ edit ]
In Israel, Father's Day is usually celebrated on May 1 together with Workers' Day or Labour Day.[citation needed]
Italy [ edit ]
In Italy, according to the Roman Catholic tradition, Father's Day is celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, commonly called Feast of Saint Joseph (Festa di San Giuseppe), March 19. It was a public holiday until 1977.
Japan [ edit ]
In Japan, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Kazakhstan [ edit ]
Kazakhstan continues the Soviet Union's tradition of celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day instead of Father's Day like in Russia and other former soviet countries. It is usually called "Man's Day" and it is considered equivalent of Father's Day. It is still celebrated on February 23.
Kenya [ edit ]
In Kenya, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Korea [ edit ]
In South Korea, Parents' day is celebrated on May 8 and is not a public holiday.
Latvia [ edit ]
In Latvia, Father's Day (Tēvu diena) is celebrated on the second Sunday of September and is not a public holiday. In Latvia people did not always celebrate this day because of the USSR's influence with its own holidays. This day in Latvia was 'officially born' in 2008 when it was celebrated and marked in the calendar for the first time on September 14 (second September Sunday) to promote the idea that man as the father must be satisfied and proud of his family and children, also, the father is important to gratitude and loving words from his family for devoted to continuous altruistic concerns. Because this day is new to the country it does not have established unique traditions, but people borrow ideas from other country's Father's Day traditions to congratulate fathers in Latvia.
Lithuania [ edit ]
In Lithuania, Father's Day (Tėvo diena) is celebrated on the first Sunday of June and is a public holiday.
Macao [ edit ]
In Macau, Father's Day (Dia do Pai) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Malaysia [ edit ]
In Malaysia, Father's Day falls on the third Sunday of June.
Malta [ edit ]
Malta has followed the international trend and celebrates Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June. As in the case of Mother’s Day, the introduction of Father’s Day celebrations in Malta was encouraged by Frans H Said (Uncle Frans of the children’s radio programmes). The first mention of Father’s Day was in June 1977, [53] and the day is now part of the local events calendar. (The Times of Malta 11 June 2017) ( Il-Mument - Maltese newspaper- 18 June 2017)
Mexico [ edit ]
In Mexico, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.
Mongolia [ edit ]
The Mongolian Men's Association began the celebration of Father's Day on 8 of August since 2005.
Nepal [ edit ]
The Newar population (natives of Kathmandu valley) in Nepal honors fathers on the day of kusa aunsi, which occurs in late August or early September, depending on the year, since it depends on the lunar calendar. The Western-inspired celebration of Father's Day that was imported into the country is always celebrated on the same day as Gokarna Aunsi.
The rest of the population has also begun to celebrate the Gokarna Aunsi day[54] It is commonly known as Abu ya Khwa Swoyegu in Nepal Bhasa or Buwaako mukh herne din (बुवाको मुख हेर्ने दिन) in Nepali (literally "day for looking at father's face").[43][55] On the new moon day (Amavasya) it is traditional to pay respect to one's deceased father; Hindus go to the Shiva temple of Gokarneswor Mahadev, in Gokarna, a suburb of Kathmandu[56] while Buddhists go to Jan Bahal (Seto Machhendranath or white Tara) temple in Kathmandu.
Traditionally, in the Kathmandu Valley, the south-western corner is reserved for women and women-related rituals, and the north-eastern is for men and men-related rituals. The worship place for Mata Tirtha Aunsi ("Mother Pilgrimage New Moon") is located in Mata Tirtha in the south-western half of the valley, while the worship place for Gokarna Aunsi is located in the north-eastern half. This division is reflected in many aspects of the life in the Kathmandu Valley.[57]
Netherlands [ edit ]
In the Netherlands, Father's Day (Vaderdag) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Traditionally, as on Mother's Day, fathers get breakfast in bed made by their children and families gather together and have dinner, usually at the grandparents' house. In recent years, families also started having dinner out, and as on Mother's Day, it is one of the busiest days for restaurants. At school, children handcraft their present for their fathers. Consumer goods companies have all sorts of special offers for fathers: socks, ties, electronics, suits, and men's healthcare products.
New Zealand [ edit ]
In New Zealand, Father's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September and it is not a public holiday. Fathers' Day seems to have been first observed at St Matthew's Church, Auckland on 14 July 1929[58] and first appeared in commercial advertising the following year.[59] By 1931 other churches had adopted the day. In 1935 much of Australia moved to mark the day at the beginning of September[60] and New Zealand followed, with a Wellington advert in 1937,[61] a Christchurch Salvation Army service in 1938[62] and in Auckland from 1939.[63]
Norway [ edit ]
In Norway, Father's day (Farsdag), is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is not a public holiday.
Pakistan [ edit ]
Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The Rutgers WPF launched a campaign titled 'Greening Pakistan – Promoting Responsible Fatherhood' on Father's Day (Sunday June 18, 2017) across Pakistan to promote active fatherhood and responsibility for the care and upbringing of children.[64][65] Father's Day is not a public holiday in Pakistan.
Peru [ edit ]
In Peru, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. People usually give a present to their fathers and spend time with him mostly during a family meal.
Philippines [ edit ]
In the Philippines, Father's Day (as well as Mother's Day) is officially celebrated every first Monday of December according to a recent presidential proclamation[66], but it is not a public holiday. It is more widely observed by the public on the 3rd Sunday of June perhaps due to American influence and as proclaimed in 1988 by Philippine President Corazon Aquino.[67].
Poland [ edit ]
In Poland, Father's Day (in Polish: Dzień Ojca) is celebrated on June 23 and is not a public holiday.
Portugal [ edit ]
Father's Day ("Dia do Pai") is celebrated on March 19 (see Roman Catholic tradition below) in Portugal. Father's Day is not a bank holiday.
Roman Catholic tradition [ edit ]
In the Roman Catholic tradition, Fathers are celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, commonly called the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, though in certain countries Father's Day has become a secular celebration.[68] It is also common for Catholics to honor their "spiritual father," their parish priest, on Father's Day.[69]
Romania [ edit ]
The Law instituting the Father's day celebration in Romania passed on September 29th, 2009 and stated that Father's day will be celebrated annually on the second Sunday of May. First time it was celebrated on May 9th 2010. This year it was celebrated on 12 May 2019. The next dates this celebration will take place are: 10 May 2020, 9 May 2021, 8 May 2022, 14 May 2023, 12 May 2024, 11 May 2025 and 10 May 2026. [27].
Russia [ edit ]
Russia continues the Soviet Union's tradition of celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day instead of Father's Day. It is usually called "Man's Day" and it is considered the Russian equivalent of Father's Day.[24]
American Samoa and Samoa [ edit ]
In Samoa, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in August, and is a recognised national holiday on the Monday following.
Seychelles [ edit ]
In Seychelles, Father's Day is celebrated on June 16 and is not a public holiday.[70]
Singapore [ edit ]
In Singapore, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June but is not a public holiday.
Slovakia [ edit ]
In Slovakia, Father's Day (In slovak: deň otcov) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday
South Africa [ edit ]
In South Africa, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday.
South Sudan [ edit ]
In South Sudan, Father's Day is celebrated on the last Monday of August. President Salva Kiir Mayardit proclaimed it before August 27, 2012. First celebrated on August 27, 2012, Father's Day was not celebrated in South Sudan in 2011 (due to the country's independence).
Spain [ edit ]
Father's Day, El Día del Padre, is observed on the feast day of Saint Joseph, which is March 19.[71] It is celebrated as a public holiday in some regions of Spain.[72]
Sri Lanka [ edit ]
Father's Day (In sinhala : Piyawarunge dhinaya, පියවරුන්ගේ දිනය & in Tamil: Thanthaiyar Thinam, தந்தையர் தினம்), is observed on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday. Many schools hold special events to honor fathers.
Sudan [ edit ]
In Sudan, Father's Day (عيد الأب), is celebrated on the twenty-first of June.
Sweden [ edit ]
In Sweden, Father's day (Fars dag), is celebrated on the second Sunday of November, but is not a public holiday.
Taiwan [ edit ]
In Taiwan, Father's Day is not an official holiday, but is widely observed on August 8, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year. In Mandarin Chinese, the pronunciation of the number eight is bā, and the pronunciation is very similar to the character "爸" "bà", which means "Pa" or "dad". The eighth day of the eighth month (bā-bā) is a pun for dad (爸爸 or "bàba"). The Taiwanese, therefore, sometimes refer to August 8 as "Bābā Holiday" as a pun for "Dad's Holiday" (爸爸節) or the more formal "Father's Day" (父親節).
Thailand [ edit ]
In Thailand, the birthday of the king, is set as Father's Day.[42] December 5 is the birthday of the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX). Traditionally, Thais celebrate by giving their father or grandfather a canna flower (ดอกพุทธรักษา Dok Buddha Raksa), which is considered a masculine flower; however, this is not as commonly practiced today. Thai people will wear yellow on this day to show respect for the late king, because yellow is the color of the day for Monday, the day King Bhumibol Adulyadej was born. Thais flood the Sanam Luang, a massive park in front of the palace, to watch the king give his annual speech, and often stay until the evening, when there is a national ceremony. Thais will light candles and show respect to the king by declaring their faith. This ceremony happens in almost every village in Thailand, and even overseas at Thai organizations.
It first gained nationwide popularity in the 1980s as part of a campaign by Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda to promote Thailand's royal family.[42] Mother's Day is celebrated on the birthday of Queen Sirikit,[42] August 12.
Trinidad and Tobago [ edit ]
In Trinidad and Tobago, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June and is not a public holiday.
Turkey [ edit ]
In Turkey, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June and is not a public holiday.
United Arab Emirates [ edit ]
In United Arab Emirates, Father's Day is celebrated on June 21 |
. As most stellar songwriting should do, each song on the album tells a story and is anecdotal in its approach. His collaboration with the man with the Midas touch, Phil Ramone, proved to be golden here, and they went on to engineer other timeless, incandescent material. The four singles released were "Just the Way You Are," "Only the Good Die Young," "She's Always a Woman" and "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," with each chronicling Joel's plaintive three to seven minute stories of love, heartache and day-to-day challenges.Demand for coconuts is booming and as ageing trees threaten to curtail world supply, researchers suggest northern Australia could develop a local coconut industry.
COCONUT FACTBOX Coconut facts and figures: Demand for coconuts worldwide has grown by more than 500 per cent in the past decade
Coconut water is now a $300 million-plus global industry
World prices for coconut oil have more than doubled in the past five years
90 per cent of global coconut supply comes from Asia
Australian imports of coconut oil increased by about 50 per cent in the past three years
Australian coconut production is very small, mostly harvesting fruit from ornamental palms
Coconuts grow in humid tropical regions and require high rainfall and warm temperatures Sources: World Bank, World Atlas, ABS trade data, The University of Queensland, IBISWorld
Australians, like many in the western world, are developing a taste for coconut.
While we have long enjoyed a dusting of dried coconut on lamingtons and other baked treats, it is now health conscious consumers that are driving exponential growth in the market for high-value products like coconut water and virgin coconut oil.
Strong niche markets are also emerging for coconut-based snacks, milk, yoghurt and ice cream, as well as coconut flour and coconut sugar, while demand for the traditional desiccated coconut remains solid.
Health nuts nuts for coconuts
Bao Vuong, a senior industry analyst with market research company IBISWorld, said the growth in products was explained by consumers buying into the perceived health benefits of coconut.
"That rising health consciousness is a big part of the market now and it's a market that needs to be tapped into," Mr Vuong said.
He pointed out that the number of brands offering coconut water products was ever expanding, with major supermarket Coles even launching its own private label coconut water.
"There is rising consumer demand for alternative products and I guess Coles is trying to tap into that market."
Nearly all the fresh coconuts and coconut products sold in Australia come from overseas, or are produced locally from imported raw materials.
Australian Bureau of Statistics trade data shows we are importing more coconut than ever before.
In the last financial year, Australia bought in more than $35 million worth of coconut oil, a figure that has almost tripled in the past decade.
Imports of fresh and dried coconut have also increased rapidly.
It is possible to source fresh locally grown coconuts in northern Australia, but coconut production is not on a commercial scale and restricted to harvesting fruit from ornamental palms in parks, along beaches and in gardens.
Most of the world's coconuts are grown in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mexico, Thailand and Malaysia.
External Link: Coconut oil imports on the rise
Coconut production is also a key source of revenue for Pacific nations Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Kiribati.
The Philippines is the world's largest producer of coconut oil and is also ramping up production of coconut water.
According to the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community, an inter-governmental agency that works to promote the coconut industry, exports of coconut water from the Philippines jumped from just 647,000 litres in 2008 to 1.8 million litres in 2010.
It then soared to 61 million litres in 2015.
Share Drinking coconuts imported from Thailand sell for $3.50 each at a Melbourne fruit and vegetable market.
Looming coconut shortage
While business is booming for the Philippines' coconut industry, the country, like many other coconut producing nations, faces a looming shortage as trees age and production declines.
Uron Salum, a coconut farmer from Papua New Guinea who serves as executive director of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community, said it was widely acknowledged that after 60 years most coconut trees passed their production peak and entered decline, producing fewer nuts.
"This is the most difficult challenge that is going to be facing the industry because some of the coconuts are way over 60 years old," Mr Salum said.
Some estimates suggest the world needs to plant a billion new trees to keep coconut production on track.
Mr Salum said the industry now faced a predicament of increasing demand at a time when farmers had not been replanting for 20 to 30 years.
"It's only in the last seven years that the industry has taken a revolutionary turnaround in terms of viability, and the higher value products came onto the market and began to be received well," he said.
"Prices became good and the issue of viability became more assured for farmers.
"Seven to 10 years ago it was very difficult to tell a farmer to replant his stock because he probably didn't see any future in it [the coconut industry]. There is now."
Share Coconut palms produce fewer nuts after about 60 years of age, although palms in coastal areas can be productive for longer.
Planting more palms key
In the Philippines, there is now a concerted effort to encourage farmers to replant coconut palms, while Sri Lanka has launched a campaign to replant 6 million palms every year to ensure future supply.
Pacific governments are also giving priority to helping farmers plant more palms.
But despite these efforts, the squeeze is already being felt.
Share Bulk buys of 12-litre boxes of coconut water for sale at an organic store are common.
Mr Salum said many large factories, which were established to process hundreds of thousands of coconuts each day, were now operating at roughly half their capacity.
"They can't get enough coconuts now," he said.
"There are Indonesian factories that are down to 50 per cent capacity. A Sri Lankan factory I visited is also at about 50 per cent capacity."
As many countries race to plant more trees, it is likely there will be a shortage of popular hybrid varieties of new plants.
That is where Australian research could play a crucial role.
What about a local coconut industry?
Scientists at the University of Queensland have been developing tissue culture cloning technology to produce baby coconut palm plants, known as plantlets, quickly and more cheaply.
Dr Julianne Biddle, a researcher with the University's School of Agriculture, said in working on projects to assist neighbouring Pacific nations with their coconut production, researchers began pondering whether Australia could also grow coconuts commercially.
"Australia is an ideal place to grow coconuts and yet we don't grow them here. And so we started asking these questions," Dr Biddle said.
There has been talk in the past of developing a commercial coconut industry in Australia, but it has never taken off.
Dr Biddle believes a number of factors mean the timing could now be right for a local industry.
As well as the advancement in cloning technology, which has the potential to produce plants that bear nuts more quickly, soaring consumer demand has built a strong market and good prices for value-added coconut products.
Add to that the development of new machinery, like coconut climbing robots, means labour costs of harvesting and processing coconuts could be reduced.
Share Could Australian grown coconuts become more widely available in the future?
"The way that technology is advancing you could put coconuts in the ground now and within three years when you've got fruit. Imagine the changes that will have happened," Dr Biddle said.
"We'll probably have drones picking coconuts for us.
"In the last six months we've had four producers contact us who are interested in planting areas to coconut in northern Australia and I expect that the interest will continue to increase."
One potential grower was considering planting 150 hectares of coconuts in the Northern Territory.
"If you are planting 125 coconuts per hectare and you can get about 200 coconuts per plant, you're getting about 25,000 coconuts per hectare, per year," she said.
"And if you are just selling those as, say, a whole drinking fruit for $2 each, you'd end up with about $50,000 per hectare."
Could coconut oil be the new olive oil?
Dr Biddle sees potential parallels between Australia's olive oil industry and a new virgin coconut oil industry.
"People planting olives were criticised initially and they've done so well," she said.
"It's been a lot of good product branding, encouraging people to visit the region and really own the brand. I think that could be something we could work towards in the coconut industry, for sure."
Dr Biddle predicts a local coconut industry would also bring benefits for Australian consumers.
"A lot of people would argue that the fresh products that are coming into the country are not being well looked after and that people are getting products on the shelves in supermarkets in the fruit section that are rancid before they even arrive," Dr Biddle said.
"[If we had a local industry] you would have much better access to fresh drinking coconuts.
"When you get it off the tree fresh it's effervescent and it's beautiful and it quenches your thirst."
Mr Salum of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community also sees potential in a coconut industry in Australia's north, and said demand for the product is only likely to increase.
"As long as the population is increasing in the world, I believe the demand for coconuts will also grow."The U.S. dollar is at its strongest level since September 2008 compared to the yen. This was established after the dollar recently traded at 107.35 yen. And the six-year high has surprised many financial advisors who have been following the Federal Reserve’s stance that it would be keeping rates at a low level for quite some time. This was to assure investors of a safe investment arena amidst the financial recession. Analysts believe that the Reserve may retract or modify its statement that it never specified a time frame regarding this low rate.
The fact that the Reserve has pursued a relatively aggressive move despite the economic slowdown may be a signal that the government is ready to take an assertive stand in the finance world as well. Also, with the recent issue of Scotland’s independence at hand, the strong dollar could assuage the fears some investors may have. This is because even without the final vote in, the pound has been seeing very low trading rates. It is forecasted that regardless of the decision, the pound would continue to decrease until it plateaus after a few months. If the greenback maintained its stable (but comparatively low) trading position, this would mean that two Western currencies would be facing financial challenges. This market high, therefore, is seen as a positive one by most financial investors.
The U.S. Central Bank will be holding several more meetings to discuss and speculate the current market. The policies established by these discussions will determine how the economy will fare over the next few months.
Like this Clarence Butt Facebook page for more financial news and updates.
AdvertisementsThe short answer is that it's a whole lot of great items in one big box!
Albino Dragon had a spectacular year in 2013 because of Kickstarter. We learned how to make decks, dice, coins, and a lot of other really cool things because of the projects that we ran.
In 2014, we wanted to create something that included the best of those items that we created but still provide something unique. We wanted to get away from the add-ons and produce a product that would have something for everyone.
If you were to buy each of these items separately, they would be over $50 plus shipping!
Included below is a complete list of what's in the crate, but if you keep scrolling you can see details on each one.
Dragon Tome - Custom Bicycle playing card deck designed specifically for the Dragon Crate.
- Custom Bicycle playing card deck designed specifically for the Dragon Crate. Miniature - A whopping 60mm custom dragon miniature cast in resin. 3.5" wingspan and 3.25" tall.
- A whopping 60mm custom dragon miniature cast in resin. 3.5" wingspan and 3.25" tall. Coin - One of our signature collectible coins made especially for this Kickstarter. Each coin is 1.75" in diameter and is made from brass with an enamel finish.
- One of our signature collectible coins made especially for this Kickstarter. Each coin is 1.75" in diameter and is made from brass with an enamel finish. Dice - A pair of custom dragon dice.About
About the ProjectCreation Cadets is a Christian episodic, educational online video project teaching young people about science using a futuristic space theme. Each episode is about 15 minutes long, dealing with one subject or theme. The episodes build upon each other, both in character development and educational material.
Storywise, the year is 2035, and the Creation Cadet program is like a two-week Bible camp on a space station, where young people are taught from a creation science perspective. The Creation Cadets learn and experience a variety of sciences. Their different teams work on small science projects, research, payload development, deployment, and data analysis. Part of their 'camp' activities include chapel time, Bible verse memory, workshops, and activity time. Learning is also fostered through shuttle field trips, which provide a unique platform and a perspective for examining Earth and the nearby planets.
What the Money is forSeveral sets are built and limited filming has already started; but, in order to start full production, funds are needed for:
Further set construction
Additional costumes
Special effects and 3D work
Music score composition
Stock science footage
Website development
Fossils and replicas/props.
Our goal is to be able to finish getting all assets needed to start full production of the episodes.
Why You Should Get Involved
Creation Cadets is one of the very, very few Christian video productions that uses the genre of a futuristic space theme, greatly setting it apart as unique and engaging. Also, the reason why we chose this genre is that most people equate the epitome of modern day technology with space exploration. As we are endeavoring to show the connection between faith and science, this genre really helps encourage that association.
Our Ministry Purpose
To provide solid evidence and teaching of God's creation, as well as solid Biblical teaching and discernment - for the purpose of strengthen the faith of believers, and to encourage and embolden others to place their trust in the God of Creation.
With your help, we can start producing the videos that will educate and encourage young people worldwide.
Thank You,
Daniel Valles, DirectorAn Iranian woman adjusts headscarves on mannequins at the Islamic fashion exhibit in central Tehran on March 1, 2012. The government’s offensive this year has been marked by the stationing of mixed-gender teams of morality police in Tehran’s main squares. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
An annual test of wills between Iran’s morality police and women who dress in ways that are deemed unacceptable has begun in cities across the Islamic republic.
But this year, the stakes are unusually high. As Iranian leaders attempt to deflect the public’s attention from economic woes spurred by crushing foreign sanctions, they risk alienating large segments of a society that is already deeply divided.
Mandatory female covering known as hijab has been a defining element of Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Although the laws regarding proper cover haven’t changed, some women have grown bolder in interpreting the limits of what they can wear, creating a conflict that inevitably flares each summer as temperatures climb.
The government’s offensive this year has been marked by the stationing of mixed-gender teams of morality police in Tehran’s main squares.
In recent weeks, 53 coffee shops and 87 restaurants have been closed in Tehran for serving customers with improper hijab or for other gender-related offenses, such as permitting women to smoke hookah pipes. Concerts have been abruptly canceled because of inappropriate dress and too much contact between male and female fans. Approximately 80 stands at an international food fair were closed last month because, officials said, the women working at them were either breaking hijab rules or wearing too much makeup.
Those arrested face up to two months in prison or even lashing, penalties that have been on the books for years but have rarely been imposed.
The aggressive enforcement and stiff penalties have spawned resentment.
“I felt disrespected and insulted,” said 30-year-old Sahar, who was arrested for wearing sleeves that went only to her forearms. “I’m a grown woman. I can decide what I can wear. I can make these decisions myself.”
But authorities have made the case this year that un-Islamic dress is a matter of national security and a symptom of longtime Western meddling in Iranian affairs. Officials routinely cite the improper wearing of hijab as the cause of a variety of social maladies, from women who marry later in life to those who go into prostitution. The root problem is often blamed on “foreign agents.”
Tehran’s police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, this month called support for improper hijab “part of the enemy’s soft war against us.”
In Iran and other Islamic countries, hijab, which means “cover” in Arabic, has come to define a type of dress code for women, the main priority of which is to obscure signs of femininity. In Iran, that has always meant covering women’s hair and much of the body. Traditionally, covering of the head, arms and legs has been strictly enforced. A long jacket, called a manteau, accompanied by a scarf, has been the accepted minimum.
Over the years, however, what passes as hijab has changed, and now a wide range of styles can be seen in any Iranian city — from the black, all-encompassing chador to brightly colored head scarves that barely stay in place.
Manteau and head scarf shops are some of the most successful retailers in Tehran, where women strive to incorporate fashion trends. Skinny jeans with flat shoes are in this year, and on the streets of Tehran, they are hidden in part by the long, loose-fitting manteaus that are all the rage.
Unlike many of Iran’s leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has, since 2010, openly promoted greater tolerance, saying that in the vast majority of cases, improper hijab is not a crime. On Monday, Ahmadinejad said that authorities “instead of closing cinemas and restaurants, must give people the right to choose. If people are given choices, they will definitely choose Iranian culture and beliefs.”
The president’s position has led a growing number of his political rivals to attack his stance as anti-revolutionary and pro-Western. Ali Mottahari, a prominent lawmaker and possible candidate to replace Ahmadinejad in 2013, accused the president in May of promoting “sexual intrigue.”
“We must either accept Western perspectives or Islamic ones, and there is no way in between,” he said.
Such arguments may have a certain appeal at a time when Iran is facing the strain of sanctions — imposed by the United States and other foreign powers — aimed at forcing it to halt its uranium enrichment program.
“Harking back to radical roots is a great comforter and proven survival strategy when positions on other, more substantial, issues are less clear cut,” said Rouzbeh Parsi, a research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies who specializes in Iran.
But the practice also risks spurring a backlash. Those arrested say they feel a growing sense of alienation in their own country.
Mahnaz and Mahin, sisters who are 28 and 29 years old, respectively, were recently arrested because Mahin was wearing a jacket that female morality police officers deemed too short.
“They were so rude to us,” said Mahnaz, who, like others, spoke on the condition that her last name not be used. “They told us, ‘If being arrested for having bad hijab bothers you, you should leave. This is an Islamic country, and we don’t want Western-looking people here.’ ”
Finding urban Iranians who support the program to enforce hijab is increasingly difficult. Many women who dress conservatively also find the patrols distasteful.
“Forcing people to dress a certain way is useless and won’t get the results that they want,” said Nafiseh, a 50-year-old mother of three who wears the tent-like chador. “I’m really against it, because these people aren’t really breaking Islamic rules.”
She said she often intervenes in arrests, knowing that, because of her strict adherence to the dress code, she is unlikely to be punished.
Mostafa, a 46-year-old marketing consultant, described how his 16-year-old daughter was arrested in a crowded shopping mall. “They coaxed her into the police van and told her they just wanted to talk to her,” he explained. “Once she was in the van, the whole atmosphere changed, and they said things that made her cry.”
After a brief time in custody, his daughter, Banafshe, was released. “Do you know what her response was to the whole episode?” he asked. “She said, ‘Dad, as soon as I finish high school, I’m leaving this country forever.’ ”Local activist Christina Gonzalez is a tireless opponent of the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk program, and has repeatedly confronted individual officers, camera in hand, when she suspects they're overstepping their authority. Which is often. She's become such a ubiquitous presence that the NYPD distributed fliers to officers describing her as a "professional agitator" and warning cops that she "video tapes officers... to portray officers in a negative way and to deter officers from conducting their responsibilities Do not feed into subject's propaganda." It looks like cops are getting the message.
On Sunday night, Gonzalez confronted several cops in the West 4th Street subway station. The video, below, shows her demanding to know why she was told (by officers on MetroCard machine detail) she can't take video with her cell phone. After one officer refuses to answer her while she's recording him, she follows him down to the platform and proceeds to harangue a handful of cops, demanding their badge numbers. But instead of throwing her to the floor, smashing her phone, and arresting her on some bogus disorderly conduct charge, one officer tries to have a calm and rational conversation. Skip ahead to the 6:10 mark to see our nomination for Shockingly Courteous Cop of the Year:
Yeah, it goes on and on—there's a lot of yelling, but it is noteworthy to watch an interaction between an irate protester and a cop who's actually willing to have a reasonable conversation. But toward the end he finally gives up and says, "You don't want to have a conversation. You just want to scream." We asked Gonzalez about the confrontation, and she shared her point of view with us:Everything you're about to read here seems impossible and insane, beyond science fiction. Yet it's all true.
Scientists now believe there may really be a parallel universe - in fact, there may be an infinite number of parallel universes, and we just happen to live in one of them. These other universes contain space, time and strange forms of exotic matter. Some of them may even contain you, in a slightly different form. Astonishingly, scientists believe that these parallel universes exist less than one millimetre away from us. In fact, our gravity is just a weak signal leaking out of another universe into ours.
The same but different
For years parallel universes were a staple of the Twilight Zone. Science fiction writers loved to speculate on the possible other universes which might exist. In one, they said, Elvis Presley might still be alive or in another the British Empire might still be going strong. Serious scientists dismissed all this speculation as absurd. But now it seems the speculation wasn't absurd enough. Parallel universes really do exist and they are much stranger than even the science fiction writers dared to imagine.
Greater dimensions
It all started when superstring theory, hyperspace and dark matter made physicists realise that the three dimensions we thought described the Universe weren't enough. There are actually 11 dimensions. By the time they had finished they'd come to the conclusion that our Universe is just one bubble among an infinite number of membranous bubbles which ripple as they wobble through the eleventh dimension.
A creative touch
Now imagine what might happen if two such bubble universes touched. Neil Turok from Cambridge, Burt Ovrut from the University of Pennsylvania and Paul Steinhardt from Princeton believe that has happened. The result? A very big bang indeed and a new universe was born - our Universe. The idea has shocked the scientific community; it turns the conventional Big Bang theory on its head. It may well be that the Big Bang wasn't really the beginning of everything after all. Time and space all existed before it. In fact Big Bangs may happen all the time.
Of course this extraordinary story about the origin of our Universe has one alarming implication. If a collision started our Universe, could it happen again? Anything is possible in this extra-dimensional cosmos. Perhaps out there in space there is another universe heading directly towards us - it may only be a matter of time before we collide.
Princeton University - Prof Paul Steinhardt
http://feynman.princeton.edu/%7Esteinh/
Dr Michio Kaku
www.mkaku.org
Superstring phenomenology and the brane-world
http://fisica.usac.edu.gt/public/curccaf_proc/quevedo1/
Hyperspace: a scientific odyssey through parallel universes, time warps and the tenth dimension
Michio Kaku
The Elegant Universe: superstrings, hidden dimensions and the quest for the ultimate theory
Brian Greene
Parallel Universes: the search for other worlds
Fred Alan Wolf
The Universe in a Nutshell
Stephen Hawking
Flatland: a romance of many dimensions
Edwin Abbott Abbott, Kendahl J Jubb. 19th century fiction, first published in 1884.Image caption Cpl Morlock (centre) faces a potential death sentence if convicted
A US soldier charged with murdering Afghan civilians has appeared before a military court, which will decide if there is to be a formal court martial.
Cpl Jeremy Morlock is accused of the premeditated murder of three Afghan civilians earlier this year.
Prosecutors say Cpl Morlock was acting under the direction of his unit's leader, Sgt Calvin Gibbs.
Three other soldiers have also been charged with the murders. All five deny the charges.
Seven other soldiers have been charged with conspiracy to cover up the alleged murders.
A number of witnesses, including three other soldiers accused in the case, invoked their right not to testify at the hearing, known as an Article 32 hearing, on Monday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington state.
Investigating officer Col Thomas Molloy will decide if there is enough evidence to proceed to a court martial.
'No bodies, no weapons'
The murders are alleged to have taken place between January and May this year when Cpl Morlock's unit was deployed in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan.
The five accused of murder allegedly threw grenades and opened fire on civilians in unprovoked assaults while the other seven are accused of dismembering the victims and collecting body parts.
The soldiers are all from the army's 5th Stryker brigade, which deployed to Afghanistan last year and saw heavy fighting around Kandahar.
Cpl Morlock's civilian lawyer, Michael Waddington, told the pre-trial hearing there was little evidence linking the soldier to the crimes.
"They have no bodies, no weapons seized, no ballistic testing," said lawyer Michael Waddington.
He also said his client was heavily medicated for injuries received in Afghanistan when he told an army investigator in May that he had participated in several situations in which civilians were killed.
Mr Waddington described Cpl Morlock as a "good kid" from a small town in Alaska who was naive and impressionable.
"He's not a monster, he's not a sociopath, he's not a psychopath."
But army investigator Shannon Richey, who interviewed Cpl Morlock in May, told the court by telephone from Afghanistan that the soldier was "very articulate" when being questioned and did not seem impaired.
Cpl Morlock faces a potential death penalty if convicted. And the ramifications of the case for the US military could be dire as they face Taliban insurgents and attempt to win over civilians in the key Kandahar battle front.Microsoft has been showing a little more love to Android as of late with the release of apps like Remote Desktop and Xbox Music. Now the business set is getting some attention with the new Dynamics CRM app.
If you've never heard of Dynamics DRM, you probably don't have any use for it. CRM stands for customer relationship management – it's a tool for tracking sales, supporting users, and managing business relationships. This is an enterprise app with narrow appeal, but high value. Businesses that use CRM tools tend to rely on them heavily.
A Dynamics CRM license starts at $65 per user per month. If you don't work for a company that uses Dynamics CRM, feel free to go about your day. In fact, why did you even read this far?September 21, 2016
Writing in the pages of BioScience two years ago, SFI External Professor Pablo Marquet, SFI Professor and VP for Science Jennifer Dunne, and a team of ecologists – many of them SFI scientists – made a bold call: It’s time, they argued, for a new synthesis of ecological theory based on something they termed “efficient theory.”
In late September, the scientists meet at SFI to take some of the first concrete steps toward the sort of theories they outlined.
“We already have our manifesto on what are the salient characteristics of the theories we will focus on,” Marquet says. “Now, the exercise would be to trace the point of connection between these theories and see how they can be integrated.”
The workshop is the second formal meeting of the Network for Ecological Theory Integration (NETI), as the group is now called. NETI traces its origins to a 2006 meeting that brought together leading theorists in metabolic scaling, ecological networks, neutral theory, and other fields of ecology that had been developing largely independently.
Out of that meeting and several more that followed, the people that would form NETI developed the idea of efficient theory – theory that is “grounded in first principles, expressed in mathematical language, simple, and makes a large number of predictions relative to the number of free parameters it contains,” Marquet says.
Now NETI’s aim is to start putting seemingly disparate theories together to create a more unified understanding of ecology. “There is a sort of algebra for theory integration that we want to develop,” Marquet says. That could mean using the predictions of one theory as the inputs for another theory. For example, predictions derived from metabolic theory could be used as constraints in maximum entropy theory, which makes predictions about biodiversity patterns based in part on the metabolic energy available in a region.
“But also it is important to look at cases where different theories make similar predictions starting from different assumptions,” Marquet says, or where similar theories with slightly different assumptions reach quite different predictions.
The workshop’s organizers do not expect to create a complete, unified theory of ecology in just one week, Marquet says. Rather, “we’re in the process of just showing the connections between different theories, and showing you can do this with efficient theories.”
More about the workshop here.
Read the paper in BioScience (July 16, 2014, subscription required)White House officials defended President Donald Trump’s move to give top political strategist Stephen Bannon a permanent spot on the National Security Council while limiting the role of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We are instilling reforms to make sure that we streamline the process for the president to make decisions on key, important intelligence matters,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
In a presidential memorandum issued Saturday, Bannon, 63, a former executive at Breitbart News, was given a permanent spot on the NSC’s principals committee, the senior-level interagency group that considers major national security policy issues. Others with permanent seats on the White House policy council include the secretary of state and secretary of defense.
Under the new policy, however, the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff will attend only “where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed,” according to the memo. Both were permanent members under President Barack Obama, but had a similar ad hoc status under President George W. Bush.
Republican John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday he was concerned that adding Bannon to the council while leaving out marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was a “radical departure.”
The changes also drew sharp criticism from Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, who said in a Twitter message that the moves were “stone cold crazy.”
“Who needs military advice or (intelligence) to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?” she chided.
Rice also criticized aspects of the order that would let Vice President Mike Pence chair meetings of the council in lieu of the president, and reduced the role of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Spicer called Rice’s criticism “clearly inappropriate” and said “the president gets plenty of information from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
The changes were intended to “modernize the National Security Council so that it is less bureaucratic and more focused on providing the president with the intelligence he needs,” Spicer said.
The White House spokesman also defended Bannon’s inclusion in the group, saying the aide was a “former naval officer” with a “tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now.”
Bannon has become one of the president’s most trusted, and most contentious, advisers for his ability to channel the populist and nationalist sentiment that helped propel Trump to the Oval Office. In his job at Breitbart, Bannon called the website a platform for the “alt-right,” a brand of conservatism known for frequent inflammatory statements on race and other issues.
Bob Gates, Obama’s defense secretary and a veteran of the NSC and CIA, said in an interview on the same ABC broadcast that while he wasn’t concerned about Bannon’s inclusion, he did believe pushing the DNI and military out of meetings was a “big mistake.”
“They both bring a perspective and judgment and experience to bear that every president, whether they like it or not, finds useful,” Gates said.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus downplayed the move, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the intelligence director and chairman of the joint chiefs would be “included as attendees anytime they want to be included.”
Still, the moves raise questions about whether the role of the DNI, which was created to better coordinate intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks, would diminish under the Trump administration.
Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, resigned in 2014 from his job as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency amid pressure from James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under Obama. Flynn also clashed with others in the Obama administration over his management style and priorities.
Spicer said that “you’ve got a leader in Gen. Flynn who understands the intelligence process and the reforms that are needed probably better than anybody else.”
But Flynn’s role as a White House gatekeeper on national security also has been questioned because — unlike Defense Secretary James Mattis and other officials in the new administration — he shares Trump’s optimism about efforts to forge better relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Away from the high-profile embassies, the longer, untold narrative of the WikiLeaks cables is often one of triviality, inconsequence, and moments of wry, Beckettian humour. The US runs 292 diplomatic missions across 175 countries, and many of them lie within a kind of diplomatic hinterland. Cables sent from the islands of the Pacific, or the steppes of Mongolia, generally reveal not the fast-paced interaction of a global superpower, but the loneliness of the long-distance diplomat.
Some busy embassies churn out hundreds of cables a year. But since 2007, successive US ambassadors to Samoa (pop: 179,000) have compiled just nine – all of them odes to banality. The post's only two dispatches in 2007 noted little more than the embassy's inability "to provide'meet-and-greet' service at the airport" to state department officials.
It's a year before they have anything further to report. This time, though, the stakes are at least briefly higher: horror of horrors, some protesters have delivered a petition to embassy officials. "This is the first protest against the embassy since it opened 20 years ago," reports a breathless US chargé d'affaires, who must have been sorely tempted to add an exclamation mark. But we soon discover why he didn't: "Despite our lack of practice … all went well."
A cable from 2010 reveals officials' sense of their own lack of significance. Samoans feel, one diplomat writes, that "the Pacific, and Samoa in particular, are not really important to the United States … As the US representative on the ground in Samoa, I can't help but [agree]."
Some host countries seem so small and helpless that diplomats report nothing but their host's farcical obsequiousness. US envoys to Palau (pop: 20,000) wrote only seven cables between 2008 and 2010; three of them report effusive praise of America by Palauan politicians.
In one cable, Palau "expresses its deepest gratitude and appreciation to the Government of the United States of America for its invaluable contributions to the development of the Republic of Palau", calling the US "the Republic's most important partner, defender, and supporter.". Little wonder that Palau is – along with Israel and America – one of only three countries to vote against the UN resolution condemning the US embargo of Cuba.
Diplomats in these backwaters often also have a habit of writing in staggeringly minute detail about seemingly irrelevant events. In 2006, US diplomats in Mongolia (the world's most sparsely populated country) spent nearly 1,000 words describing how the Rolling Stones were not, after all, to play a gig in the capital. Officials apparently found it appropriate to tell Washington, at length, how the Mongolian trade and industry minister, Bazarsad Jargalsaikhan, had tried to persuade UK embassy staff to help him book the Stones for the 800th anniversary celebrations. But Mick Jagger wasn't kidding when he sang 'You Can't Always Get What You Want': negotiations with the Brits proved fruitless. Fortunately, the cable continued, the German embassy proved more obliging, helping line up a replacement: German rockers Scorpions, whose lyrics the cable then proceeds to quote. The decision proved very popular with several US embassy staff: a number of them, the cable-writer sees it fit to |
right, that completion percentage drops to 58%, the average yardage is 2.3 yards per pass worse, and the rating is over 20 points worse. Here is how Mariota’s passing looked visually, thanks to the dynamic Receiving Success Rate Over Average (SROA) tool at Sharp Football Stats: While first and second down still reflected these bad patterns, third down was especially concerning. Mariota fired over 60 attempts to his right on 3rd down and just over 25% recorded first downs. To his left, he fired 57 attempts on 3rd down and 58% resulted in first down. That’s a massive difference. If you were defending Mariota on 3rd down, you’d try to flush him to the right and hope he’d throw to his right, rather than allow him to throw to his left. Here is what his SROA looked on 3rd down: And when the game is close, within 1 score up or down, Mariota’s success to the right was even more below average. In almost 100 attempts to the right in one-score games, Mariota posted a 35% success rate, whereas it was 20% better (55%) when passing to his left: I wrote about this issue from Mariota in my 2017 Football Preview. When trailing, Mariota threw nearly 100 attempts to the right side of the field and averaged a 67 rating (31st in the NFL). Despite the consistency in problems from 2015 to 2016, I still was hoping this was an anomaly. Some type of odd occurrence that, despite the stats (both basic and advanced) showing a major issue existed in his ability to throw to his right, there was no concern. But then I watched his week one preseason game. Yes, he threw only 3 passes. But the only one he threw deep right was very inaccurate and nearly intercepted. Hopefully this was just another random throw which shouldn’t be read into. But it was enough to prompt me to watch every single pass attempt to the deep right in 2016. However, I decided to study the film of every one of his passes to the deep right. He clearly struggled to his right in general, but I focused on the deep right passes as these are where his larger gains would occur, and where the misses would result in the most negative-EV. Below is a reel of most of Mariota’s passes to the deep right from 2016. I cut only a few throws which were from extreme bootlegs/wild scrambles or had him tossing it downfield just before running out of bounds. You can see for yourself some of the issues. The first pass is the one from the 2017 week 1 preseason game this past weekend, followed by his 2016 attempts: Observations: Many of these passes which were poor were late. Some of these late passes were thrown when the receiver was nearly out of bounds. Mariota needs to work to identify with his eyes and deliver the ball earlier in the receiver’s break to make both the catch easier.
While there were a couple of drops, most of the misses were simply bad passes. Very inaccurate passes.
Additionally, many of his struggles appeared to come when he was trying to deliver the ball over the top of the receiver, to hit him in his stride down the field. Better success was when the receiver was breaking back toward Mariota, or when the ball was delivered short of the receiver so he could grab it while facing Mariota, as opposed to facing the end zone.
Many of these were on 3rd down, and you saw time and time again at the end of each clip, Mariota jogging off the field as the punting team jogged on after these missed 3rd down opportunities.
Many of them were badly overthrown. Several were overthrown TDs.
Some of the great plays were either completely wide open receivers who made adjustments in their routes to catch underthrown passes. Mariota has better receivers this year, in Corey Davis, Eric Decker and Taywan Taylor. Last year, the receiving options left a lot to be desired. Perhaps this will help Mariota in 2017. Because while many of the passes in the above reel were not accurate, rather than receiver drops, perhaps better receivers would have run better routes and put Mariota in more positive-EV situations to complete the pass. However, it should be noted that we’re not isolating only these passes to the right and saying Mariota’s receivers were bad. Mariota and these receivers were outstanding to the left. They were far above average. Exceedingly so. But there were notable struggles to the right. There are other areas Mariota needed to work on apart from passing to the right, although that is the most critical. On early downs in the first quarter, due in part to play scripting, Mariota recorded a 100 passer rating, averaged 8.2 yards per attempt and completed 69% of his passes. However, after the first quarter, his early down passer rating dropped to 81 (25th in the NFL), he averaged just 6.3 yards per attempt and completed just 57% of his passes. Those numbers became even worse when trailing, as his 68 passer rating ranked 34th, he averaged 5.6 yards per attempt and he completed just 54% of his passes. Early down passing correlates tremendously toward winning in the NFL, and Mariota’s passing on early downs must improve, particularly after the script runs out and it becomes the 2nd quarter. But let’s not paint Mariota in this totally negative light. What are some positives from the passing game in 2017? Unlike 2016, where the Titans played the 14th rated pass rushing defenses, which helped parlay into the 4th best defenses preventing explosive passes, it’s much easier this year. The Titans play the 26th rated pass rushing defenses and likely as a result, these defenses allow the 2nd highest rate of explosive passes. In Nashville, that’s literally music to the ears of Mariota, Matthews and Davis. Matthews was the most dominant deep threat for the Titans last year, and delivered a 138 rating deep left and a 141 rating deep middle. While I’m extremely optimistic in Mariota as a passer and believe the Titans are certainly headed in the right direction (no pun intended) with him under center, I really want to see him develop his ability to be consistent when throwing to his right. If Mariota can develop those traits and deliver more efficiency on those attempts to the right, the sky is the limit for him and the Titans offense in 2017. About the author: Warren Sharp ( @SharpFootball ) owns and operates SharpFootballAnalysis.com and SharpFootballStats.com Don’t miss: The latest newsletter & discussion on BEACH WEEK 2017
Early Bird Sale ends Tuesday, August 15th and prices will increase to full season rates. Get on board today but pay NOTHING until AFTER the Super Bowl using the deferred payment option.
and prices will increase to full season rates. Get on board today but pay NOTHING until AFTER the Super Bowl using the deferred payment option. Don’t miss the 2017 Football Preview – the Fastest way to get SMART for the 2017 season! Pick up your very own copy from Amazon or in PDF. Comments comments
To keep up with all of Warren's information, analytics, podcasts and more, join the free mailing list here:Britain’s most senior EU official has warned that a post-Brexit Britain would have to recognise the rulings of the European court of justice if it wished to maintain the current level of cooperation in countering terrorism and organised crime.
Sir Julian King, the European commissioner responsible for security, said the UK’s security services had become increasingly reliant on shared crime-fighting tools to carry out their work.
In an interview with the Guardian, King suggested that there would be difficult discussions to be had in order to maintain something near the status quo on security cooperation, which will form part of negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the EU.
Using security as Brexit bargaining chip is reckless and lacks credibility Read more
The bloc unanimously agreed this weekend a tough set of negotiating guidelines, including the declaration that the EU would not discuss trade matters or security cooperation until the issues of Britain’s divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the border on the island of Ireland were settled.
At the Brussels summit on Saturday, both the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, indicated some concern that this message had yet to be understood in London.
Over dinner, Juncker is said to have pulled out a copy of the EU-Canada trade deal, a document of 2,000 pages that took nearly a decade to negotiate, and suggested Theresa May study its complexity.
It has been claimed that at a meeting between Juncker and the prime minister on Wednesday in Downing Street, May asked for a full outline of a future trade deal before agreement on an estimated €60bn withdrawal bill was arrived at. One EU diplomat was quoted by the Sunday Times as claiming: “This was a rather incredible demand. It seemed as if it came from a parallel reality.”
On Sunday, May was tackled about reported comments from Juncker that she was living in another galaxy when it came to her demands for trade talks before the exit bill was settled.
The prime minister denied this was the case. “I’m not in a different galaxy but what this shows is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough; we need strong and stable leadership.”
She insisted she was still confident the UK could get a trade deal, saying: “I want to ensure that we agree on a trade deal and our withdrawal arrangements so we know what both of those are.”
King told the Guardian that in order for security cooperation to be maintained, the EU institutions would need to break new ground and there may be tough political compromises to make on either side, including over the role of the ECJ.
In the latest example of the work of Europol, the UK joined 16 other member states earlier this year in uncovering the identity of child victims of sexual abuse posted on the internet.
“The UK has exported 8,000 people under the European arrest warrant and imported a thousand, it is an active user, but there you are talking about an element of the acquis [EU law] and legal and criminal proceedings, so you have to have some level of arbitration,” King said. “The existing level of arbitration is the European court of justice, so that is an issue that will have to be worked through in the negotiations.”
He added that it may be possible for a new independent arbitration body to be established to avoid the ECJ being directly involved, but that it would be rulings made by the court in Luxembourg that would be at issue when the new body came to adjudicate. “By definition the jurisprudence relating to the European arrest warrant is ECJ jurisprudence,” he said.
Along with leaving the single market and ending the free movement of people, Theresa May has set taking back control of British law and ending the jurisdiction of the ECJ as a test of whether the UK has left the bloc.
A softening of Downing Street’s position on the ECJ would be likely to be fiercely resisted by some senior Tory MPs, who accuse the the court in Luxembourg of eroding British sovereignty.
Asked whether he agreed with the prime minister that no deal with the EU would be better than a bad deal, King said: “You are not going to get me to comment on aspects of the UK government’s position. From the commission’s point of view on terrorism, cyber and serious organised crime, we have a shared assessment of the threat and we are stronger countering them if we are working together.”
King, a former ambassador to France who was nominated last year by David Cameron for his post in Brussels following the referendum, said the European commission believed continued cooperation on security was in everyone’s interests, and the European council’s negotiating guidelines outlining the EU’s negotiating position indicated a willingness to come to a deal.
He added that the UK’s decision last year to opt back in to Europol, which from Monday is more firmly under the control of the commission and has greater flexibility in sharing criminals’ data, suggested the UK felt the same.
Up to 40% of traffic through Europol comes from the UK or concerns issues involving the UK. Between 2015 and 2016 the number of enquiries the UK made of the Schengen information system, which holds an 8,000-name watchlist of suspected terror suspects and is used to monitor those coming in and out of the EU, increased by 100%.
But King said: “At the moment there are no precedents for non-EU member states having a link to the Schengen information system. So if the UK wanted that, it would have to be something to be discussed, it would have to be a particular bespoke arrangement.
“There is no precedent for such a thing. You get into the wider issue of data protection rules and data adequacy. An overall arrangement on data adequacy, ie the EU recognising that it accepted the level of data protection in the UK.”
King, who will be the last commissioner from Britain in Brussels, added of membership of Europol: “Just because you want something doesn’t mean it is easy.
“Full membership as such, at the moment, is available to EU member states. So it would have to be, if the UK wanted it, subject to discussion and agreement with the member states, something new and different, the terms of which and how that operates would have to be agreed.
“The issue that at some point will need to be confronted is two years down the track, if you don’t have something sorted out for the day that there is a change, then you have a problem and a potential gap.”
Denmark opted not to be a member of Europol, and has come to an arrangement under which it is able to ask for data, rather than have direct access. “They have to present effectively a request to Europol to say: ‘We would like to be working with you on this, that or the other,’” King said. “It is obviously short of the situation that member states are in and the UK is in, having opted in to the new regulation.” The Danish position was “workable”, he added, but it “does make it a bit more cumbersome to organise your security”.The savagery of gladiatorial battles was depicted as Channel 4 investigated the discovery of 80 skeletons at a York archaeological dig.
As reported in The Press, the 80 skeletons, the majority of large, powerfully-built men dating from Roman times, were found at a dig in Driffield Terrace, Holgate.
TV documentary – Gladiators: Back From The Dead – examined the theory that the men were gladiators, based on evidence which included the fact some had injuries which may have been inflicted fighting at an amphitheatre, one of the most telling being a bite mark from a large carnivore such as a tiger or bear.
The men were also all buried with some respect and their final resting places included grave goods as well as large joints of meat – making it less likely they were executed criminals.
But the theory they were gladiators is still open to dispute. As yet there has been no evidence of an amphitheatre found in York and there is nothing conclusive about the men’s injuries.
They could have been inflicted in battle and there were no injuries from weapons like the three-pointed trident which were specifically used by certain types of gladiator.
John Walker, York Archaeological Trust's chief executive, said: "This is a fascinating discovery that gives a real insight into the world of interpreting archaeology."
"With archaeology, you are very rarely dealing in the definite. There are almost always elements of ‘possibly’ and 'probably' and the archaeologist's job is to weigh up the evidence and make an informed judgment on the most likely explanation."The U.S. economy added a healthy 235,000 jobs in February, according to government data released Friday morning, surpassing economists' expectations and likely clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this month.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.7 percent, compared with 4.8 percent in January, and wages rose by 6 cents to $26.09 in February, after a 5-cent increase the month before.
“It’s definitely a solid report,” said Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University. “This is the kind of number that the Federal Reserve was looking to receive before their meetings next week.”
[Yellen signals Fed will likely raise rates in March]
The release of February’s unemployment data was widely seen as the final hurdle before the Federal Reserve’s March 14-15 meeting, when the central bank is expected to announce a quarter-point increase in its benchmark interest rate. The odds of a March rate increase climbed to more than 90 percent on the jobs data Friday, up from only 25 percent at the beginning of February, according to futures contracts monitored by the CME Group's FedWatch program.
“Raising rates next week is as close to a certainty as you ever get in this business,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.
U.S. stock markets ended the day slightly higher, though still below record highs reached March 1. The blue-chip Dow Industrial Average gained 0.21 percent on Friday. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index climbed 0.33 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.39 percent.
“We’re in that curious environment where the only good news is news that surpasses our already high expectations,” Clemons said. “But I’m hard pressed to find anything disappointing in this report.”
Measures of business and consumer confidence have risen in recent months, due in part to the continued long-run recovery of the economy and expectations of a more business-friendly environment under the Trump administration. In early March, Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index, a measure of how Americans rate current economic conditions, rose to the highest level in its nine-year history.
"I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly, 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now,'" press secretary Sean Spicer said on March 10, about Trump's reaction to the jobs report in light of his past criticism. (Reuters)
[White House split on import tax puts Congress in limbo]
On Friday morning, Trump retweeted a tweet by Drudge Report with a link to a news story on the jobs numbers. “GREAT AGAIN: +235,000,” the tweet read.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer also appeared to claim some credit for the Trump administration. “Not a bad way to start day 50 of this Administration,” he wrote in a tweet that quoted data from the jobs report.
Not a bad way to start day 50 of this Administration https://t.co/pysL1jxLpq — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) March 10, 2017
“The fact that hundreds of thousands more people found new jobs last month is a good sign that our economy is moving in the right direction,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said in a statement. “While we still have much more work to do, I'm optimistic that the actions that President Trump and House Republicans are taking will add to this momentum — creating more jobs, growing families’ paychecks, and improving the lives of all Americans.”
Democrats took a different view. “Today’s jobs numbers make clear what we have known for some time: President Trump did not inherit a mess, in fact he inherited one of the longest expansions in American history," Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said in a statement.
[‘It’s gonna continue big league': Strong jobs report spurs stocks, has Trump claiming credit]
The February jobs report was the first to capture a snapshot of the labor market during Trump’s presidency. It was based on data collected in the week of February 12–18, when Trump had been in office for more than three weeks. During his campaign, Trump had called into question the accuracy of the Labor Department's monthly unemployment report. Still, last month he also touted the January jobs report as a positive sign for his presidency, even though those surveys were conducted while President Barack Obama was still in office.
Trump’s ambitious pledges to slash corporate taxes, cut regulations and boost spending on infrastructure have helped push stock markets to record highs in recent weeks. Yet some economists question whether other pledges, such as a federal workforce hiring freeze, a reduction in immigration and a more combative attitude toward international trade, could ultimately weigh on growth.
Meanwhile, early legislative efforts, including repealing and replacing the Obamacare and introducing tax cuts, remain in flux, as members of Congress and White House staffers battle over the details.
The administration is already confronting the challenge of translating campaign trail promises into legislation as it prepares to issue a portion of its budget around March 16.
[The Daily 202: Trump team taking more and more credit for Obama successes]
Economists said the strong showing in February could be due in part to a "Trump bump" but that years of steady improvement in the economy probably played a stronger role. Expectations can wield a surprising influence over the economy, able to stoke inflation and encourage consumers to spend and businesses to invest. However, Trump's actions likely haven't had time to concretely affect the economy yet.
“To the extent that businesses hire based on expectations of stronger demand, there is probably some linkage there,” said Mark Hamrick senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com.
Yet, ultimately, businesses don’t base hiring decisions just on sentiment, he said. “What you really need to see are rising consumer and business spending. In terms of the sentiment, we’re going to have to see follow-through on things like tax reform and infrastructure spending for all of this to be sustainable."
[Trump plans piecemeal budget release, obscuring broader fiscal picture]
Sinclair agreed that expectations of friendlier business conditions could be boosting the labor market. “But the overall employment gains are still a very long-run trend," she said. "We have seen really consistent but slow improvement in the labor market for several years now. It takes time for that to accumulate.”
The U.S. economy has now grown for 94 straight months, the third-longest expansion on record. While growth has been somewhat slower than in previous boom times, economists emphasize how far the nation has come since the depths of the recession, including adding roughly 16 million jobs since the beginning of 2010.
The increase in hiring has also boosted paychecks. In February, average hourly wages rose 2.8 percent compared with the year before, a sign that employers are having to compete for workers by raising wages as the economy continues to heat up. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate rose to 63 percent, as the stronger economy pulled more people into the workforce who might have previously given up looking for jobs.
[Trump called the government’s job numbers ‘phony.’ What happens now that he’s in charge of them?]
Educational services, health care and mining accounted for much of the hiring last month. Rising demand from overseas markets helped push up employment in the manufacturing sector. Construction hiring surged, as unseasonably warm weather in many states allowed crews to work through February.
The Labor Department also revised its estimates for job creation in December and January, increasing the total number of jobs added to 9,000 more than previously reported.
The government report followed a separate survey published earlier in the week. The report by ADP and Moody’s Analytics showed the private sector adding 298,000 jobs in February, blowing past economists' expectations of 189,000 jobs.
"Great news. We are only just beginning. Together we are going to #MAGA!" Trump tweeted after the release of those figures on Wednesday.
[President Trump probably isn’t going to like what the Fed will do next]
Economists have been watching Trump’s statements on the jobs figures carefully. On the campaign trail and after his election, Trump had challenged the accuracy of the official unemployment rate, calling it "phony" and a "joke” and claiming that it was actually as high as 42 percent.
At a meeting of the National Association of Business Economists in Washington last week, members were circulating a letter to Congress citing a concern that there is a lack of appreciation for government economic data and calling on policymakers to support it.
Strong economic data in recent months appears to have persuaded the Federal Reserve that it is time to lift interest rates, a change that would make borrowing a little more expensive for businesses and consumers.
The Fed has been trying to strike a balance of raising interest rates fast enough to ward off inflation, but not so rapidly as to quash improvements in the labor market. The central bank has forecast three rate increases for this year, though Yellen and others have been careful to specify that the pace of tightening will hinge on the economy’s progress.
Last Friday, Fed Chair Janet L. Yellen added her voice to a chorus of Fed governors and reserve bank presidents who had signaled in public speeches that a rate hike was likely to come this month.
“On the whole, the prospects for further moderate economic growth look encouraging,” Yellen said in a speech to the Executives' Club of Chicago.(Titan Aerospace/Google via European Pressphoto Agency)
For years, companies like Facebook and Google have captivated audiences with the prospect of someday beaming Internet access down to earth from drones or satellites flying high above the ground. The dream held particular promise for developing countries where it's often expensive to build cellular towers or lay down physical Internet cabling.
Now, though, Google's parent company, Alphabet, is scaling back its ambitions for Internet by drone. It has disbanded the team that had been developing the technology, according to the company.
Dozens of employees in the group, known as Titan, have been reassigned to work on other projects. They include Project Wing, Alphabet's effort to develop a drone delivery service, and Project Loon, which seeks to deliver Internet around the world via floating balloons. That project is still going strong, Alphabet says.
Many of the Titan workers came from drone maker Titan Aerospace, which Google purchased in 2014. Titan was folded into X, Alphabet's moonshot lab, in late 2015.
“We ended our exploration of high altitude UAVs for internet access shortly after,” an X spokesman said in a statement. "… at this stage the economics and technical feasibility of Project Loon present a much more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world.”
The news, first reported by 9to5Google, is a setback to highflying visions of ubiquitous broadband access. As with other projects under the Alphabet umbrella that have been cut or reorganized, the end of Titan comes as executives look to emphasize financial sustainability. The pressure has been applied across the company, including at X.
Last July, the head of X, Astro Teller, wrote a blog post essentially defending his department's reason for existence.
"Being a 'corporate lab' is a difficult balancing act: place big bets on the future, but don’t spook the people giving you the money,” he said in the post.
Projects are killed off all the time at X, Teller said. It usually happens when a project meets its “kill signal” — failing to meet a certain goal that was established at the outset, or within the appropriate amount of time.
It appears Titan met its own kill signal last year. Now the task falls to Project Loon to fulfill Alphabet's dreams of blanketing the earth with Internet.Any sports club, society or voluntary organisation that works with children faces being shut down if they fail to implement official guidelines on how to handle child protection and welfare concerns.
It is one of a number of measures contained in two new pieces of legislation published today which are likely to have far-reaching implications for how the State, voluntary groups and wider society respond to children at risk.
Details of both Bills were published today by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald.
Under the Children First Bill, all organisations where children attend without their parents - such as schools, sports clubs or religious groups - will face a legal requirement to ensure they provide a safe environment for children.
Each organisation will be required to have a “designated officer” who will have responsibility to ensure staff and volunteers are vetted and trained in recognising signs of abuse and neglect.
This officer, and certain professionals such as nurses, doctors, social workers and counsellors, will have a legal obligation to report suspicions and allegations of abuse to the Health Service Executive.
If a designated officer fails to report concerns without a reasonable excuse, they may face a jail term of up to five years. If an organisation fails to implement Children First guidelines, they face losing State funding and, ultimately, being shut down.
Ms Fitzgerald said the legislation would help ensure there are no exception or exemptions for failing to act on child abuse or neglect concerns.
“Child protection is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone. Every club, society, organisation, religious organisation, educational establishment and medical facility that works with children,” she said.
While some children’s groups have expressed concern that social services could be overwhelmed by abuse or neglect reports, Ms Fitzgerald said she was confident that reformed management of children’s services would help ensure the system would cope.
“We need to foster a culture where every individual in this State feels themselves personally responsible for creating and maintaining a society where children are protected,” she said.
Separate legislation published today by Mr Shatter will make it a criminal offence for a person to fail to disclose information to the Garda which would assist in prosecuting a person who commits a serious offence against a child or vulnerable adult.
The prospect of prosecution for failing to report suspected abuse is extended to all members of the public and not just those working with children. Any person who withholds information faces a minimum jail term of five years.
“It is not acceptable that there can be a cloak of secrecy surrounding such offences against children or other vulnerable people in society,” Mr Shatter said.
Mr Shatter confirmed the legislation would apply to priests hearing confession, but described the issue as a "media obsession". He said similar legislation has been in place since 1998, but has not proved a source of controversy since.
The legislation contains defences for parents and others where a victim of an offence requests that the details not be passed onto authorities. Mr Shatter said these defences sought to protect victims, as well as providing a defence for those who legitimately act in the best interest of a child or vulnerable adult. “This Bill should not deter victims of serious offences from seeking help and assistance they need in addressing the harm and damage caused to them,” he said.
Children's groups gave the measures a broad welcome, in particular the decision to place the Children First guidelines on a legal footing.
Barnardos chief executive Fergus Finlay said the move marked a turning point in the history of child protection. "It has been a painful journey, but the learning from the myriad reports outlining our collective failure to protect children in the past has made the publication of this significant legislation possible today,” he said.
The Children's Right Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, said the move will "change the culture of child protection in Ireland, ensuring that abuse is tackled head-on and not hidden away".Vietnam’s plastics industry is being evaluated as potential sectors with the maintaining stable growth rate of 16% – 18% during the last 5 years.
Due to benefit from a reduction of raw material and an increase in demand for plastic products, plastic manufacturing businesses have had experience strong growth.
10 plastic business on the stock market has had a successful year of 2015 with a total revenue of 13 trillion, increased 15% and net profit of approximately 1.1 trillion, increased 30% compared to 2014.
Besides, the business transaction in the quarter I/2016 was also very positive, with total revenue and profits reached 3.1 trillion and 367 billion respectively, increased 20% and 78.1% respectively compared to the same period of 2015. Therefore, the local enterprises have been expanding the production capacity.
In the past 3 years, there has been an impressive, reaching 15% -17% per year.
According to the reports of BIDC Security Company (BSC) in 2016, the demand for plastics in 2016 is forecasted to keep growing. This is based on factors such as the consumption of plastic per capita will increase and reach 45 kg / person / year in 2020. Also the recovery of real estate and construction industries in the near future will promote the consumption of plastic products.
Besides, the trend of moving production to Vietnam and increasing foreign direct investment will lead to the growth of technical plastic. Also raw material prices continue to drop, thus helping plastic manufactures to be more active in their production.
Due to many favorable factors of business environment, the plastics manufacturers have invested in the scale of manufacturing capacity. It is mentioned that An Phat Plastic (AAA) has been building 2 plants: No. 6 (with a capacity of 3,000 tons / month) and No. 7 (capacity of 800 tons / month), which specializes in exporting bio-plastic bags to the markets such as Japan and the US.
In June 2015, HCD investment and commercial joint stock company planned to invest new production line of bio-plastic bags (similar technology to AAA) in Q3 with capital of over 100 billion after a significant increased im profit.
Meanwhile, Binh Minh Plastics (BMP) has put Long An Factory in operation since the end of 2015 to meet greater domestic consumption. Tien Phong Plastic has approved the merger of Five Star Plastics to launch the manufacture (Phase 1) in the central of Vietnam with a capacity 10,000 – 15,000 tons / year.
East Asia Plastics (DAG) also putprofile sheet production plant into operation in 2015 with the expectation to become a leader of plastic used in construction and adverting material.
Besides the expansion of the plants, the domestic enterprises have also focused on M & A to strengthen and expand market share such as Plastics Phat holds 30% stake of Plastic Packaging Vinh (VBC) or Dong Nai Plastics (DNP ) acquires Tan Phu Plastic (TPP)…
Thai enterprise desires for plastic enterprises in Vietnam.
From 1990 to present, the consumption of plastic Vietnam has shown rapid growth which proves that the demand for plastic products in Vietnam would be fertile land for enterprises’ exploitation. Besides, Vietnam has joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), investors are pouring into this country to take advantage of this.
Siam Cement Group (SCG) in Thailand has invested in more than 20 plastic companies in Vietnam in which 20% share of Binh Minh Plastic and 23.8% share of NTP – 2 current market leader in plastic used inconstruction. Last year, SCG bought 80% stake of Tin Thanh Plastic Company – top 5 manufacturers of plastic packaging in Vietnam.
SCG and other Thai corporations are continuing to purchase plastic companies in Vietnam. Some Thai companies have shown strong interest in acquiring all the shares that the state divested in plastic enterprises in 2016. Therefore, certainly, Vietnam will have to witness many of the other acquisitions of Thai companies in plastic industry and many other industries. According to published information, SCG will spend total of 5-6 billion USD for M&A in Vietnam by 2020.
Many experts, in the coming period, the plastic industry will maintain high growth rates in both revenue and profitability due to a series of trade agreements signed. However, if local enterprises are not alert, they will lose this piece of bread into the hands of the Thai people as it has currently happened to the retail industry in Vietnam.The circus has rolled into Clearwater, Florida. As the Philadelphia
begin spring training, the focus is currently on anything but what will be a dismal season on the field. Instead, after an offseason that was spent laying the ground work for a long rebuilding effort, the team is dealing with leftover cargo. After moving shortstop Jimmy Rollins and outfielder Marlon Byrd in December trades, the Phillies couldn't unload veterans like Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee and Jonathan Papelbon—despite publicly talking about the desire to turn the page since last season ended.
On the first day of camp, fallout commenced in the form of Hamel's not-so-subtle trade request through the pen of
USA Today
's Bob Nightengale.
"I just want to win,''
. "That's all. That's all any competitor wants. And I know it's not going to happen here. This isn't what I expected. It's not what the Phillies expected, either. But it's reality.'' Watch the video above for my thoughts on the circus the Phillies created for themselves and how this spring training will be awkward for an organization caught between the past and future.
Leave your thoughts below in the comments section!
Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Khalili Engineers
California's five-year drought has become so serious that Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill earlier this month requiring water districts to start imposing penalties on consumers who use the highest quantities of the precious resource.
A new futuristic design concept aims to address the problem from a different perspective: by proposing a new way to make sea water drinkable.
The Pipe, a giant, floating desalination device, is designed to be both an artistic landmark and a way to provide California with a new source of clean water. The project is a finalist for the Land Art Generator Initiative biennial design competition, which asked teams to envision innovative site-specific public art projects that can harness clean energy and convert it into electricity or drinking water. The assigned location for this year's competition was Santa Monica, California.
Khalili Engineers
On its exterior, the 2000-foot-long Pipe is coated in high-tech, satellite-grade solar panels, which harvest power throughout the day. The energy that the panels gather would be used to take in seawater and pump it through an electromagnetic filtration tube hidden on the underside of the floating platform.
Aziz Khalili, a Canada-based electrical engineer and the project leader for the Pipe, tells Business Insider that he's been thinking about the electromagnetic technology that would desalinate the water for 30 years. Because the salt and other materials dissolved in the water are naturally ionized, he says, the system would take advantage of their natural charge and use an electromagnetic force to direct those ions to the edges of the tube.
Khalili Engineers Though magnetized water sounds like science fiction, Kahili is confident he could get it to work. "This is basic electromagnetic force and movement, so they are principles of physics put together," he says.
Khalili's team claims the Pipe would create 10,000 megawatt hours of power annually, which it would use to desalinate 4.5 billion liters per year — that's enough water to cover the average daily usage of approximately 36,000 people (roughly 40% of Santa Monica).
The results of the desalination process would be two different kinds of water: one type that's safe to drink and sent straight into the city's water network, and another with 12% salinity that would be used to fill a series of thermal baths located inside the tube.
Khalili Engineers
|
“What’s really behind India’s rape crisis”. Anyway, I decided to write to you. It is a sort of report that blames Jesus Christ for the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler, for Hitler is an ardent Christian.
I do not know what sort of a publication you are, but it appears – considering you are an honest opinion publisher, you were misguided by the author, who in fact was not qualified to write on Hinduism and how it treats women. The most lovable part in the “India’s Rape Crisis” report that attempted to provide a sort of authenticity was the quotes from ancient scriptures of India. Still, the quotes failed to achieve the intended purpose for the original Sanskrit text with meaning to these words should have been provided. But, it is really difficult, for you to find very few who really had that sort of knowledge, even in India. I understand the author had to rely on Wikipedia and other such sort of sources, mostly English translations that were done during the period when India was occupied by foreigners.
Now, coming to these ancient scriptures, there is not a single scripture older than a thousand years that contain the words ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’. All the ancient scriptures were simply notes, records, stories and compilations that our forefathers recorded – initially in oral form and later in written form – so that next generations could understand how it was earlier. They used it to pass on knowledge and their experiences.
I do not deny, or subscribe to the views expressed by the author, for it would be for the editor, to get these evaluated and commented by some proper authority. In fact, I had two versions of two texts referred in the article – Mahabharata and Matsyapurana. It was from the English translation of Mahabharata, by Mr Ganguly the text that the author quoted.
Ancient scriptures of India have evolved with the evolution of the native humans. But, the point to note is their evolution was continuous. As with all societies, there were some groups that had grabbed power and exploited others. But, this trait is common to all societies. I am explicitly saying this, because I don’t intend to defend the native culture, for it doesn’t need to be defended. And, I don’t consider this as a religion, but a native culture that had many customs and practices that varied from one extent to the other extent.
In native culture where there are billions of Gods to cater perhaps to each individual, the three most important features that a human aspire for – knowledge, wealth and power; are gifted to people by females. Yes, we have goddesses to pray for so that we can have wisdom, money and power. In our practices, the first respect goes to the mother – ‘Matru Devo Bhava’, unlike the teachings that enabled a young man in Syria to kill his mother, for she wants him to quit following the extremists there! I know how Shaan Khan feels even to the indirect mention of his so called ‘peaceful religion’. His mates back in India have a similar syndrome and refuse to say ‘Vande Mataram’ meaning ‘Salutations to the Mother’.
Yes, there are rapes in India. It is a fact. Now, the author referred to Wikipedia (I really get annoyed when people quote half-truths). Let me give the data (from Wiki).
Rapes in China in 2007 are 31833. Rapes in India, in 2013 are 24923. Figures of China are not available. And Shaan Khan claims that China is gentle, as if he is a Chinese!
Refer to the ranking of countries based on number of rapes per 100,000 population. India fares very poor even in the rape statistics.
Yes, as per the data for the year 2010, (that was the latest available on this site – you may refer to), India ranked 94(with 1.6 rapes per 100000 population), while Australia ranked 11(28.6) and USA ranked 14(27.3). Sharing space with all toppers of the list (most of African nations) is one of the most advanced nations, Sweden ranked 6 (63.5).
Now, even if one consider ninety percent of rapes do go unnoticed, India can only move into the top 10, whenever ISIS takes over the country. Now, analyse the same list. Most of the Islamic nations do not present, for no data would be made available. You can infer yourselves. It is common knowledge that a guide to rape slaves was prepared by the custodians of the peaceful doctrine ISIS.
I request Shaan Khan to explain the reason behind the higher rape rate in African countries (most are Muslim dominated) and other Western nations (most are Christian dominated). Do you ever have the same type of vulgar reasoning to blame the rapes to Islam and Christianity? NO. You will never. And you should not, for no religion in the world teaches to be so repulsive.
Ancient scriptures were used to teach and differentiate what was good and bad. They simply portrayed some stories, for all religious texts, including those belonging to Abrahamic religions were full of stories. Taking few sentences out of context to blame any religion is … you know what I mean.
In fact, it is the native culture of India that was and is changing forever with time. We still change. We still have many black spots like caste based discrimination. In India, it is caste. In US, it is race. All societies do have good and bad.
As the Khan mentioned, there was a notorious rape in Delhi, and the whole world witnessed how the general public reacted. Khan may note that the person assaulted the victim with steel rods was not a Hindu and I don’t want to name his religion. I leave it to your guess. I challenge Khan to show me one other nation of even with half a population India has to respond to one incident. Especially, one nation where his religion rules!
With all the evolution, humans are still evolving. We are not perfect. We agree. In India, we have an internal mechanism to correct our faults, unlike our many of our neighbouring countries to the west. And I suggest you to watch the video of a news channel from Pakistan, wherein the speaker claims only because of Hindu roots, they are tolerant society!
Now, I hope you publish this article in the thedailybeast with an apology from you or Khan as a footnote.
Thanks,
Kannan
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/25/what-s-really-behind-india-s-rap-crisis.html
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rpe_statistics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj6Pb1hUZccConsuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding day had finally arrived, and all of New York (and then some) was aflutter. Crowds lined Fifth Avenue, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bride on her way to St. Thomas Episcopal Church. She was quite possibly the most celebrated of all the young heiresses who captured the attention of Gilded Age Americans, and her wedding was the peak of a trend that had, in recent decades, taken the world by storm: American girls, born to the richest men in the country, marrying British gentlemen with titles and centuries of noble lineage behind them.
Consuelo’s catch was considered one of the finest—Charles Spencer-Churchill, the future Ninth Duke of Marlborough, who stood to become lord of Blenheim, an estate second only to Buckingham Palace. The bride, already considered American royalty, would become a duchess, bestowing upon her family the highest social standing (for which her mother, Alva, who was often snubbed by “old New York”, and who viewed her husband’s money as gauche, was desperate).
And yet on November 6, 1895, the bride was less than thrilled:
I spent the morning of my wedding day in tears and alone; no one came near me. A footman had been posted at the door of my apartment and not even my governess was admitted. Like an automaton I donned the lovely lingerie with its real lace and the white silk stockings and shoes…. I felt cold and numb as I went down to meet my father and the bridesmaids who were waiting for me.
Conseulo Vanderbilt loved another—a rich other, but an American without a title or an English country estate. But her marriage to Marlborough was non-negotiable.
Beginning in the 1870s, American girls with money had been flocking to Britain in droves, ready to exchange railroad cash and mining stocks for the right to call themselves “Lady.” (“Downton Abbey” fans will surely recognize Cora Crawley as one of their ilk.) The appeal was clear. The heiresses, unlikely to be admitted to the highest ranks of New York society, would gain entry to an elite social world, and who needed Mrs. Astor’s drawing room when she could keep company with HRH the Prince of Wales?
And Britain’s upper crust would get a much-needed infusion of cash. For a British gentleman to work for money was unthinkable. But by the end of the 19th century it cost more to run a country estate than the estate could make for itself, and the great houses slid dangerously close to disrepair. By marrying a Vanderbilt or a Whitney, a future duke could ensure not just the survival of his family’s land and name, but also a life enhanced by easy access to money, something he certainly wouldn’t get if he married a peer.
By 1895 (a year in which America sent nine daughters to the peerage), the formula had coalesced into a relatively simple process. Mothers and their daughters would visit London for the social season, relying upon friends and relatives who had already made British matches to make introductions to eligible young men. Depending on the fortunes of the girl in question, several offers would be fielded, and her parents, weighing social and financial investments and returns, would make a selection. So such marriages were basically transactional alliances. Even in 1874, the union of Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph Churchill—which would give the Western world both Winston Churchill and a great deal to talk about—would reflect the beginnings of the trend.
Born in Brooklyn in 1854, dark-haired Jennie captivated Lord Randolph, son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, with startling suddenness. Within three days of their initial meeting, Jennie and Randolph announced their plans to marry.
Neither the Jeromes nor the Randolphs were thrilled. Jennie’s parents thought Lord Randolph, in proposing to their daughter before consulting with them, was in serious breach of etiquette. Not to mention that, as a second son, he wouldn’t inherit his father’s title.
The Randolphs were aghast at their son’s choice of an American bride from a family no one knew anything about, and the more they learned about the Jeromes, the more they disliked the match. Leonard Jerome, Jennie’s father, was a flamboyant speculator in stocks and a noted chaser of comely opera singers; her mother, Clara, was occasionally accused of having Iroquois ancestry. Despite owning property in the right part of town (the Jerome Mansion stood at the corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue), the Jeromes were not considered worthy of the upper echelons of New York society.
Jerome, the duke wrote to his lovestruck son, “drives about six and eight horses in New York (one may take this as an indication of what the man is).” Despite his daughter’s charms, he was a person “no man in his sense could think respectable.”
The Jeromes, though, had two advantages that could not be overlooked. The first was a personal endorsement of the match by Edward, Prince of Wales, who had met Jennie in social settings and liked her. The second was pecuniary.
Randolph had no money of his own, and the measly allowance his father provided would not have been enough for the couple to live on. The Jeromes would be aligning themselves with one of Britain’s most noble families, and for that they were expected to pay handsomely. Leonard Jerome came up with 50,000 pounds plus a 1,000-pound yearly allowance for Jennie (something unheard-of in British families), and the deal was done. In April 1874, Jennie and Randolph were married.
Seven months after the wedding, Lady Randolph gave birth to Winston. (She claimed a fall had induced premature labor, but the baby appeared full-term.) A second followed in 1880, though motherhood did not seem to have slowed Jennie’s quest for excitement. She and Randolph both had extramarital affairs (she, it was rumored, with the Prince of Wales, even as she remained close with Princess Alexandra, his wife), though they remained married until his death, in 1895. (The jury is still out on whether he died of syphilis contracted during extracurricular activities.)
Jennie came to have great influence over the political careers of her husband and son, and remained a force on the London social scene into the 20th century. She also came to represent what the British saw as the most vital kind of American girl—bright, intelligent and a bit headstrong. When Jennie’s essay “American Women in Europe” was published in the Pall Mall Magazine in 1903, she asserted, “the old prejudices against them, which mostly arose out of ignorance, have been removed, and American women are now appreciated as they deserve.” They were beautiful (Jennie Chamberlain, an heiress from Cleveland, so charmed the Prince of Wales he followed her from house party to house party during one mid-1880s social season), well-dressed (they could afford it) and worldly in a way their English counterparts were not. As Jennie Churchill wrote:
They are better read, and have generally traveled before they make their appearance in the world. Whereas a whole family of English girls are educated by a more or less incompetent governess, the American girl in the same condition of life will begin from her earliest age with the best professors…by the time she is eighteen she is able to assert her views on most things and her independence in all.
Despite their joie de vivre, not all American brides were as adaptable as Lady Randolph, and their marriages not as successful. The Marlborough-Vanderbilt match, for one, was significantly less harmonious.
Alva Vanderbilt determined early on that only a noble husband would be worthy of her daughter. She and a team of governesses managed Consuelo’s upbringing in New York and Newport, Rhode Island, where the heiress studied French, music and other disciplines a lady might need as a European hostess. Consuelo was meek, deferring to her mother on most matters. Before the wedding she was described by the Chicago Tribune as having “ all the naive frankness of a child,” an affectation that may have endeared her to the American public, but would be no match for the heir to Blenheim. After they met at the home of Minnie Paget (nee Stevens), a minor American heiress who acted as a sort of matchmaker, Alva went to work ensuring the union would take place. It was settled that the groom would receive $2.5 million in shares of stock owned by Consuelo’s father, who would also agree to guarantee the yearly sum of $100,000 to each half of the couple.
“Sunny,” as the future duke was known, made little effort to hide his reasons for favoring an American bride; Blenheim Palace needed repairs his family couldn’t afford. After the wedding (it is rumored that in the carriage ride after the ceremony, Sunny coldly informed Consuelo of the lover waiting for him in England) he went about spending her dowry restoring the family seat to glory.
Consuelo, for her part, was less than pleased with her new home:
Our own rooms, which faced east, were being redecorated, so we spent the first three months in a cold and cheerless apartment looking north. They were ugly, depressing rooms, devoid of the beauty and comforts my own home had provided.
Unlike her previous American residences, Blenheim lacked indoor plumbing, and many of the rooms were drafty. Once installed there, some 65 miles from London, Consuelo would travel little until the next social season (she was lucky, though; some American brides wound up on estates in the North of England, where getting to the capital more than once a year was unthinkable), and in the drawing room she was forced to answer questions nightly about whether she was yet in the family way. If Consuelo failed to produce an heir, the dukedom would pass to Winston Churchill (Lady Randolph’s son), something the current duchess of Marlborough was loath to see happen.
Consuelo and Sunny’s relationship deteriorated. He returned to the womanizing he’d done before their marriage, and she looked elsewhere for comfort, engaging for a time in a relationship with her husband’s cousin, the Hon. Reginald Fellowes. These dalliances were not enough to keep the Marlboroughs happy, and in 1906, barely ten years after their wedding, they separated, divorcing in 1921.
If the Vanderbilt-Marlborough marriage was the high point of the American ascent to the noble realm, it was also the beginning of a backlash. Sunny’s courtship of Consuelo was seen as almost mercenary, and the men who followed him in the hunt for an heiress looked even worse. When Alice Thaw, daughter of a Pittsburgh railroad magnate, agreed to marry the earl of Yarmouth in 1903, she hardly could have guessed that on the morning of her wedding the groom would be arrested for failure to pay outstanding debts and that she would have to wait at the church while her intended and her father renegotiated her dowry.
American fathers, too, began to doubt the necessity of having a duchess in the family. Frank Work, whose daughter Frances’ marriage to James Burke Roche, Baron Fermoy, would end with Frances accusing her husband of desertion, went on record as strongly opposing the practice of trading hard-earned money for louche husbands with impressive names. His 1911 obituary, printed in the New-York Tribune, quoted from an earlier interview:
It’s time this international marrying came to a stop for our American girls are ruining our own country by it. As fast as our honorable, hard working men can earn this money their daughters take it and toss it across the ocean. And for what? For the the purpose of a title and the privilege of paying the debts of so-called noblemen! If I had anything to say about it, I’d make an international marriage a hanging offense.
Ideal marriages, wealthy fathers thought, were like the 1896 match between Gertrude Vanderbilt and Henry Payne Whitney, wherein American money stayed put and even had the chance to multiply.
Much of the Gilded Age matchmaking that united the two nations occurred under the reign of Edward VII, who as Prince of Wales encouraged social merriment equal to that of his mother Queen Victoria’s sobriety. When Edward died, in 1910, the throne passed to his son George V, who, along with his British-bred wife, Mary, curtailed the excess that had characterized his father’s leadership of Britain’s leisure class. Nightly private parties throughout a social season began to seem vulgar as Europe moved closer to war. In New York, Newport and Chicago, the likes of Caroline Astor began to cede social power to the nouveaux riche they had once snubbed, and as the American economy became the domain of men like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, their daughters had little reason to spend their inheritances restoring 17th-century castles when they could stay home and be treated as royalty by the press and the public.
Though American girls quit looking for husbands across the pond, the influence of the ones who did become duchesses and baronesses left an indelible mark on the British landscape. American women financed the repair and restoration of once-shabby estates like Blenheim and Wrotham Park, backed political ambitions (Mary Leiter, a department-store heiress from Chicago, used her father’s money to help her husband, George Curzon, become the viceroy of India), and, in the case of Jennie Jerome, gave birth to children who would lead Britain squarely into the 20th century.
The women, too, were changed. Jennie Jerome, after her husband’s death, married two more Englishmen (one of them younger than her son Winston), and other American girls who divorced or outlived their first husbands stayed on in their adoptive country, occasionally marrying other peers and tending to the political and marital careers of their children.
After she divorced Sunny, Consuelo Vanderbilt married Lt. Jacques Balsan, a French balloonist and airplane pilot, and the two would remain together until his death in 1956, living primarily in a château 50 miles from Paris and, later, a massive Palm Beach estate Consuelo called Casa Alva, in honor of her mother.
Consuelo’s autobiography, The Glitter and the Gold, appeared in 1953 and detailed just how miserable she’d been as the Duchess of Marlborough. But perhaps, during her time as a peer of the realm, something about that life took hold of Consuelo and never quite let go. She died on Long Island in 1964, having asked her family to secure her a final resting place at Blenheim.
Sources:
Balsan, Consuelo, The Glitter and the Gold, 1953; Lady Randolph Churchill, “American Women in Europe,” Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, 1903; DePew, Chauncey, Titled Americans 1890: A List of American Ladies Who Have Married Foreigners of Rank; MacColl, Gail, and Wallace, Carol McD., To Marry an English Lord, Workman Publishing, 1989; Sebba, Anne, American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, W.W. Norton & Company, 2007; Cannadine, David, The Rise and Fall of the British Aristocracy, Vintage, 1999; Lovell, Mary S., The Churchills, Little Brown, 2011; Stuart, Amanda Mackenzie, Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother in the Gilded Age, Harper Perennial, 2005; “Frank Work Dead at 92”, New-York Tribune, 17 March 1911; “The Marriage of Marlborough and Vanderbilt,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 October 1895; “She is Now a Duchess,” New York Times, 7 November 1895.Image copyright Reuters Image caption An army offensive sparked by an attack on Karachi airport has displaced 450,000 in North Waziristan
Gunmen have opened fire on a passenger plane arriving at Peshawar airport in Pakistan, police say.
The Pakistan International Airlines flight PK756 had been carrying about 178 passengers from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
One female passenger was killed and two crew members were injured.
A deadly attack by militants on Karachi airport this month sparked an army offensive against insurgent positions in the North Waziristan region.
Hunt for gunmen
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said security forces had cordoned off the Bacha Khan airport site in Peshawar and had launched a hunt for the gunmen.
It reported that an injured flight attendant had been taken to hospital but that one woman had died of her injuries on the way.
Police officer Dost Muhammad Khan told Associated Press five bullets had hit the plane.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The attack on Karachi airport left nearly 40 people dead
The jet suffered a heavy landing, injuring a number of other passengers.
PIA official Mohammad Kifayatullah Khan told Reuters he had entered the plane and saw the fatally injured woman on her seat.
He said: "All the passengers were panicked. Some of them wanted to get out as soon as possible because they were afraid of fire inside the plane."
Pakistan's army launched the offensive in North Waziristan a week ago, bombarding Taliban targets in the tribal area.
Some 450,000 people have since been displaced, many arriving at the town of Bannu in overloaded vehicles.
Local officials say they are doing everything they can to deal with an unfolding humanitarian crisis.
The offensive began after the attack on Karachi airport, which an Uzbek militant group and the Pakistani Taliban said they had carried out.
At least 39 people were killed in the raid on Jinnah international airport, including all 10 gunmen.
The attack signalled an end to an already faltering peace process between the government and the Pakistani Taliban.By now you’ve heard of Mark Watney’s plight in Andy Weir’s book The Martian. Weir’s blockbuster, self-published book has accomplished what few books ever will. It’s a New York Times best-seller, and there is now a film adaptation starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain with director Ridley Scott (Alien and Blade Runner) at the helm.
Astronaut Mark Watney is left for dead on Mars. What follows is a survival tale, painstakingly researched, bursting with scientific facts, and threaded with humor. But at the core, there is Watney, a mostly likable character, who makes wading through Weir’s layers of exposition a worthy struggle.
The book’s popularity flaunts financial success in the face of science fiction writing conventions. Mainly these: “reduce exposition,” “don’t use dialogue to info dump the reader,” and “don’t info dump in general.” These editorial commandments are meant to make prose engaging and less bogged down by a textbook-style presentation dominated by explanation rather than story narrative. Industry wisdom says this expository style bores readers.
The Martian embraces info dumping and exposition sometimes to a mind-numbing effect. But there are three things the novel has going for it that make this presentation bearable:
1) Watney is Likable
Watney is funny, sometimes charismatic and, most importantly, inventive. It’s his ingenuity that perhaps holds one of the keys to the book’s mass appeal.
He is a scientist survivalist describing to us each modification and calculation needed to accomplish Martian survival. He shares a similar character attribute with Walter White from Breaking Bad: applying scientific knowledge to the available resources around him in order to solve problems.
This is an important characteristic for Mark Watney, maybe more so than for Walter White, because it drives the plot and allows him to continually master his circumstances. It’s perhaps the same appeal a character like MacGyver had for audiences in the 80s and early 90s.
The “master of dire circumstances” type of character turns his knowledge into action to solve problems in unexpected ways. There is dramatic tension in that, the potential for surprise, and the appeal of a character who can do anything he puts his mind to, especially when in danger.
2) Humor
Just when my eyes were tearing up from Watney’s procedures and technical descriptions, he would crack a joke. Not all were funny, but it’s this lightheartedness and positive attitude in the face of death that made most of the humor successful.
3) The Insane Amount of Research
Watney’s likability and humor and his appeal as a problem solver may carry readers through the narrative’s oddities and sometimes daunting exposition, but these characteristics aren’t exactly revolutionary and don’t represent the real achievement of the book.
The real achievement of The Martian is the research.
From how the rovers work to liquefied food destroying a rocket launch, the details expressed in this book convey a crazy level of research and painstaking thought into how Watney’s survival could work. Both the extremely curious and the technically minded will find satisfaction in the “hard science fiction” elements Weir employs.
The technical details and facts were this book’s biggest achievement, yet their presentation made the novel hard to get through to a fault. Presentation and explanation of the technical and the scientific are a common challenge for the science fiction writer. How can we explain science while creating an engaging narrative? It’s a question I imagine all science fiction writers must answer for themselves.
The Martian is a perfect candidate for a movie adaptation and, at times, reads as if it were a screenplay adapted into a novel with characters “exiting” rooms and Watney’s one-liner quips. Films naturally tend to filter out exposition when adapted from books but without the book’s scientific detail, I wonder if the movie will lose the novel’s real achievement.Brett McCracken is one of the most interesting and thoughtful Millennial writers emerging from the USA. Among others, he has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Huffington Post and CNN.com, and brings a clear Christian voice to contemporary issues. I recently caught up with Brett to ask him some questions I thought would interest readers of Think.
Your writing tends to focus on the kind of territory we often explore at Think: the interface between theology and culture. You live in Southern California, but I know you are familiar with the UK too - what cultural issues do you see coming down the track over the next 5-10 years that we need to be theologically prepared for?
Obviously the growing confusion about gender and sex is a big one that is already here, but it will likely even become more of a challenge in the coming years, especially within the church as more and more younger believers are growing up with presuppositions about gender and sex that are simply the air they breathe in today’s world, but are decidedly unChristian.
Technology is the other big one that comes to mind. The problems it will pose are multifaceted. One challenge is the disembodying trajectory of technology, which exacerbates existing Gnostic tendencies (a cerebral rather than embodied faith) and subtly deemphasizes the crucial physicality of the church, the “body of Christ” in the material and not just theoretical sense. In our digitally mediated world, churches must find ways to encourage physical gatherings, the practice of the Lord’s Supper, meals together in neighborhoods, bodily movement in worship, shaking hands and hugging each other, etc. Anything to re-sensitize people to the fleshly reality of the church in the world.
A big one that we are already seeing is how the Internet is creating a crisis of epistemology. “Post-truth” was Merriam Webster’s word of the year last year, and “fake news” and “alternative facts” have become part of our discourse of late. In the age of Google, information is everywhere but wisdom is nowhere. How do we know what is true or believable amidst the digital avalanche of information? For churches, an increased skepticism toward truth/authority will certainly be a challenge.
There are other trends in technology we must prepare for: The “status anxiety” of our social media age that leads to narcissism, depression and addiction to “likes”; the ethical and existential questions posed by artificial intelligence; the compartmentalizing trajectory of technology that leads to unintegrated, fragmentary lives; the crisis of work in the post-industrial and automated age; the way online living erodes local community and inflates national and international politics to the extent that they become sources of ultimate meaning and identity.
Another trend to keep an eye on is the way “authenticity” continues to become an ultimate value for 21st century people. While there are some good aspects to it, “authenticity” as it is increasingly understood can become a privileging of brokenness and a “this is just who I am” essentialism and immutability. This is becoming a problem even in the church, where many Christians are quite simply more compelled by sin (though we call it “brokenness”) than we are with holiness, and that is a significant problem the church must address.
SoCal is famous for innovation, and infamous for the incubation of crazy ideas! What opportunities and challenges does this present in making disciples of Christ?
On the plus side, I think the creative energy of Southern California makes it an exciting place to live, full of an ethos of discovery and innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. From a discipleship perspective it often means there is an optimism and passion in people that can lead them to getting fired up and excited about Jesus, especially if they’ve discovered him or discovered the gospel as something “new” or paradigm-altering in their lives.
But there are challenges too. The pervasive spirit of “new” and “future” often means there is a restlessness and low tolerance for slow growth, as well as a low appreciation for the past and tradition. Newness can become an idol, such that even those who do follow Jesus can become quickly bored, restless and resistant to sticking with one community for a long period of time. You see this everywhere among Christians in SoCal. They often get really excited about a new church, maybe stay there for a year or so, but then the novelty wears off or some “better fit” option comes along, and they move on. The ethos of innovation within churches can also have a downside, when churches are tempted to overstress relevance and the importance of current trends, focusing much of their energy on reinventing the wheel constantly so as to stay ahead of the curve. But this, as I argued in my book Hipster Christianity, simply plays into the worst tendencies of consumerism and chains the gospel to trendiness in a way that misses its transcendent power.
Your writing is potentially challenging for both liberals and conservatives - liberals because of your evangelical convictions, conservatives because of your positive engagement with ‘culture’. Which group do you find it most challenging to engage with, and which tends to give you the hardest time?
I’ve received criticism from both sides, but I think the liberal criticisms tend to be louder these days. In a former era my cultural engagement as an evangelical Christian might have been more countercultural, but these days I think the fact that I’m a Millennial who STILL BELIEVES (shocking!) even in the unpopular doctrines of Christianity (e.g. Christ’s exclusivity, sexual ethics, etc.) is more unsettling to liberals, whose narrative depends on the assumption that Millennial Christians are progressive and will finally move the church beyond its stodgy beliefs. And I also think some liberals don’t like the fact that I’m conversant in popular culture (as well as critical theory, cultural studies, the Frankfurt School, intersectionality, etc.) while also being theologically conservative, pro-life, pro-marriage, and deeply passionate about church.
But more often I find that there are many others like me in the church … people who don’t fit perfectly in these tidy categories; people who are interested in intellectual and cultural conversations but also committed to Christian orthodoxy. My hope for my generation of Christian Millennials is that we won’t follow the typical “pendulum” trajectory but rather be compelled by the nuances and complexity of maintaining faithfulness even while we winsomely engage the questions and issues of our secular age.
I’ve seen you reference your introversion several times. What do you think this personality trait contributes to Christian community that extroversion doesn’t? And how do you handle your introversion in a culture (both a church culture, and the wider culture) that generally seems to value extroversion over introversion?
Like any mix of personality differences, I think introverts and extroverts in the church can help one another. An introvert can help an extrovert learn to value contemplation and stillness. Introverts tend to also be more long-burn processors, needing to sit with ideas longer before weighing in. This can bring important balance to a team when it comes to decision making. If a church leadership team is made up entirely of extroverts, meetings and decision making can be chaotic and at times rash. Introverts slow things down and can often provide thinking and angles to discussions that aren’t there otherwise. Pastorally, I think introverts can minister to other introverts in the church (and extroverts!) in ways extrovert pastors can’t as effectively. Introverts know what other introverts need, and they also know where they need to be pushed and stretched outside of comfort. Likewise, an introvert pastor can help an extrovert grow in areas that are less normal or comfortable for them, such as silent prayer, reading, and other more solitary disciplines. I recommend Adam McHugh’s excellent book Introverts in the Church for a fuller exploration of these questions!
This September you have a new book being published by Crossway. Could you tell us something about it?
The book is called Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community. It’s essentially a call for a post-consumer approach to church, where we embrace, rather than avoid, the uncomfortable aspects of Christianity and the necessity of committing to a local church. I suggest in the book that when the church is uncomfortable and countercultural, she is strong. Exactly what shape this “countercultural” posture should take is a current topic of much debate, but my take is that it must be first and foremost grounded in local church communities, however awkward and uncool and seemingly mundane it may be.
In the book I explore various aspects of Christian faith and church life that are challenging in the 21st century. The book starts with a detailed description of my “dream church” but then proceeds to argue that this is the opposite approach we should take. There is no perfect church. We are better off, and the church is better off, if we embrace and commit to a faithful church even if it doesn’t “fit us” perfectly. As Bonhoeffer once said, “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community.”
My sense is that if the church is going to thrive in the 21st century, she needs to be honest and upfront about the cost of discipleship, positioning herself as a radically different, uncomfortably Christ-centered community and not simply another “perfect fit” product in a consumerist world. To the extent that the church is the latter, she is just another extension of our perfectly curated iPhone lives. To the extent that she is the former, she will transform lives and transform the world.
What’s the deal with Terrence Malick?
Ha! You’ve noticed my obsession. Well, Terrence Malick is my favorite filmmaker and someone who, as an artist of Christian faith, has inspired me in my career as a writer looking for connections between theology and culture, the Bible and beauty. When I saw The Thin Red Line (Malick’s third film) as a 16-year-old I had a bit of an epiphany in terms of seeing connections between faith and art where I had formerly seen them as mostly at odds. So Malick has been deeply personal to me as a muse of sorts for my own passions as a writer and thinker. But beyond that, I just think Malick is a very singular and important filmmaker in today’s world. His training in philosophy, his knowledge of theology and literature and history, and his brilliant craft make him one of the most observant cinematic chroniclers of our age. He’s entered a prolific period now in his older age (since 2011’s The Tree of Life) and his recent films have a decidedly “Old Testament Wisdom Literature” feel to them. This is radical and often not well-received by the secular press, but |
property is very similar to other aging centers they have revitalized, including Hunter’s Woods and Tall Oak (Reston, Va.) and Newark Shopping Center (Newark, Del.). Improvements made at these centers have increased traffic flow and center use, and it is believed that the Village Center has the same potential to be a central location again in Montgomery Village. Ross stressed that ARC wants to work with residents to make the Village Center a great place once again. “We want to listen to the community and make this successful for the next 50 years,” he commented.
Ross went on to say that since 1992, ARC has specialized in retro-fitting village centers in Columbia, Md., Reston, Va. and other areas. He noted that this would be a challenging project because of the amount of cooperation needed; the store owners and center tenants, as well as the community and the county, need to work together to make this a successful project.
Former Village resident and ARC’s Land Use Attorney Jody Kline informed residents that this project will require a number of steps before any work could begin. He mentioned that the new CRT Zone that came out of the MV Master Plan would be in place by the fall of this year. Once this happens, a Sketch Plan Application would be filed with the county, noting an overall plan and vision for the center. Then ARC would need to work on individual Site Plan Applications for specific parcels in the Village Center. Kline said it would likely be mid 2017 before Zoning Entitlements were issued and residents saw any outward work at the center.
Proposed Plan
Polleo Group Principal Tom Dinneny (ARC’s Lead Architect/Master Planner) explained the proposed changes to the Village Center. He noted the center has “good bones,” but needs a facelift and some reconfiguration to make it successful again. First, the center would be given a new façade, complete with a new sign package to be determined with the Commercial Architectural Review Committee. The idea for the center is not a complete tear down, but a modern, fresh face.
ARC also plans to create two new pad sites in the front of the center, moving the current Denny’s location and the Suntrust Bank drive through. They are confident about their ability to attract a national grocery store, which, along with Big Lots, would anchor the center. Centerway Road is proposed to be cut all the way through the center, eliminating the current half circle near the Village Café. This road will wrap all the way around the back, giving access for all traffic (pedestrian and vehicular), to create a constant flow of activity. Traffic calming measures like street parking would be implemented.
To consolidate the retail to a central location accessible by all traffic, ARC plans to make all storefronts street-facing, and eliminate the pad in the rear of the center where Global Food currently is. This space will make room for an apartment complex (approximately 212 units) and a parking garage, which will service the apartments and employee parking for the center. The apartment complex will also have a 3,000 sq. ft. space that can be used for community meetings and events.
Other townhouse units will be placed on top of and behind the other existing retail strip. It is proposed that Denny’s would move to a corner location here, making it more accessible to foot traffic. There are approximately 130 units proposed for this area. Townhouses here are envisioned to have front porches or stoops in order to create activity and promote residents being outside their homes.
Dinneny said there would be no changes to bring the center closer to Montgomery Village Avenue, though they would like to enhance pedestrian access from that entrance to the center. Current entrances to the center would remain the same, with a new entrance at Centerway and Watkins Mill roads (Centerway Road would cut all the way through the center).
Ross also mentioned the use of environmentally friendly features as part of the renovations to the center. He said that ARC would work toward some level of LEED certification, though that is undetermined at this time; they would incorporate electric vehicle charging stations at a to be determined, yet convenient, location; and based on input from the meeting, would look for the best places for bicycle traffic and parking. Ross noted that all of ARC’s current projects incorporate these types of features.
Density
Addressing the issue of density, especially with other new units proposed in Monument Realty’s plan on the former golf course, Ross said that ARC was aligning the number of residential units with the use of the center. “The site will only sustain so much retail,” he noted. His sentiments regarding the new trends toward mixed use and residential units helping to fuel center use reflect those initially expressed at the beginning of the Vision 2030 charette process.
While the pricepoint of the units would be dictated by the housing market, residential development is crucial to the viability of the center in a few key ways. First, from a sustainability aspect, having residential units in the center breeds activity and keeps center use steady. The higher pedestrian traffic flow allows for higher-end retail, something Village residents have been seeking for some time. Secondly, Ross said that while ARC will fund the renovations to the retail portion, the residential portion will actually finance the upkeep of the center in the long term. “The retailers need to sustain their rent dollars through consistent sales … revenue from the residential portion will help maintain and enhance the center.”
New Retail
Ross was realistic to note that while his team is working hard to attract retailers to the center based on the concept plans, there have been no commitments at this time. ARC is hopeful for a national grocer, a high-end coffee shop and other healthy and convenient establishments that would boost the center’s clientele. Suggestions from the community at the meeting included a 5 Guys Burger and Fries, Starbucks and a bike shop.
Timeframe
While ARC is excited to get renovations started, Ross noted the reality of the process involved to make that happen. He said they are hopeful to be done sooner, rather than later, but the overall timeframe for the project will be dictated by ARC’s work with tenants, the community, the county and resources available. In closing the presentation, Ross said, “ARC saw an opportunity, similar to Hunter’s Woods, to be part of change and help revitalize an aging facility—we can provide the support this center needs. The bones of the center are good, but the time is now to fix the face and move forward for the community. WRIT wanted to sell; we’re not property holders, we’re motivated to make this a success.”
The presentation slides, featuring artist renditions of the current vision, can be found here.
Next Meeting
ARC will host a Sketch Plan Application Pre-filing Community Meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 2 at North Creek Community Center, 20125 Arrowhead Road. Residents are encouraged to attend.UN representative Angela Kane has arrived in Syria to push for access to a suspected chemical weapons attack site, as Bashar al-Assad’s regime was accused by Western leaders today of being responsible for the massacre of 1,300 people with chemical weapons.
Russia, the Syrian President’s strongest ally, asked him to co-operate with UN inspectors, but also claimed that the attack may have been carried out by the rebels.
It has emerged, in the meantime, that senior members of the US administration have met in the White House to discuss a possible response to the massacre in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus, with options including Tomahawk launches and a more sustained air campaign.
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.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Pentagon was "positioning our forces" ahead of "whatever options the president might choose" as its navy presence in the eastern Mediterranean was bolstered.
However, no immediate action is likely with divisions within the military and diplomatic leadership.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, remains staunchly opposed to armed intervention while others, including Susan Rice, the UN representative, had been pressing for action which would send an unequivocal message to the Damascus regime.
With more graphic and shocking footage appearing of the killings, the growing consensus was that chemical weapons had been used with the US and western European states holding President Assad responsible.
Barack Obama, who had in the past declared that the use of weapons of mass destruction would cross a “red line”, said, “What we’ve seen indicates that this is clearly an event of grave concern. This is something that is going to require America’s attention.”
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, held: “The only possible explanation of what we have been able to see is that it was a chemical attack.
“So we believe this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime on a large scale… It was the only plausible explanation for casualties so intense in such a small area.”
The odds that rebels had staged the attack to “frame” the regime, said the Foreign Secretary, were “vanishingly small”.
Mr Hague spoke on the phone today to the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, stressing that the inspectors must get access to the affected area from the regime as soon as possible.
Prolonged delay would make the collection of viable evidence impossible and, if that happens, the UK intends to take the issue back to the Security Council.
A UN spokesman said that Mr Ban was “deeply troubled” by reports of the alleged attack.
“He expects to receive a positive response without delay.”
The high representative for disarmament, Angela Kane, was on her way to Damascus to press the regime for inspectors to be given access to the affected areas.
The opposition said it was trying to move survivors out of the area to safer places where they could receive treatment.
The Russian foreign ministry claimed in a statement, meanwhile, “a homemade rocket loaded with an unidentified chemical agent” was used in the attack which was “probably a provocation” by the opposition to implicate President Assad.
But the Kremlin failed to provide any further details to back up the charge.
The Syrian Deputy Prime Minister, Qadri Jamil, saw a foreign hand at work, “since no Syrian can do this to each other”.
In their version of events, opposition activists said that the first rockets bearing nerve agents were fired from a bridge on the highway from Damascus to Homs and others were launched from the Sironex factory in the Qabun district of the capital.
The areas are under regime control.
Mr Lavrov, in a telephone call to Mr Kerry, acknowledged that it was in the interest of both the countries for an investigation to take place.
“It is now up to the opposition to ensure safe access for the mission to the site of the alleged incident,” he is reported to have stressed.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Subscribe nowYear Title Role Notes
1968 Sinking Fish Move Sideways Waiter on Train Television film
1970 Ace of Wands Cashier Episode: "Now You See It, Now You Don't: Part 1"
1970 ITV Saturday Night Theatre Crosscapel Episode: "The Policeman and the Cook"
1972 Stage 2 Madman Episode: " "
1973 Armchair Theatre Mick Episode: "Verite"
1974 Napoleon and Love Eugene 3 episodes
1974 Play for Today Glen Episode: "Schmoedipus"
1977 Rock Follies of '77 Stevie Streeter Episode: "The Band Who Wouldn't Die"
1978 Will Shakespeare William Shakespeare 6 episodes
1978 ITV Sunday Night Drama Leonard Brazil Episode: "City Sugar"
1982 Oliver Twist Bill Sikes Television film
1983 Video Stars Teddy Whazz Television film
1985 Blue Money Larry Gormley Television film
1985 Ligmalion: A Musical for the 80s Eden Rothwell Esq. Television film
1986 The Grand Wizard Television film
1989 Ian Miles Episode: #3.11
1989 Wiseguy Winston Newquay 6 episodes
1989 Paddington Bear Mr. Curry (voice) 13 episodes
1990 Gravedale High Mr. Tutner (voice) 3 episodes
1990 Additional voices 1 episode
1990–1991 Wake, Rattle & Roll Ronald Chump (voice) 28 episodes
1990 Tiny Toon Adventures Prince Charles / Reginald (voices) Episode: "Europe in 30 minutes"
1990 The Marzipan Pig Narrator (voice) Television film
1990 TaleSpin Thaddeos E. Klang (voice) 2 episodes
1991–1993 Konk (voice) 20 episodes
1991–1994 Sir Gawain (voice) 39 episodes
1991–1996 Captain Planet and the Planeteers MAL (voice) 26 episodes
1991–1992 Darkwing Duck Taurus Bulba (voice) 3 episodes
1991 Big Deals Christopher Nizzle Pilot
1992 Fish Police Sharkster (voice) 6 episodes
1992 Defenders of Dynatron City Atom Ed (voice) Pilot
1992 Capitol Critters Senator (voice) Episode: "Max Goes to Washington"
1992–1994 Dinosaurs Various voices 7 episodes
1992 Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa Jacque Le Beefe (voice) Episode: "A Snake in Cow's Clothing"
1992 Batman: The Animated Series Henchman (voice) Episodes: "Fear of Victory"
1992–1994 Evil Manta (voice) 4 episodes
1993 Roseanne Roger 2 episodes
1993–1994 Mighty Max Skullmaster / Jules Verne (voices) 12 episodes
1993 Tales from the Crypt Pa / Ma / Winona Brackett Episode: "Death of Some Salesman"
1993 Eek! The Cat Narrator (voice) Episode: "It's a Very Merry Eek's-mas"
1994–1997 Aaahh!!! Real Monsters Zimbo / Additional voices 19 episodes
1994–1997 Duckman King Chicken / Simon Desmond (voices) 10 episodes
1994 Sonic the Hedgehog King Acorn / Keeper of the Time Stones (voices) 4 episodes
1994 Aladdin Amok Mon-Ra / Caliph Kapok (voices) 2 episodes
1994 Earth 2 Gaal 4 episodes
1994–1995 Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad Kilokahn (voice) 53 episodes
1994–1995 Turbocharged Thunderbirds The Atrocimator (voice) 13 episodes
1995–1997 Pretorius (voice) 14 episodes
1995 Daisy-Head Mayzie Finagle (voice) Television film
1995–1996 Gargoyles Dr. Anton Sevarius (voice) 7 episodes
1995–1996 Sir Rudolph Haley 2 episodes
1996 Adventures from the Book of Virtues King Minos / Gessler (voices) 2 episodes
1996–1997 Mighty Ducks Lord Dragaunus (voice) 21 episodes
1996–1998 Jumanji Trader Slick (voice) 6 episodes
1996 Quack Pack Moltoc (voice) 2 episodes
1996–1997 Bruno the Kid Lazlo Gigahurtz (voice)
1996 The Story of Santa Claus Nostros (voice) Television film
1996 Titanic Simon Doonan 2 episodes
1997 Freakazoid! Dr. Mystico (voice) Episode: "Island of Dr. Mystico"
1997 Lexx Poet Man Episode: "Supernova"
1997 Casper Pianist (voice) Episode: "Stinkie Time Theatre"
1997 Over the Top Simon Ferguson 12 episodes; also producer
1997 Teen Angel The Frog (voice) Episode: "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog"
1997 Doom Runners Dr. Kao Television film
1998 Stories from My Childhood The Beast (voice) Episode: "Beauty and the Beast (A Tale of the Crimson Flower)"
1998 Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego Dr. Gunnar Maelstrom (voice) 3 episodes
1998 The Sorcerer (voice) 10 episodes
1998–2004 Nigel Thornberry (voice) 92 episodes
1998–2000 Voltron: The Third Dimension Prince Lotor / King Alfor (voices) 23 episodes
1998 Madness Reigns King Nicholas Pilot
1998 The First Snow of Winter Voley (voice) Television film
1999, 2003–2004 Hey Arnold! Leichliter (voice) 3 episodes
1999 Xyber 9: New Dawn King Renard (voice) 18 episodes
1999–2000 Rude Awakening Martin Crisp 6 episodes
1999–2001 Dr. Neugog (voice) 2 episodes
1999 Recess Dr. Slicer (voice) Episode: "Prickly is Leaving"
1999 Johnny Bravo Big Brother (voice) Episode: "Brave New Johnny"
1999 The Unbelievables Pilot
1999 Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain Monkman (voice) Episode: "Teleport a Friend"
1999 Jackie's Back Edward Whatsett St. John Television film
1999 Officer Lightoller (voice) Television film
2000 Martial Law The One (voice) 3 episodes
2000 Batman Beyond Mutro Botho (voice) Episode: "Final Cut"
2000 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd The Rottweiler (voice) Episode: "Big Dog"
2000 Bette Himself Episode: "Or Not to Be"
2000–2001 Redwall: Mattimeo Slagar the Cruel (voice) 13 episodes
2001 Attila Theodosius II 2 episodes
2001 Gary & Mike Killer (voice) Episode: "Crisscross"
2001 Wolf Girl Harley Dune Television film
2001 Teacher's Pet Spooky (voice) Episode: "The Tale of the Telltale Taffy"
2002–2003 Teamo Supremo Laser Pirate / Dastardly Dentist (voices) 3 episodes
2002 Samurai Jack Worm 1 (voice) Episode: "Jack Tales"
2002 Ozzy & Drix Nick O'Teen / Scarlet Fever (voices) 2 episodes
2002–2003 Family Affair Mr. Giles French 16 episodes
2003–2005 Professor Finbarr Calamitous (voice) 8 episodes
2003 Chalkzone Jacko (voice) 2 episodes
2003 Pervical (voice) Episode: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
2004 Monk Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck Episode: "Mr. Monk Goes to Jail"
2004 Will & Grace Marion Finster 2 episodes
2004 Higglytown Heroes Libraian Hero (voice) 2 episodes
2005 Duck Dodgers Magnificent Rogue (voice) Episode: "Villainstruck"
2005 Loonatics Unleashed Ringmaster (voice) Episode: "My Life is a Circus"
2006 The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 2: When Nerds Collide Professor Finbarr Calamitous (voice) Television film
2006 Eloise: The Animated Series Mr. Salamone (voice) 6 episodes
2007 Psych Nigel St. Nigel Episode: "American Duos"
2008, 2012 Phineas and Ferb Stubbings / Dr. Lloyd Wexler / Worthington Dubois (voices) 2 episodes
2008 Ben 10: Alien Force Dr. Joseph Chadwick / Knight #2 (voices) Episode: "Pet Project"
2008 Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic Trymon 2 episodes
2009 Alice Dodo Episode #1.1
2009 Return to Cranford Signor Brunoni Episode: "Part Two: October 1844"
2010 Criminal Minds Billy Flynn/The Prince of Darkness 2 episodes
2010 Regular Show Hot Dog Leader / Master Prank Caller #2 (voices) 2 episodes
2012 Transformers: Rescue Bots Doctor Morocco (voice) 4 episodes
2012 Arugula / Endive / Plum (voices) 2 episodes
2012–2014 Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja The Sorcerer (voice) 21 episodes
2013 Wonder Pets Tin Man (voice) Episode: "In the Land of Oz"
2013 Ben 10: Omniverse Dr. Joseph Chadwick / Stage Manager (voices) Episode: "Return to Forever"Arizona Coyotes
The Coyotes will unveil new home and road jerseys during their draft party at Gila River Arena. The main event will take place Friday at 3pm PT.
Yesterday, the team shared a teaser image of the new uniform — showing what appears to be a computer rendering of a player's leg.
The socks feature a new design, which now incorporates a black stripe. And the pants are black for the first time since the team changed its logos and jerseys in 2003.
Rumors abound, but it sounds like the new home jersey could be red with black shoulders and a unique overall design unlike any currently seen in the NHL.
The Kachina-inspired striping from the original Coyotes' uniforms may be present on the inside of the collar in "hanger effect" fashion. And the moon logo may be going the way of Colorado's Yeti foot.
In fact, even the existing shoulder patch may be replaced by a new paw print logo. Allegedly.
I can't say whether any of that is accurate, but I know you guys love gnawing on rumors and these seem as good as any for now.Lower house approves ban on clothing that covers faces, including burqa and niqab, in official buildings, schools and hospitals
The lower house of the Dutch parliament has approved a limited ban on “face-covering clothing”, including the burqa and niqab.
The legislation, approved on Tuesday by a large majority in the 150-seat house of representatives, must be approved by the upper house of parliament before it can be signed into law.
In a text to Associated Press, the anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders called the limited ban “a step in the right direction” and said he will push for the burqa to be outlawed entirely if his rightwing Freedom party wins the general election in March.
Studies suggest that only a few hundred women in the Netherlands wear niqabs or full-face burqas, but successive governments have attempted to ban them, following the example of France and Belgium.
The Dutch proposal, described by the government as “religion-neutral”, does not go as far as the complete bans introduced in those countries. It applies on public transport and in educational institutions, health institutions such as hospitals, and government buildings.
In a debate last week that paved the way for the vote, the interior minister, Ronald Plasterk, acknowledged that the furore about the burqa had played a major role in the ban’s approval.
But Plasterk, from the Labour party, said people should be allowed to appear in public with their faces covered if they wanted to, but in government buildings, schools and hospitals, it was essential to be able to look each other in the face.
The maximum fine for breaching the ban, which also covers ski masks and full-face helmets, is just over €400 (£340).For the first part of this blogseries I picked Dolphin. A basic application, that lets you do file management. Dolphin is very powerful application, so let's have a look at what all you can do with it.
The panels
Dolphin has four main areas. The panel on the left is your bookmarks/favorite/quickaccess places. Adding your own places is as easy as it can get - simply drag a folder and drop it there. Another way is to create it manually via panel's context menu, where you can even set your own label and icon, that's the 'My narcistic pictures' item for example. Reordering items to your own likening is again just a matter of drag and drop. You can also drag any folder/file to the places in that sidebar and it will be copied to that place. When you have some removable media, they are automatically displayed there as well and you can disconnect/eject them from the very same panel (as well as from other places).
If the drives are mounted, simple mouse hovering over the drive will show you its free space in a little bar, so you can have at least rough idea how much more data you can put on it. This places panel will stay the same throughout the whole KDE Workspace, in every open/save dialog you will have your places right there.
On the right side there's a Preview panel. But it's not just an image preview panel, it can show you much more. Selecting a mp3 will for example show you its ID3 tags, rating from Bangarang media player etc. But that's not where the fearless KDE developers stopped - you can also 'preview' the song right from the panel. That is, listen to it without opening any media player. Same goes with videos, it shows various info like dimensions, used codec and you can preview them right in the panel without the need to do pretty much anything but one click. When there's no preview available for certain file types, it will show nice shiny icon, courtesy of the Oxygen team. You can set what do you want to have preview of and also a size limit of the files. That's very useful when you don't want your resources to be busy on generating a preview of a very large image for example.
Some informations in this Preview panel appears as links. Yep, that's right - you can click it and get list of files with the same parameter. So for example you can list all photos taken by some particular camera, list all photos with some particular ISO setting, focal length, you can list all your songs by a particular author, by its codec, by its tags, you can list arbitrary images by particular resolution and so on and so on, you get the idea. This is all done thanks to Semantic Desktop implementation (which is currently the best out there), known as Nepomuk in KDE community. But more about this in some later post.
Dolphin has other panels for powerusers, they are hidden by default. There's a Terminal panel for when you need to quickly do some command-line work right at your fingertips (press F4), then we have a Folders panel, which is the classic tree-view of your folder structure and lastly there's a Search panel for doing semantic search. The position and size of the panels is fully configurable, so your Dolphin can look like this for example:
Dolphin's statusbar displays various useful informations. The leftmost text tells you how many folders and files you have in the current folder and how much space they take. Further to the right there's a slider which lets you control the size of icons in the main view. This is especially cool for when you're using Preview mode (more on that later). And then the right side features the most useful thing of the statusbar in my humble opinion - the remaining free space on the device you're currently browsing. Navigate to your flash drive and you'll immediately see how much space you have left on it.
The statusbar is also place for displaying error messages, which you can very easily copy by right clicking on them and selecting "Copy message".
The main view
And now let's take a look on what makes Dolphin so great in file management - the main view itself. The default is just what you'd expect - sorted folders and files, browsing folders and opening files is nothing special. But clicking with right mouse button on folder/file reveals some interesting features. Let's skip the obvious things like opening folder in new window or tab or adding it to places. Right from the menu you can compress whatever files/folders you have selected and you can choose either zip, rar, or tar.gz. Of course you can open the full blown dialog which lets you select different compression formats and options, where to place the archive and so on.
Dolphin also allows one to copy or move file to a desired location right from the context menu. This is very nice when you need to quickly copy/move something to your home folder or few levels deep (untill the menu fills your whole screen). It also features several last used locations, so it becomes way quicker after first time.
But for moving files around Dolphin has something better. With the "Split" button in the main toolbar you can split the main view and have {midnight|total|norton}-commander-like interface. The side that is not currently active (you are not working in) is slightly greyed out so you can tell by quick look which side you're currently controlling. There's another quite useful feature regarding file management - you can select files with the ordinary key shortcuts (holding ctrl or shift), but you can also select multiple files using just your mouse - every folder/file will show you a little plus icon in the top left corner after you move your mouse over it. Once you made your selection of files, just grab them and move, folders will automatically open if you hold your files over them (might need enabling in settings) and once you drop them, a little menu pops up letting you select the appropriate action - Copy, Move, Link or Cancel the whole action. Holding down a key while you drop your files might prevent this menu from popping up, so hold Ctrl for copy, Shift for move and Ctrl+Shift to automatically create a link upon dropping.
Besides splitting the main view, Dolphin can also have tabs, just like your browser. Simply press Ctrl+T or click on some folder with mouse wheel and there you have a new tab, right inside Dolphin.
Another great Dolphin feature is filtering. Imagine you're in a folder with thousands of files and you want to quickly filter certain files by filename. For this Dolphin has a special Filter bar, which you can turn on from the main menu or by pressing Ctrl+I. Then just type into the filter bar and files are immediately filtered as you type. Of course Dolphin includes also full searching by filename or content.
Navigation
Navigation in Dolphin is very easy and intuitive. On top of the main view there's a Location bar, which displays breadcrumb navigation. You can not only click the folder in the breadcrumb navigation, but you can also click the little arrows after each folder and that gives you quick access to subfolders of that particular folder, so you can quickly navigate to some other folder without even having to go back in you history. You can also very easily switch the Location bar into edit line by clicking on the empty space after the breadcrumb navigation, and type your own location with autocompletition, press Enter and you're there. This is especially great for accessing hidden folders on your filesystem, which on Linux have "." before their name, so for example your workspace config folder is ".kde4".
You can also navigate by using the arrow buttons in toolbar. Like in almost every KDE Application, you can very easily configure the toolbar yourself (both its position and its buttons). So you can for example add button for going one directory up or to go directly to your Home folder. All is very easy to do and very intuitive. Your Dolphin can look like this for example:
View modes
Dolphin has several view modes. The Icons view you've already seen in the previous screenshots. Another one is Details view, which shows list of files and their details next to them. Third view is Columns view. This will be very well known for OS X users - every folder openes new column. You might say that what's the point of having more than 2 columns when you won't be able to see the first one anyway. This works very similar to the breadcrumb Location bar, except it's more extended. You can move in the columns "history" with a scrollbar and see all the folders' contents at hand. Obviously you can also copy/move files between these columns.
In every view you can still select folders/files with the little plus icon which appears when you hover your mouse above the item. And in addition, you can switch on Preview mode in all three mentioned view types. Preview will simply show you preview of your files (text files, html, images etc). And by using the slider in the statusbar, you can make them larger or smaller. This setting will stay for the Preview mode, so when you exit the Preview mode, you'll have the original icon size setting (which you can change in the very same way). Also every folder (reliably) remembers it's view mode, used throughout the system. Isn't it cool?
Plugins
Dolphin is extendable by plugins. So for example you can have SVN or Git intergration right in Dolphin. This enables you to pull newest version from remote server or to push your changes to the server. Files also uses emblems to visualize changes in files. So if you have some uncommitted changes, you'll see little green arrow over the file and it's name will be in green.
You can also extend Dolphin's functionality with your own actions (not too hard to do, but requires some knowledge). We're using this in KDE-Telepathy where we add an action to the context menu that enables you to send files to your IM contact.
Last words...
So you see, Dolphin is simple yet very powerful and fully customizable file management application with "Simply have it your way" idea. And there's much more. We'll get back to Dolphin in other parts of this series, when we'll take a look at features like KIO or Nepomuk browsing.
In the near future we'll all see Dolphin 2.0, which will be included in the 4.8 release in January. I've been using the development version for quite some time and I must say - this is really something to look forward to! More details are in Peter Penz's blogpost. And we'll probably look at the new view system after the 4.8 release.
And what's your favorite feature in Dolphin? How do you use Dolphin and how it helps you get through everyday's work with KDE Workspace? Share your thoughts below...Exclusive, limited edition presale: Be the first to get your hands on a Linse.
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Some reactions at CHAMPS:With such counter-cultural initiatives such as notable concealed carry policies and residential hall weapons storage options, Liberty University is distinguished as one of the most gun-friendly universities in the nation. Now, the school’s next project may continue that legacy.
Liberty University is currently planning to construct a new state of the art outdoor shooting complex near Camp Hideaway. The project was introduced in a public hearing of Campbell County’s Planning Commission on December 5 in which representatives from Liberty University proposed their plans for the range site.
Schematics for the range include a one, two, and three hundred-yard rifle range. It will also feature several shotgun ranges and stands for such shooting sports as skeet, trap, five stand, and sporting clays. Furthermore, the facility will include a pistol range, an area for three-gun competition, tactical shooting, and a potential police shoot-house.
To top it off, Liberty also plans to add an archery range, a rifle/pistol fieldhouse, and an awards pavilion. The university plans to make this range available to the public as well as the student body, and it expects to host competitions from around the country while offering critical firearms training.
Keith Thompson, lead civil engineer for the project, believes that this complex will be like none other. “I really like how the facility will be located,” Thompson said. “It will be nestled in the mountains for safety and noise reduction, and skeet shooters will definitely get to enjoy an amazing view.”
When asked how the range will be used, he specified that “The range will first be an amenity for student use like other facilities on campus and will also be utilized for competitions and training purposes.”
Brad Butler, Planning and Construction Coordinator for Liberty University commented that Liberty will be unique in this development. “Around three hundred and fifty universities in this country participate in some form of shooting competition, and around thirty of those universities own outdoor shooting facilities off campus. However, Liberty will be the first university to have nationally recognized ranges that meet NRA and NCAA guideline standards and be able to host all Olympic shooting sports on its central campus property.”
Liberty officials at the hearing addressed noise concerns by affirming that great consideration was given to ensure the safety of potential hikers and traffic with the installation of gates and the range’s planned position within the mountains. Though officials recognize that some in the immediate area may notice some clamor, they note that the surrounding hills and foliage will significantly dampen and even dissipate the potential noise within the facility’s deliberate location.
The seven-member Planning Commission of Campbell County voted unanimously to support the decision to build the range where Liberty plans to do so. Vice Chairman Richard Metz went further to say that he applauds Liberty for its plans to build a range and that he believes every citizen ought to know how to properly handle and use a firearm.
Before construction begins, Liberty must appear before another county meeting in January to secure final zoning rights to the location. Construction is expected to begin following the decision.
Tanner Ray is a Western Legal Traditions major and gun rights activist at Liberty University.
AdvertisementsA key Obamacare program that uses bonus payments to improve medical care didn't work in its first year, new research suggests.
The program is called Hospital Value Based Purchasing, and it's meant to reward hospitals that do really well at 20 metrics, including things like responding quickly to heart attacks and giving patients discharge instructions when they leave the hospitals.
Beginning in 2011, hospitals stood to lose as much as 1 percent of their Medicare revenue if they did badly at these measures — or |
it like for the spectators?
To be a spectator at the Olympic Games was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. It makes modern sports fans seem like a pretty flaky bunch. First of all, if you came from Athens, you had to walk 210 miles [340 kilometers] to get to the site.
Olympia is in the middle of nowhere. It's a beautiful place, very idyllic. But it's basically a collection of three temples and a running track, with one inn reserved for the wealthy.
The organizers had it pretty easy in ancient times. They only had to chase a few sheep and cattle off the running track and temples. Everyone just turned up and had to look after himself. If you're rich, you put up a tent and you had servants. But the rank-and-file spectators plunked down anywhere.
In the high summer it was incredibly hot. The two rivers that converge at Olympia dried up. Nobody could wash. There was no drinking water, and people collapsed from heat stroke.
There was no sanitation, so the odors were quite pungent. Once you got into the stadium, there were no seats, only grassy banks. The word stadium comes from the Greek stadion, which means "a place to stand." But it was an incredible atmosphere with an amazing sense of tradition. People were standing on the very hill where Zeus wrestled his father [according to legend].
How many people showed up?
There were an estimated 40,000 spectators, and probably as many hangers-on, like vendors, writers, artists, prostitutes, and their shepherds.
What about some of the most famous names of the time?
Plato was a great wrestling fan. He showed up at the games incognito and stayed in makeshift barracks. He used to invite people to come and see him in Athens after the games. They would go there and realize he was the most famous man in Greece. Sophocles was a great handball fan.
Almost all Greek intellectuals were sports fans, and the games [were] also a great literary event. Herodotus debuted his famous history at the Olympics.
Did the games make any money?
The local farmers and producers certainly made a lot of money, but not the organizers. They didn't charge for entrance. They were aristocrats who weren't in it for the money but for the prestige of organizing the most important events in ancient Greece.
There must have been a lot of boozing.
Yes, you find the first sports bars in ancient Greece. Normally the Greeks didn't get terribly drunk. But this was like five days of living it up. People didn't sleep much at all. Students would organize these symposia that turned into drunken orgies.
Despite this debauchery, the Games had a spiritually profound meaning.
The sanctuary of Zeus was the most sacred place in the ancient world. The gods paid as much attention to the sports results as mortals. Athletes offered sacrifices nonstop to the gods, and the gods were even meant to have competed in the Olympics at an early stage.
They didn't have some of the things that we associate with the games today, like the torch relay.
The torch thing was really devised for the 1936 Nazi games. Hitler was fascinated with the ancient Greek world. He had all these theories that Spartans were this Aryan super race. Carl Diem, a sidekick of his, came up with this idea of carrying the torch from Olympia to Berlin.
But the torch and the opening ceremony transcended those rather sordid origins, and it became this wonderful tradition.
What about the Olympic flame?
Every sanctuary had its eternal flame. As a symbol, fire has been an important part of ancient Greek culture.
What was the opening ceremony like?
It was just as spectacular as it is today, the athletes filing into the temple, where they had to give their oath before a terrifying statue of Zeus wielding these thunderbolts. They had to swear over this bloody slice of boar's flesh that they would obey the rules of the game and use no unfair means to gain victory.With over half of the votes counted Mr Fillon was beating rival Alain Juppé by a landslide margin of 68.4 per cent to 31.6 per cent, heralding a history defining clash with the far-right Front National. Mr Fillon was considered a rank outsider last month compared to the comparatively better known Mr Juppé, but has become just the latest politician this year to defy the pollsters and clinch an unlikely victory. The 62-year-old, a self-avowed Thatcherite, is a social conservative who is expected to park his tanks firmly on Ms Le Pen's front lawn on the issues of immigration and the perceived erosion of French identity.
GETTY Republican Fillon may pose a threat to Le Pen's momentum.
And with the ruling socialists never less popular than under beleagured Francois Hollande, all the indications are that French voters will be offered a choice between two right-wing candidates in next March's election. After his victory was announced Mr Fillon promised to roll back the nanny state and boost personal freedoms, roaring: “I must now convince the whole country our project is the only one that can lift us up.” Earlier, at a rally on Friday, he told 10,000 ecstatic supporters that “everything must change so that everything can remain the same” - a quote that may best explain the “tornado” of support he whipped up from nowhere.
At the rally, one supporter told the Telegraph: “Fillon defends the values of ‘la France profonde’: family, work, religion and freedom.” Another said: “We know we’re going to go through tough moments. When he takes these measures, there will undoubtedly be strikes, street protests, and it’s up to us to accept this and support him. “He mustn’t give in.” Public outrage at the relentless strike action taken by France’s trade unions and the resolute failure of outgoing French President Francois Hollande to solve the issue has bolstered a desire to break with the country’s socialist tradition.
President-Elect Donald Trump in pictures Tue, December 13, 2016 Donald John Trump is an American businessman and politician who is President-elect of the United States as well as chairman and president of The Trump Organization Play slideshow 1 of 64President Trump celebrated the State Department’s successful conclusion of the Keystone Pipeline permitting process at the White House, after years of the project being stymied by the Obama administration.
“It’s going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man or woman, and frankly we’re very proud of it,” Trump said on Friday.
Trump met with TransCanada executives in the Oval Office including the company CEO Russ Girling.
“I know Russ, you’ve been waiting for a long, long time and I hope you don’t pay your consultants anything because they had nothing to to do with the approval,” Trump said. “In fact you should ask for the hundreds of millions of dollars back that you paid them because they didn’t do a damn thing except get you a ‘no’ vote, right?”
After the meeting, Girling told reporters that under Trump the Keystone Pipeline was approved “sure a heck of a lot quicker.” Trump signed an executive order, requiring a 60 day timeline for approval of the project, a deadline that was met by the federal government.
“It’s a great day for our company and a great day for the workers who are going to be put to work,” he said.
Girling admitted that the lengthy permitting process under the Obama administration was frustrating for the company, posing “great problems and great cost” before it was ultimately rejected.
“Now we’re in a place where we can work together,” he said.
He said that the company was looking forward to obtaining additional permits from local governments to get the project started.
“Hopefully within the next year, we’ll be able to put people to work,” he said, assuring that the company would look to buy American materials for the project and put Americans to work.
“I think this is a win win all the way around,” he said.
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, and White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner were also present for the event.“YOU DIED.”
You’ll see these words a lot in Dark Souls.
New area? Turn a corner, stabbed, die. Trying to get back to your dropped souls (Dark Souls‘ multi-function money/experience unit)? Fall off an awkward ledge, die. Accidentally try to cast a spell that has no charges left? Look confused at your own incompetence, die.
Eventually you hardly notice the backtracking. You explore 1% of a new area, then you fail. You get back to where you died before with fewer problems, get another 1% farther, then die again. Rinse. Lather. Repeat until you can’t take it anymore. If you’re lucky (it almost always feels like you have to be more lucky than good), you’ll reach a bonfire, one of Dark Souls‘ save/checkpoints. These are nearly always off the beaten path, frustratingly hidden in a little corner nook. A lot of people bought this game. Few will ever beat it, let alone invest the hundreds of hours necessary for that platinum trophy.
You learn to spend your Souls as soon as they are acquired. Never saving for the future, you are a lower middle-class gas station attendant receiving an unexpected inheritance from a distant relative. Easy come; easy go. But the little windfalls add up. Your level increases, quickly at first, then slowly. Your armor becomes thicker. Your sword longer, stronger. Enemies that once challenged every reflex in your body begin to fall easily. You see sights you would never expect out of a grimdark game like Dark Souls. You start to have real, actual fun.
Then you come across an enemy that seems impossible. It’s not even a boss. It’s just another random goon. Why can’t you win? Are you in the wrong area for your level? This is totally possible – Dark Souls‘ open world gameplay lets you die anywhere you want, and as soon as you’d like (especially if you snag that Master Key as your starting loot). But maybe… maybe it’s not even your fault.
When you make your way down the same path to the same boss over and over and over, you start to notice the little graphical and gameplay snags by the fifteenth trip. The lack of textures, both on up-close and faraway objects. The oft-hidden, oft-weird paths that the game expects you to instinctively know how to take (the broken window in Anor Londo? returning to the Undead Asylum via cliff jumping? the path off to the right in Darkroot Garden?). The slow, unstoppable sword swings and Estus Flask (health potion) drinking delays, sometimes full seconds later, guaranteeing that you’ll get stabbed/bit/magicked in the face. Some (many) reviewers claim that the clunkiness is a conscious design decision, and that the hidden save points encourage exploration while you’re trying not to die, losing possibly hours of progress. Maybe that’s true. Maybe they want you to learn to be cautious, and to feel real, actual fear. Or maybe, like I believe, it was merely From Software being lazy, or cutting corners due to budget constraints, or just not having the resources to make Dark Souls the near-perfect experience that – let’s face it – it is.
Let’s start with the bonfires. These checkpoints are the only safe places in the game (there is no pause – possibly the biggest sign that the game doesn’t respect you one bit and wants to cause you pain), and they’re also the only place to refill your life-restoring Estus Flasks. There is no way of knowing how far until you reach the next one, though, and – perhaps to seem legitimately safe? – they are almost always in hidden crannies in the corners of caves. When you’ve just battled through a horde of zombie skeletons and are looking for a place to spend your hard-earned souls, there is no worse feeling than being blindsided by an instant-death boss battle because you walked right past the hidden passageway leading to the bonfire. This isn’t a game being hard smartly. This is artificial difficulty and cruel, malicious game-lengthening.
Next, the constraints. Every once in a while, the world will open up. You’ll exit a claustrophobic cave and fall out into the harsh sunlight, blinking like a newborn. Then you’ll get stabbed. But not before noticing the draw distance. Like a lot of large-scale PS2-era games, Dark Souls is a big fan of using fog in the distance to hide jaggies and low-poly faraway textures. The problem is that the enemies, with their omniscient AI, will still destroy you from behind their cloudy veil while you struggle to even come to grips with where the arrows are flying from. Maybe this is supposed to make you feel more like you’re in a real, dangerous world. Death rains from above and lurks around every corner, and there is no respite, no hope. However, with the lock-on function only working for nearby enemies, and with no way to aim spells (bows are the only weapon that can be manually aimed, and even then, you can’t aim too high or too low), it feels unfair more than anything. I’m level 75. How is this skeleton with a bow made of sticks able to out-snipe me?
When the fog isn’t present, the developers make up for it by dropping the textures. There’s one level in particular, a sandbar along an underground lake, defended by an insurmountable hydra – the sand is as smooth as glass, and so is the water. No waves, no ripples, nothing. The only difference between the safe sturdy ground and the death water is the color.
And then there’s Blighttown. Poison water all over the place, slowing your movement and killing you softly, a single solitary (and hidden) bonfire, and so many enemies that the lag will make this area nigh-unplayable. Remember slowdown? I thought it was a thing of the past, as well. But then you hit the triangle button on your controller a few times, switching between two-handed and one-handed sword styles, watching your shield magically alternate between your back and your hand without even a frame of animation in between, and you realize ah, so that’s why – they gave up on the little details in order to throw this massive world at you with no help, no hope, and no way out.
It’s funny, though. Even with all these little issues, no game has ever sunk its barbs so deeply into my psyche. When I sleep, I dream of rounding a corner and breathing a sigh of relief as a cold bonfire comes into view. I plan boss strategies in my mind while sitting on the toilet, having a quiet moment to myself. When I write, when I work, when I eat, even when I’m playing another game, I wish I was back in this cold, harsh world that Dark Souls has created with so little effort. Every death teaches me something – about the game’s mechanics, about my strategies, about myself. I learn. I grow. Dozens of hours into Dark Souls, and I have only scratched the surface of what the game has to offer. Scanning the numerous online Wikis hoping to offer some small solace to the players living in this dark, unforgiving world, I realize that there is so much I’ve missed, so much yet to do, and I feel that I am not alone.
But the thing about Dark Souls: we’re all alone, and there is no one to rely on but yourself. It is the most real game I’ve ever encountered, and the analogies that can be made with our waking life are boundless. There is no pause button. Every action has a consequence. Sometimes things aren’t as pretty or as easy as you’d like. Sometimes it feels like whoever made this world really had no idea what they were doing. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Photo Credit, I believe, is Josh Archer.
AdvertisementsGalway United are delighted to announce that Alex Byrne has signed a new contract with the club.
The former Salthill Devon midfielder has spent the last three seasons at Eamonn Deacy Park.
The 21-year-old has made 71 appearances for Galway United, scoring one goal for the club in the Playoff final against UCD in 2014.
The Galway native has signed a contract extension until the end of 2017 SSE Airtricity League season.
Galway United manager Shane Keegan has already added central midfielders David Cawley and Gavan Holohan to his squad for 2017 and he feels the re-signing of Byrne will prove to be another important addition.
“I’m delighted to get Alex on board, he’s been with the club for a few years now. He’s progressing and heading towards an age now where he should really be looking to be coming into his prime so he can fulfil the potential that he’s got.
“I’d like to think that we’ll see the absolute best of Alex. There really is bundles of potential in him. He’s determined to show everybody just how good he can be next season.
“I think Alex will be the first to admit, regarding the impact he can make, it really is all about fitness. He struggled with injury last season and he was chasing his tail by the time he got back. Whereas this time, we had him in as part of our fitness tests a couple of weeks ago, he’s ready to hit the ground running. He’s already started (into a pre-season programme) and he’s planning to work very hard on that over the next four or five weeks.
“Alex will be arriving in, in early January, already in good shape, ready to hit the ground running. I think, realistically, that’s all that has been holding Alex back from fulfilling that potential over the last few years, in that he probably hasn’t ever hit peak physical condition.
“I think with the likes of Johnny O’Connor in our corner, he’s determined to make sure that we do get Alex in condition to allow him to show the full range of his abilities. I have no doubt that if he commits himself to getting into fantastic shape, he can have a brilliant season for us.”
After signing his new deal with the club, Byrne told www.galwayunitedfc.ie that he is determined to make a big impact under Shane Keegan after enduring a frustrating 2016 campaign.
“When we arrived back for pre-season I was still injured from the previous season, so it took me a little bit longer to get going,” Byrne explained.
“I feel next year there is no excuses. I’m working with the new strength and conditioning coach already, having sessions in the morning, before we get working. I want to hit the ground running in pre-season and then when the season starts, we’ll be more than able for it.
“Shane has brought in a lot of good players with a lot of experience. The competition is always welcome, otherwise players will become complacent, which you don’t want. You want a good, competitive atmosphere in training to get the best out of everyone.
“I know what is required of me and what everyone expects of me too. I’m just looking forward to getting back into training on the pitch so I can show everyone what I can do.
“I feel that the best is yet to come from me, so I’m looking forward to that.”Cult Canadian comedy troupe The Kids In The Hall are returning to TV.
The five-strong sketch team, whose original series ran North America in the late Eighties and early Nineties, are to make eight new episodes for Canadian broadcaster CBC next year.
And the show, tentatively titled Death Comes to Town, has been inspired by The League of Gentlemen.
Star Dave Foley said: ‘It'll be an eight-episode arc with a narrative running through it. We will play all the characters but it won't be sketch, it'll be a single narrative mini-series.
‘Probably the closest thing to it will probably be something like The League of Gentlemen, which I think was brilliant. So I hope it will be close to that.’
The team, who have previously been compared to Monty Python, have been off the air since 1994; although they reunited this year for a live comeback tour following the success of an appearance at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival.
The Kids are also considering a movie, despite the slating their 1996 film Brain Candy received.
‘We're still talking about doing a feature as well, but first we have to wait 'til everyone who ever saw Brain Candy is dead,’ Foley added.
Here are a couple of sketches from the original series:
Published: 2 Dec 2008(Reprinted with permission from the National Science Foundation)
Yale University sociology professor Andrew Papachristos leads a team of researchers that collects information on an all-too-common occurrence in cities like Chicago, Boston, Newark, Cincinnati and Oakland, California: gun violence.
The work focuses not on mass shootings or isolated incidents of violence; Papachristos’ team has worked to gather data on populations that face persistent threats of gun-related attacks and homicides, often connected to gang and drug activity.
Papachristos’ research shows they have properties similar to epidemics of disease. That means they affect particular communities disproportionately and multiply through exposure and can spill over into new areas after reaching a certain threshold.
Papachristos says, however, those same characteristics also provide some insight on how to treat gun violence. With the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate, he’s gathering information aimed at helping policymakers do just that. Namely, research shows that community-based economic and social approaches may be most effective at thwarting gun violence.
“Scientists, especially social scientists, have to address the hard questions,” he said. “This is one of them.”
Papachristos’ work seeks to understand the patterns of gunshot victimization, including that in Yale’s hometown of New Haven, Connecticut. His research team analyzed years’ worth of information on shootings and arrests in those cities. By doing so, they were able to identify the social networks of those charged as shooters, including incidents of “co-offending” involving multiple suspects and defendants, all associated with one another. Their results showed that a high concentration of shooting victims were actually connected within the same social networks as the accused shooters – and that, as an individual becomes exposed to more gunshot victims, his or her own chance of victimization increases.
During a recent visit to the National Science Foundation, he described his research.
What’s the focus of your current work?
My research looks at how gun violence is concentrated and moves among high-risk populations. The basic idea is to take the analogies about an “epidemic” of gun violence more seriously, applying what we know from public health and epidemiology to understand, quite literally, who gets shot. We can use that information not only to understand gun violence better, but to leverage it for intervention and prevention.
When this problem is depicted in media, it’s often in terms of bad actors, good actors and the innocent people in between. You seem to talk about redefining who victims are.
This is where science and policy need to come into conversation with each other, because the majority of victims are young men with criminal records, and for a long time, the policy toward those people has been to lock them up – to treat them as offenders, not victims. If you want to drive the number of victims down, you have to care about saving those lives. Period. You can’t move the homicide rate without saving the lives of young men with criminal records, and that means treating them differently than we have in the past.
This requires different solutions — different employment opportunities, different services. If they’re coming out of jail, they’re likely to be homeless, they’re often unqualified for any family-sustaining jobs or have a difficult time getting those jobs that are available. Educational opportunities for them are abysmal.
Why is it important from a research standpoint to have information about who the victims of gun violence are?
Part of the goal is to better understand the victims of gun violence, so they don’t just get lumped into categories. When we think about risk factors, that doesn’t help you understand who the individual victims are. Our research applies the methods we’ve learned in other areas of science to understand how particular individuals may or may not be in harm’s way. The idea is to understand who within a community is at the most elevated level of risk today, not just to create a set of aggregate risk factors. Those are often the people who don’t get the attention of services and systems, and I think they need not only research attention but policy attention.
How is gun violence like an epidemic?
It’s an epidemic on at least two fronts. On the first, most basic level, it’s an epidemic in terms of its unequal effect on the population. Young black men are affected at a rate much higher than young white men. The level of violence among that population is at an epidemic level. What my research shows is that it also moves in epidemic-like patterns throughout populations.
Can you talk about some of the cascading effects you’ve seen in your research?
A cascade is when a shooting happens, and then sometime later someone else in your network gets shot, and then sometime later someone else in that person’s network gets shot and so on. We had a hypothesis that would happen, but I didn’t know just how prevalent it would be.
Are you seeing commonalities among the communities you’ve studied, or are these individualized?
There are more similarities than differences. The networks in Chicago work like the networks in Cincinnati and the networks in Boston and the networks in Hartford. We actually see similar rules regardless of the city.
How do you define a “network” for this research?
We’re looking at behavioral networks of co-offending or co-arrest. So two people that engage in a crime together (and are arrested by the police) have a link. We look at entire populations of people who have been arrested for the people who have been engaged in acts of co-offending.
This type of violence often seems to be an area where people seek simple solutions, but you talk about the idea of social system-wide solutions — of addressing the problem from the prenatal ward all the way up to the ER. Why is that important?
The long-term solution, in terms of addressing the inequities in gun violence — not just the absolute number of shootings, but the differences among populations — comes down to fixing communities. We know the effects of education on reducing harm and trauma are massive. There have been studies that have shown that when a kid is exposed to a homicide, he basically loses three months of school. But what mitigates that is having a mentally healthy mother. Having health care for a mother isn’t trivial.
The kinds of support systems I’m talking about have to do with monitoring and supporting communities from a public health standpoint. When a community experiences a shooting or experiences violence, there should be systems in place that can be put into effect. The networked approach can provide a useful tool for interventions in the here and now, and hopefully create some room to work on larger community level change.
By Rob Margetta
Public Affairs Specialist
Office of Legislative and Public Affairs
National Science FoundationOPEC nation members and non-OPEC nations came together on May 25 to discuss the current economic environment for oil and what could be done to keep the global supply at a reasonable level. The groups considered multiple options to maintain a balanced supply level. However, they came to the conclusion that a nine-month extension of the production cuts, which had originally been implemented in December to cut 1.8 million barrels per day from the market, would be the optimal choice.
According to Reuters, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih stated, “We considered various scenarios, from six to nine to 12 months, and we even considered options for a higher cut. But all indications discovered that a nine-month extension is the optimum.” Forbes noted that the group decided that extending the productions cuts until March would avoid the seasonal demand decline that typically occurs in January.
Despite the good news of the nine-month production cut extension, the oil price actually dropped after the OPEC and non-OPEC meeting. Due to the high expectations which had been placed on the outcome of the meeting, the oil price fell nearly 5% after the meeting, a sign that investors and oil traders had hoped for steeper production cuts.
Nonetheless, the fact that all the nations gathered at the meeting were able to agree on a nine-month extension should be seen as quite a feat. There have historically been rifts caused by certain nations not wanting to participate in the cuts. The drop in the price of oil merely represents a shallow and short-term view of the benefits of the supply cuts. The agreement is probably what prompted Khalid al-Farih to state that he was not concerned by the “technical” oil price drop experienced on the day of the meeting.
Furthermore, one expert believes that the focus for the oilfield should be on the consumption side rather than the supply side. David Elmes, Professor of Practice at Warwick Business School and Head of the Global Energy Research Network stated that “Another OPEC meeting and another round of brinkmanship over whether cuts will be sustained and so prices propped up, but this is missing the point about oil’s role in the longer term.”
“The proportion of future investment in energy is expected to shift from the supply side, such as producing more oil, to the consumption side, such as better vehicles, more efficient industrial processes and smarter use of energy in buildings. In the International Energy Agency’s recent analysis for 2015, only 12% of capital investment in the supply and use of energy went into more efficient consumption. But in forecasts for investment over the next 20 years, the proportion to be invested in the more efficient use of energy, rather than more supplies, has more than doubled from 17% a few years ago to 35%,” Elmes continued.
As Elmes stated, “This shows a longer term trend that we’ll use only the most affordable oil and gas, making investments in other sources that are as affordable, or in using energy more efficiently.” The focus on the efficient use of energy from the perspective of the consumption side will clearly become a major factor in the future for the industry and businesses as a whole.Guru Nanak Dev Ji is the first Sikh guru and is also the founder of the religion. His birth town was Talwandi, Nankana Sahib in Pakistan. From his childhood, he had a peaceful conduct as well as spiritual by nature. He led an excellent life, and all his leanings are even applicable in the present time world. Below are some lessons that Guru Nanak Dev Ji taught us and we should follow:
Honesty
Guru Nanak Dev Ji teaches that one should earn a living with honesty and commitment. According to him, earnings all thought the way of dishonesty and corruption could never provide an individual with the satisfaction in their lives.
Sharing
Guru Nanak Dev Ji teaches everybody to share their resources with all those who are in need of it. And this is the only reason that gurudwaras offer ‘Langar’ which means common kitchen with free food irrespective of race, religion and cast.
Equality
This is one of the significant messages Guru Nanak Dev Ji gave to all that all humans should be treated as equal. He composed his thoughts as ‘Maanas Ki Jaat Sabey Eke Pehchaano’ that means ‘recognise all human as one’. He never discriminates amid humans based on colour, caste, creed or status.
Respect women
Guru Nanak Dev Ji preached to all that never disrespect the one who gave you birth to this world. According to his saying we should respect all women and his teachings should be kept in mind.
Seva
Guru Nanak Dev Ji teaches everyone the importance of seva. Seva means a selfless service, i.e. serve others without any profit or greed. According to him if one indulges in seva without any personal gain we will achieve mental peace for sure.
The five evils
Guru Nanak Dev Ji has listed five sins, and according to him one should get rid of these five evils and if are capable of doing that we will become more closer to god. These five veils include Anger (Krodh), Ego (Ahankar), Greed (Lobh), Lust (Kaam) and Attachment (MOh).
God is omnipresent
Guru Nanak Dev JI believes that God is present everywhere. It does not reside in any particular place. According to him, God is omnipresent, and this is even described in Quran.
Music is the way to connect with god
Guru Nanak Dev Ji states that music is the only way to connect with God. And that is the reason his all teachings are in the forms of verses and hymns. He believes that music can only help to attain a link with god. The tradition of kirtan is because of this has a high importance in Sikhism.China’s homegrown answer to Windows has gone the way of the dodo after failing to make an impact on the domestic market for operating systems.
Red Flag Linux has terminated all staff contracts and gone into liquidation, according to a notice pinned to the door of its deserted headquarters in Beijing, spotted by TechInAsia.
The company is thought to have been in trouble for some time.
In April 2013, Red Flag president Jia Dong apparently told a staff meeting that wages couldn’t be released, and by the end of the year the firm had to close its HQ in Beijing’s Haidian district after being unable to pay rent and utilities.
Staff are now turning their attention to Red Flag’s major shareholder, the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), to recoup unpaid wages which now total almost 15 million yuan (£1.5m).
It’s a face-losing fall from grace for the state-backed project after it was launched to much fanfare 14 years ago.
However, despite some government departments being ordered to install the locally built OS, it failed to make much of an impact on Windows – whether we talking about pirated or genuine versions.
In fact, the Chinese government has for the last few years conducted an expensive campaign to replace all of its fake software licenses with the real deal.
Such is China’s love affair with Windows XP that the government has even tried to persuade Microsoft to continue support for the legacy OS past the April 8 deadline, claiming Windows 8 is too expensive and will only lead to greater instances of piracy.
However, the end of Red Flag Linux will not end China’s search for a homegrown rival to help wean itself off Windows.
In March last year, Ubuntu-pusher Canonical announced it will work with China's National University of Defense Technology and The China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Center to develop a Middle Kingdom-flavoured Linux distribution.
This project appears aimed at building an “enhanced version of the Ubuntu desktop” with Chinese characteristics, rather than a Windows alternative. ®This week, we’re joined by Free Northerner for a discussion on gender dynamics, sex, and the church.
Brought to you by Surviving Babel and Nick B. Steves, Ascending the Tower is a podcast distributed by Social Matter and represents the latest project of the Hestia Society. Please leave feedback in the comments, and if you’d like to get in touch with Surviving Babel, you can find him at: [email protected]
Notes:
1:16 – Guest Intro
6:04 – Taking the red pill
15:51 – Sexual evolution since the 50’s
34:15 – Contemporary divorce statistics
39:26 – Church enabling of divorce
48:50 – Out of Left Field question
Related Show Links:
Music:
Opening Music: Fenrir – “Metal Jig”
https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/348646/metal-jig
Closing Music: vvsmusic – “Cooley’s Reel”
https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/894470/cooley-s-reel
Free Northerner’s blog
http://freenortherner.com/
NRx Code of Conduct
https://nickbsteves.wordpress.com/code-of-conduct-for-neoreactionaries/
wasenlightened’s 50’s post
https://wasenlightened.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/the-once-and-future-geek/
Silphium, Rome’s contraceptive?
http://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/silphium-ancient-contraceptive-herb-driven-extinction-002268
Noel Biderman, Founder of AshleyMadison.com, horrible human being
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/love-sex/63389655/Ashley-Madison-founders-don-t-practice-what-they-promote
Sponsorship:
If you are interested in sponsoring Ascending the Tower, e-mail me at Surviving Babel at gmail dot com. Sponsorships start at $10 an episode, and all proceeds will either go back into the podcast or provide some compensation for your most grateful host. You can purchase a mention or short message, or you can choose to sponsor the Out of Left Field question or even an entire episode.On Tuesday, Philadelphia’s transit workers went on strike, halting all bus, trolley, and rail service in the city. And, given the time of year, lots of people are wondering how this might affect the presidential election. Pennsylvania is a key swing state, after all.
The short answer is that this probably won’t matter much, though there’s always a chance. Democratic Congress member Bob Brady told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has at least “a little concern.” So let’s take a look.
First, the strike itself: The union in question is Transportation Workers Union Local 234, which hasn’t yet reached agreement on a new contract with SEPTA, the regional transit authority. The last contract expired at midnight on Monday. There are three major sticking points: pension caps, health care benefits, and a dispute over employee scheduling — the unions says new bus drivers often get wildly irregular shifts, swinging between late nights and early mornings, which can case fatigue and accidents.
How it could affect the election: If SEPTA were still shut down on Election Day, it’s unclear how many people would be barred from voting. There’s some reason to think it might not matter much: Many Philadelphia residents do live within walking distance of their nearest polling place. And the Philadelphia Board of Commissioners says that a 2009 strike lasting through a local election didn’t really hurt turnout.
But there’s also reason for worry: This is a presidential election, and many more voters are coming out than in a local election. And about 900,000 people, or 10 percent of Philadelphia metro residents, rely on SEPTA for their daily commuting needs. If they have trouble getting to work that day, it’s possible they might not have time to vote. Note that in other presidential elections, about 5 percent of registered voters who didn’t vote cited “transport problems” as the reason. So you can see why Clinton’s camp might be concerned, especially if this is more likely to hinder low-income Democratic voters with fewer transportation options.
But before |
plain sheet of lined paper, which was probably Whitman’s. It was written with a pen in neat, legible script, probably on Jan. 21, 1866.
“I am mustered out of the service but am not at present well enough to come home,” it says on the front side. “My complaint is an affection of the lungs.... I hope you will try to write back as soon as you receive this and let me know how you all are.”
Wilson, of Arlington, turned the letter over.
“Well I send you all my love, and must now close,” it ends. “Your affectionate husband... ”
Two lines down, came the surprise: “Written by Walt Whitman, a friend.”
“Ah!” Wilson said she exclaimed. “Look what I found!”
Wilson, one of 25 volunteers, showed the letter to Budell, who was at first cautious. “Part of my job is authenticating such finds,” Budell said.
She contacted David S. Ferriero, who heads the National Archives.
Ferriero is a huge Whitman fan, and as a young Navy hospital corpsman during the Vietnam War, he wrote letters home for wounded Marines.
He sent a scan of the letter to Whitman scholar Kenneth M. Price, at the University of Nebraska, where he is co-director of the Walt Whitman Archive and an expert on Whitman’s handwriting.
Price noted the unique way Whitman wrote the letters x, d, and I, as well as how he often used a plus sign instead of the word “and.”
Whitman’s signature at the end of the letter resembles other Whitman signatures, Price said in an email.
And the fact that the letter turned up in the archives, and not on the market, makes “forgery... extremely unlikely,” he said.
Price determined that the letter was Whitman’s. It will now be housed in a vault at the National Archives with other valuable documents.
Jabo was a French Canadian who lived in Clinton County, N.Y., on the Canadian border, Budell said. He was in his 40s, and his real name appears to have been Robert Narcisse Gibeau, she said.
But the last name also appears some places as Gebo, and Whitman used the first name, Nelson, when signing the letter for him.
Jabo first enlisted in the 96th New York infantry regiment but was discharged after a year because of a disability, Budell said.
He spent several months at home and then signed on with the 8th New Hampshire as a “substitute,” an arrangement in which he was probably paid about $300 to serve in place of another.
“He obviously is a man with six kids at home who needs the money,” Budell said.
But he remained sickly and cycled through a series of hospitals, suffering from back trouble, typhoid, diarrhea and bronchitis, according to his file.
He was discharged from the army in October 1865, seven months after the war ended, but was still too sick to go home, Budell said. She added that Jabo was probably illiterate because he signed his name with an X on other documents.
“What happens is he spends his time still in D.C. hospitals,” she said. “And, of course, his wife is probably still wondering what’s happened to him.... So Walt would be his saving grace to say, ‘I can write this letter for you home to your wife.’ ”
It must have been an intimate moment.
Perhaps Whitman coached the soldier, Budell said. Jabo might have said, “I’m not sure what to say to my wife,” she said. “Maybe [Whitman’s] kind of helping pull out his thoughts.”
To Adeline Jabo, Whitman wrote on her husband’s behalf, “I hope it will be God’s will that we shall yet meet again.”
The letter likely wound up in the Jabo pension file because it was needed to prove that his illness was related to his military service. That was required for his wife to get a pension.
One other such Whitman letter is in the Library of Congress, and another is in private hands.
Budell said Wilson’s discovery suggests that many more may be in the national Archives’ 2 million Civil War pension files, most of which have never been thoroughly examined.
On Dec. 19, 1866, 11 months after Whitman sat at Jabo’s bedside, the soldier died alone and penniless in Washington’s Providence Hospital, where he had been moved as a “charity case.”
Seven years after his wife first applied in 1867, she got her war widow’s pension.
It was about $12 a month.Donald Trump may take action against Russian 'cyber-attacks'
Donald Trump may take action against Russian 'cyber-attacks'
Reince Priebus is to be White House chief of staff
Donald Trump's chief of staff has said "actions may be taken" following alleged Russian cyber-attacks.
Reince Priebus also told Fox News Sunday that the President-elect accepted US intelligence officers' assessment that Russia tried to disrupt November's US elections by allegedly hacking Democratic Party emails.
Mr Trump was briefed on Friday by intelligence officials, who claim the Kremlin interfered to boost his chances of winning the White House.
An unclassified edition of the officials' report linked President Vladimir Putin to the apparent meddling, and said Moscow had a "clear preference" for Mr Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump would ask the intelligence community to recommend an appropriate response, Mr Priebus added.
The President-elect, who becomes US commander-in-chief on 20 January, cast doubt on the allegations that Russia had meddled in a series of tweets before he was briefed.
Vice President Joe Biden described his attacks on the intelligence agencies as "absolutely mindless" and told him to "grow up".
:: Donald Trump: Only'stupid people' want bad US ties with Russia
How the US election was 'hacked'
The President-elect is under pressure from within his own party to move on the issue.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has urged him to "show leadership" and punish Russia.
Mr Graham told NBC's Meet the Press: "Even though it didn't affect the outcome, they tried to interfere. And they need to pay a price.
"All I'm asking him is to acknowledge that Russia interfered, and push back.
"It could be Iran next time. It could be China."
Image: Barack Obama and Donald Trump meet at the White House
Meanwhile the outgoing president, Barack Obama, has painted a warm picture of discussions with his successor, describing Mr Trump as "very engaging and gregarious".
Interviewed on ABC's This Week, Mr Obama added that he and the tycoon were "sort of opposites in some ways".
While the Democrat placed himself at the "policy wonk end of the spectrum", he said Mr Trump had a different approach, saying: "I think that he has not spent a lot of time sweating the details."
Asked whether he liked Mr Trump, the soon to be former president said: "You know, I've enjoyed the conversations that we've had.
"He is somebody who I think is not lacking in confidence."The Portrait of an Icon book, sold to raise funds for the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation’s work, will be available to pre-order from tomorrow, August 1. Information will be on site, and you will be asked to donate…
Kindness is often seen not as a virtue but a weakness in sport. Hard-wired chauvinism dictates that you have to be tough and macho in order to thrive. Only the strongest will survive. If that means standing on the toes and heads of your peers than so be it, for they’d only do the same to you. Treat others not as as you’d have them treat you, but as how you fear they would. It creates a culture perhaps not of hate, but certainly mistrust.
Sir Bobby Robson disproves this theory. He was the kindest, gentlest man you could imagine, inside sport and out. The old adage suggests that football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, but Bobby was the gentleman of English football. He then became its grandfather.
My own grandfather was unusual in the north east in that he supported the local game in general rather than having allegiance with a particular side. Yet, as with so many in the area, there was a special glint in his eye reserved for Robson. He was not so much a north-east football manager as the area’s ambassador, receiving – but never demanding – the respect of the entire region.
He also happened to be one of English football’s most successful managers. Taking over at Ipswich in 1969 at the age of 36, Robson won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup, leading the club to nine top-six finishes in his last ten seasons in charge. In an era when Liverpool, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest all ruled Europe, Ipswich were unfortunate to miss out on the league title for the second time in their history. Supporters will remember him fondly for turning down lucrative offers from Everton, Sunderland and Barcelona.
Having taken over from Ron Greenwood in the England job, Robson’s initial years mirrored the side’s current guise. Impressive qualification campaigns resulted in major tournament disappointment, and twice he offered his resignation. Graham Taylor labelled it “the impossible job”, but Robson came tantalisingly close to achieving the dream. He remains the only manager to lead England to a World Cup semi-final on foreign soil. A reputation had been redeemed, his touchline jig to David Platt’s winner against Belgium the metaphorical celebration of English football’s re-awakening after the darkness of the 1980s.
The target of much media examination and vitriol, Robson responded in the only way he knew how. Receiving a note of congratulations from a tabloid journalist who had been zealous in his criticism, the then-PSV manager responded by flying the journalist out to the Netherlands for dinner to say thank you.
The anecdotes about Robson could begin on one day and continue late into the following night. He was a character in the truest, most positive sense of that word, nothing about his warmth or humour manufactured. Many of these stories revolve around Robson’s slightly dithering mind, his malapropisms earning their own entrance into football’s hall of fame.
My favourite one comes from Italia ‘90, when he descended in his hotel lift. As the door opened he saw captain Bryan Robson standing in front of him. “Hi Bobby,” said Bobby. “No, I’m Bryan, you’re Bobby,” replied Bryan. Manager Robson was only too pleased to laugh at his own flaws.
It should not be forgotten that Robson was also a trailblazer, one of few English managers who have journeyed abroad not for redemption but through choice. He won five league titles with PSV and Porto, plus the European Cup Winners’ Cup in Spain. Robson being in charge of Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Hristo Stoichkov, Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique in 1996/97 might be football’s peak in my eyes.
Despite those successes, to be surprised that Robson’s own personal zenith came when he was appointed as Newcastle United manager at the age of 66 is to misunderstand his very raison d’etre. Born in Sacriston three miles north of Durham, his life revolved around the north east of England no matter how far away he travelled. After being given the freedom of Newcastle in 2005, Robson was deeply emotional: “When I received my knighthood I really thought that’s as good as it gets, but I have to say being granted the freedom of Newcastle Upon Tyne has to be the proudest moment of my life and I stand here full of personal emotion and humility.” Robson rarely stood anywhere with anything else.
In his autobiography, Robson discusses why he was so emotional on that day. ‘Perhaps it was because I talked about my father, and how he went down the pits white and came up black in an area where those two colours symbolise a city’s love for football, a love that burns within me and will never fade.’
By then, however, Robson was already locked in another battle far tougher than any game at St James’ Park. First diagnosed with the disease in 1991, he defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995 and tumours in his right lung and brain in 2006. He fought this tormenting monster on five separate occasions.
When he finally succumbed to a terminal diagnosis in February 2007, Robson responded in the only way he knew how. “My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy,” he said. “I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute.”
Rather than collapsing in on himself, Robson used the power of the overwhelming love he received to establish the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, devoting the final years of his life to helping the next generation fight the disease. We all wish we could be strong enough to respond like that, but it takes great strength and courage. It is looking death square in the face, making the best of a situation that has no positive spin. Robson referred to the Foundation as “my last, and my greatest, team”.
The footage of Robson’s last public appearance, at a match arranged by his own charity, is overwhelmingly emotional. He is unrecognisable in appearance but complete in spirit, repeatedly smiling and waving to the crowd before Nessun Dorma plays, the soundtrack to Italia ’90. Unlike the title of his autobiography, Newcastle’s supporters were saying farewell and goodbye to the city’s favourite footballing son. Five days later, Sir Bobby had passed away, taken at 76 by the disease which had eaten away at him for 18 years.
“Bobby Robson is one of those people who never die, not so much for what he did in his career, for one victory more or less, but for what he knew to give to those who had, like me, the good fortune to know him and walk by his side,” said Jose Mourinho upon learning of Robson’s death.
Personal friend Alex Ferguson reflected on Robson’s heritage and personality: “His character was hewn out of the coal face, developed by the Durham County mining background that he came from. His parents instilled in him the discipline and standards which forged the character of a genuinely colossal human being.”
Yet it is fitting that the final words on Robson should come from the man himself, passed on from a fan who met him. Paul Wilson’s excellent Guardian tribute from 2009 contained the following comment below the line:
‘My friend was lucky to meet him and asked him why he thought people loved him, and Sir Bob was typically self-effacing. “They don’t love me,” he told him. “They can’t, because they don’t even know me. But if they love the things I hope I stood for, like decency and fairness and courage, then I’m happy enough. And proud too.’”
When Robson died, it is more than a throwaway line to say that a part of English football died with him. Losing him was like losing a piece of our sporting heritage. He was the bridge between the old and the new, a football life that began around the coal mines of wartime County Durham and ended with him sacked at Newcastle, expensive imports brought in without his consultation. He dealt with everything with the same consummate calmness.
English football may have produced better managers, and it has certainly boasted better players. But it will not be fortunate enough to be blessed with many greater people than Sir Bobby.
Daniel StoreyGarret spent a lot of time this week on money balance. As usual with balance it’s nothing final, but you can actually build some profitable parks now. Feels better and is a good first step towards a working economy :)
There’s been a suggestion over on our subreddit recently to allow connecting paths to the ride entrance/exit from the sides instead of just from the front that gained a lot of support, and we were able to make it happen:
And we added a toggle for looking through scenery:
Scenery can’t be clicked in this mode, so this allows to access shops, rides, paths or whatever else was hidden behind scenery, and you won’t accidentally delete it.
Community Update
You might remember H-POPS as the guy who added the first custom flat ride to Parkitect a while ago. He’s been very busy since with creating a fantastic looking modding tool that allows bringing custom objects into the game without requiring any code. It also has some other helpful features like setting up collisions on objects, which has been tricky to do for mods so far.
And most of all it has really great tools for animating rides with just a couple of mouse clicks:
It’s making use of the games code for ride animations, so ride animations created with this are able to perfectly match the feeling of our own rides.
We also gave him some of our internal tools for integration into his modding tool.
This is not available yet, but it looks like it’s progressing nicely :)
Luuk Holleman from ParkitectNexus released a nice Billboards mod recently:
These billboards can show your own images, and it even stores them in the savegame, so you can easily share them with other users of this mod!PoliZette Short on Substance, Kaine Fires Interruptions CBS moderator struggled to rein in Clinton's running mate as he cut Pence off over 40 times
Elaine Quijano, the CBS News moderator of the vice presidential debate, started off Tuesday night struggling to keep control of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who interrupted both her and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence repeatedly.
Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, did not feel bound by time limits, and he interrupted Indiana Gov. Mike Pence 39 times by Fox News’ count and as many as 70+ times by the count of the Republican National Committee.
“Moderator Elaine Quijano did her part to carry water for Tim Kaine tonight and he really needed it … Each week, journalists make the case to remove journalists from the debate process.”
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For Quijano, it was the first time on such a prominent stage.
The CBS News anchor and moderator is a second-generation Filipino-American, and is also the first Asian-American journalist to moderate a national debate. She is only 42. She was the second-youngest debate moderator in modern history, exceeded in youth only by CNN anchor and correspondent Judy Woodruff. Woodruff moderated a debate in 1988, when she was 41, according to CBS News and Variety.
The Commission on Presidential Debates wanted to diversify the moderators, but they might want to take another look at moderating experience.
Quijano struggled to maintain control of Kaine, who often interrupted Pence. Even when Kaine used his own time, he drifted off-topic to attack Donald Trump.
“The question is about Aleppo, Senator,” said Quijano, a little sheepishly.
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Quijano also let Kaine interrupt twice during a nuclear-weapons question.
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And when Kaine made outrageous assertions — on tax returns, the invasion of the Ukraine, or nuclear war — Kaine kept pressing. Pence could hardly suppress his reaction when he got time back.
“Well, thanks,” Pence said. ” I am just trying to keep up with the insult-driven campaign.”
But even as Pence pivoted to attacks on Hillary Clinton, Kaine interrupted.
[lz_third_party align=center includes=https://twitter.com/MonicaCrowley/status/783492324991049728]
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When asked why Russia would respect the United States, Pence simply said strength. Before he could continue, Kaine interrupted again.
“Did no one inform Elaine Quijano that the role of a moderator is to ask questions and take a step back while the candidates debate?” Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center said in a statement. “Quijano and Virginia’s over-caffeinated senator repeatedly challenged and interrupted Gov. Pence. By the looks of it, he didn’t mind the 2-1 disadvantage.”
The Twitterverse noticed long before the debate ended.
“Moderator doing a poor job of stopping ceaseless Kaine interruptions,” Fox News anchor Brit Hume tweeted. “Pence more fluid on national/international issues. So Kaine interrupts.”
Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post political correspondent, tweeted: “I haven’t heard this much talking over each other about politics since my last family reunion.”
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Republicans also objected.
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“16 TIMES — The number of times moderator has tried to stop @timkaine for interrupting #VPDebate,” tweeted Sean Spicer, a top strategist for the Republican National Committee just halfway though the contest.
Dan Gainor, the vice president of Business and Culture for Media Research Center, said once again, the moderator let the Democrats take control.
“Well, that wasn’t much different,” Gainor said in an email. “CBS anchor and moderator Elaine Quijano did her part to carry water for Tim Kaine tonight and he really needed it. She asked repeated tough questions of Trump and one of Kaine. Each week, journalists make the case to remove journalists from the debate process.”Young boy praying against a white background (Shutterstock)
A bill in Georgia designed to allow for more religious speech in public schools is gaining steam among lawmakers, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Rep. Dustin Hightower (R-Carrollton), who introduced the Georgia Student Religious Liberties Act in January, said the bill would put “faith back in our schools.”
“Currently, it seems as though students would have more of a right to burn a Bible than they would to read a Bible — and what I am trying to do is just level that playing field,” he told WLBB Radio last month.
“I think that students who want to profess their faith should have as much rights and liberties as those students who chose not to profess their faith,” Hightower explained. “This bill would allow schools the ability to stand up against the threat of lawsuits if the school continues to allow students to lead certain prayers over the intercom, at football games or graduation.”
The legislation received widespread support from lawmakers at a House subcommittee hearing on Monday, Savannah Morning News reported. Half of the House Judiciary subcommittee members — both Republicans and Democrats — have already signed on as cosponsors.
But witnesses at the hearing warned it would unnecessarily entangle the government with religion.
“Our analysis shows it will subject students to unwanted proselytizing,” Anti-Defamation League interim director Shelley A. Rose said.
She added that the proposed law was unlikely to be popular if Satanist used it to express his or her religious viewpoints over a school’s intercom or football-stadium public address system.
“Students are not required to go to football games but it is such a part of the school that if you have one student giving a prayer, other students become a captive audience,” Rose remarked. “It makes it appear the school is sponsoring and authorizing it.”
[Young boy praying against a white background on Shutterstock](Money Magazine) -- You've tried staring your computer down, but it's not blinking. No matter how many times you go over the figures, you get the same answer. That number on your screen - what you're paying the IRS this year - is more than your dad earned in his five best years. You can't help thinking, Why am I such a chump when other people must be getting off scot-free?
Brace yourself. Last year 49.2 million U.S. households filed returns that obligated them to pay absolutely no federal income taxes - and they didn't necessarily do anything illegal. Before you start gnashing your teeth at the injustice, however, you should know that there are many reasons to be happy that you're not one of the tax escapees.
For starters, avoiding U.S. income taxes isn't easy. Citizens can't wriggle out of their bills by moving to another country because, almost alone among nations, the U.S. taxes all income, no matter where on earth it's earned. And although the tax code offers plenty of deductions and exemptions, if you take too many you'll be skewered by the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
Almost all the tax shelters of yesteryear disappeared when Congress closed loopholes in 1986. Even running your own business is not the shelter it was when you could deduct yourself down to zero by saddling your company with bills for luxurious travel, cars and meals out.
"Those days are over," says Charles Hayes, a C.P.A. and financial planner in Coronado, Calif. "Expenses have to be necessary and reasonable." If they aren't, the IRS will likely disallow them.
So how do the 49.2 million do it? That's what Money Magazine set out to learn. What we found offers a glimpse into the workings of the immensely complicated U.S. tax system, as well as valuable lessons in the dos and don'ts of cutting your own taxes.
Among them: Do whatever you can to shave income from your 1040 but, perhaps most important, don't cut off your tax nose to spite your financial face. You can find plenty of ways to collect tax-free income, but you'd likely find unacceptable the trade-offs it takes to get all the way to zero.
How we got here
From its beginnings in 1913, the income tax system was designed to be progressive; the more you make, the more you pay. The top bracket then was 7%, and it applied only to those who earned above $500,000 a year, which is about $10.6 million in today's dollars. Congress also recognized that some were too poor to pay taxes, so it exempted the first $3,000 in income. In 1913 that exclusion liberated all but 1% of the population from taxes.
Those principles still hold today. "Our tax system still is progressive," says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2005 the 10% of taxpayers with the highest incomes provided 70% of income-tax revenue, which cost them on average 25% of their income, more than any other group, according to the IRS.
That's not to say that many wealthy people don't shelter immense chunks of money, but getting to zero is difficult even for them. Fewer than 2% of earners in the top 20% (average income: $99,500) escape taxes altogether. That comes to about 400,000 filers. (Plus, even those who sidestep federal income taxes may have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, state and local levies, property taxes and sales tax.)Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth and Undersheriff Andrew Bouck checked themselves into the Ingham County Jail in Mason on Sunday evening.
The Sheriff's Office says they were booked into the jail, given jumpsuits, and were locked up for 40 hours. They were expected to be treated like any other jail inmate, so they could get an inside look at how the facility operates.
"I could read it in a book, I could have a corrections deputy tell me how it happens, or I could spend some time watching it happen. But I felt to actually live, eat, and breathe, what happens back there. From cell checks to people going to medical, to how you eat, what the food tastes like, what it sounds like, all that stuff I think is important for a Sheriff to know," said Wriggelsworth.
The Sheriff spent his time mopping the floors, playing cards, chess, and watching Monday night's college football championship game.
He says the accommodations are rigid, and uncomfortable, but fair.At some point in our lives, most of us have probably seen a task so revolting that we've admitted, "You couldn't pay me to do that." But not everyone feels that way. If a job needs to be done, chances are you can find someone to do it -- especially if the price is right.
Whether it's cleaning up human excrement or taking care of the dead, many people are willing to pay enough money not to do it, and they'll gladly pass the buck. Although most of us would rather live in blissful ignorance of what goes on in these nasty but necessary jobs, finding out the grisly details might send us thanking our lucky stars for our cushy jobs. On the other hand, taking a peek into the paychecks might have us considering a career change. If you're willing to get your hands dirty, you'll be able to rake in a nice living, in many cases for only a few months of work out of the year and without a college degree.
A dirty job may mean working with stuff that grosses most people out, but you can make a decent amount of money and you may also be happier with it. Some studies show that jobs with hands-on, manual activities make people happier than office jobs [BBC News]. In the movie "Office Space," the main character despised life as an office drone and finally finds happiness in a lowly construction job.
If you want to make a nice living but dread mind-numbing office work and fluorescent-lit cubicles, one of these jobs might be a perfect for you. But check a weak stomach at the door: These jobs entail revolting, dangerous and sometimes psychologically disturbing duties. First, we'll do a Dumpster dive into the life of a garbage collector.
For the first 24 NBA All-Star Games, i.e., from 1951 until 1974, a panel of sport writers and sport casters was responsible for choosing each Conference’s starting five and the three bench players. In 1975, NBA All-Star fan voting was introduced.
Starting in the 2016–2017 season, for the very first time NBA players and media joined fans in selecting starting lineups. Fans account for 50% percent of the vote, while all current NBA players and a panel of basketball media account for 25% each.
After all votes are tallied, players will be ranked in each conference by position within each of the three voting groups – fan, players and media votes. Each player’s score is calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan, players and media votes. The five players (two guards and three frontcourt players) with the best score in each Conference will be named NBA All-Star Game Starters.
First, the ten starters (five per conference) are elected by fans (50% of the votes), players and media representatives (25% of the votes each). Two guards and three front court players will be elected for each conference. After the election, the 30 head coaches of the NBA clubs will select seven players from each conference (five of them on the five positions, two more position-independent) so that a total of 24 players will participate in the event. This procedure shall prevent that only popular players can participate in the NBA All-Star Game and less popular, but possibly better players, would be excluded.
Since 1951, the NBA’s All-Star game has been a contest between the Eastern and Western Conference. As from 2018, there is a new mode: Two captains select their fellow team players – regardless of whether they play in the Eastern or West Conference.
However, the basic selection of the 24 players in the All-Star Game has not change much: the ten starters are still selected by fans, current players and journalists, while the 14 additional players are determined by the head coaches of the NBA clubs.
In an alternating election procedure, the captains then have the responsibility to put together a team from the entire pool of players, regardless of position and conference. Captains are the two starters who got the most votes in their conferences.
What happens if the second and third guard finish with the same total score?
In that scenario fan vote would be the tiebreaker.
Did you know that players may vote for themselves or their teammates?U.S. citizenship is required.
Qualifications
In addition to Basic Education Requirements as stated in the Basic Education Requirements section of this vacancy announcement:
GS-07: Applicants must possess one of the following:
a. 1 year of directly related/specialized experience that has positively demonstrated ability or aptitude to do aerospace research, development, design, or closely related functions. Examples of specialized experience include, but are not limited to: preparing graphs, curves, and tables related to materials and their associated processes; performing basic material testing operations; utilizing standard chemical, mechanical, and similar tests to document material characteristics.
b. Successfully completed 1 full academic year of graduate study in an appropriate field at an accredited institution.
c. Any equivalent combination of experience and graduate study.
Note: Applicants that do not meet 2a, 2b, or 2c, above, may qualify for a GS-7 position if they meet any of the criteria outlined below:
1. Are in the upper third of their class, based on completed college work at the time of filing an application. This is the upper third of the class in the college, university, or major subdivision (e.g., school of engineering).
2. Have an average of 2.90 or better on a 4.0 scale for either all completed college work at the time of application or all college courses completed during the last 2 years of the undergraduate curriculum.
3. Have achieved a grade average of B+ (3.5 on a 4.0 scale) or better in the major field of study where such field is fully qualifying. This is either the average of all completed college work in the major field of study at the time of application or the average of all college courses completed in the major field of study during the last 2 years of the undergraduate curriculum. Senior students may be rated provisionally eligible under one of those criteria, provided they had the required average in the junior year. In these situations, applicants are required to submit evidence, prior to appointment, that the required average was maintained during their Senior year.
4. Have been elected to membership in one of the national honorary scholastic societies meeting the minimum requirements of the Association of College Honor Societies (other than freshman honor societies).
5. Have completed 12 months under the Pathways Internship Program (does not include periods of Leave Without Pay (LWOP)) that includes:
a. At least one work period (2 months or 320 hours) equivalent to GS-5. OR
b. At least 15 months of appropriate student trainee experience which includes one work period (2 months or
320 hours) equivalent to the GS-4 level.
6. For engineering positions, have successfully completed a 5-year program of study (e.g., one designed to
be completed in no less than 5 years) or at least 160 semester hours leading to a bachelor's degree in an
accredited college or university.
7. For engineering positions, in addition to a professional engineering degree, have up to 12 months of
experience gained as a technician or technologist equivalent to the GS-5 or higher level.
8. Have successfully completed all requirements for two bachelor's degrees, one in an appropriate field of science or engineering.
9. Have 6 months of directly related/specialized experience or training, including 3 months gained after the junior year of college. This experience may have been obtained on a part-time or intermittent basis and may have been paid or unpaid.
10. Have received honors or elective positions indicating superior leadership outside of the applicants academic setting. Additionally, the applicants academic standing must have been in the upper half of the graduating class.
11. Have established a pattern of completing courses that include unusual preparatory value or direct relation to the particular aerospace specialty for which they are being considered.
12. Have creative research aptitude or special talent for NASA scientific or engineering work. This must be
shown by evidence obtained and documented by NASA in certifications from college professors or officials,
or standardized questionnaires, or similar techniques.
GS-09: Applicants must possess one of the following:
a. 1 year of professional experience (i.e., experience gained after completion of qualifying degree program) in an appropriate field at least equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to GS-7-level work in the Federal service. Examples of specialized experience include, but are not limited to: conducting material and/or process studies to resolve engineering related problems; performing calculations or computer simulations to predict material properties over time and under various environmental conditions/stressors; performing calculations or basic scientific techniques common to testing, evaluating, and exploring the strength of materials and material properties.
b. Completion of all requirements for a masters or equivalent graduate degree in an appropriate field.
c. Completion of 2 full academic years of graduate education in an appropriate field.
d. An equivalent combination of experience and graduate study as discussed in a and b above.
GS-11: Applicants must possess one of the following:
a. 1 year of professional experience in an appropriate field that is at least equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to GS-9-level work in the Federal service. Examples of specialized experience include, but are not limited to: conduct studies to determine material strength or basic properties to resolve problems or recommend requirements in the fabrication and/or manufacturing process for aerospace components; apply materials science/engineering concepts and testing processes to make recommendation as it applies to newly designed materials and/or processes; review inspection data (e.g., basic fracture or damage analysis, contamination, etc.) to monitor material performance; conduct studies, investigations, and analysis on materials and/or processes using complex analytical techniques and diagnostics and briefing study results to more senior engineers.
b. For non-research positions, completion of all requirements for a doctoral degree (i.e., Ph.D. or equivalent) in an appropriate field.
c. Completion of 3 full academic years of graduate education in an appropriate field.
d. An equivalent combination of experience and graduate education as discussed in a and b or c above.ISLAMABAD: A Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team raided a warehouse at the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Monday and sealed a room containing spoiled vaccine worth million of rupees. The team not only found Pentavalent vaccine vials, reported to have been spoiled earlier, but also polio vaccine.
In February, Pentavalent vaccine sufficient for 1.3 million children kept in the stores of the Extended Programme on Immunisation (EPI) at the National Institute of Health (NIH) spoiled because of hot temperature. The matter came to light when an email was sent by a World Health Organisation (WHO) employee to Prime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio Ayesha Raza Farooq.
Also read: Vaccine worth $1.3m ‘goes bad’ in health ministry store
Later, an inquiry was carried out and some low-ranking officials were suspended and transferred.
Vials of spoiled polio vaccine also found
On April 23, National Health Services (NHS) Minister Saira Afzal Tarar held a media briefing, during which she claimed that the ministry had developed a system to prevent vaccine from being spoiled in the future.
An official statement issued by the FIA on Monday said the FIA Islamabad Zone was conducting an inquiry into the |
the infamous email or the Marsden campaign.
"I'm going to wait for the court," she said.
She said she was just as surprised as many British Columbians when the leaked Quick Wins document was released by the NDP. She said she realized the party used her for her connections in various ethnic organizations.
"They hired me and based on that they gave me my role, do this, do that, go to this event, you are building bridges between government and ethnic communities," she said.
"When someone leaked the strategic plan, at that time I found out that it was a strategy, a plan, for the job that I'm doing! It was one of the things that was bothering me, I was not involved, but my name was all over the media."Getty Images
A former potential first-round draft pick, cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu fell all the way to the seventh round in this year’s draft after an ACL tear and dislocated knee ended his college career.
The injuries will keep Ekpre-Olomu off the field in 2015 as well.
According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Browns head coach Mike Pettine said Ekpre-Olomu will likely miss his entire rookie season as he continues to recover from the injuries suffered last December.
“Players that have had this injury before, it’s rare that you would return that season,” Pettine said. “Given our depth, we’re very comfortable with him sitting out. That’s just one that we felt it was a low-risk, high-reward move when we took him in the seventh round. There’s no reason to rush it back given the depth in that room now anyway.”
The Browns took a flier on Ekpre-Olomu with their final selection, No. 241 overall in the seventh round, in hopes that he can return to his former self in time. Ekpre-Olomu posted 244 tackles and nine interceptions in four seasons at Oregon. He was injured in a December practice in preparation for the Rose Bowl against Florida State.MIRVs blanket a target for maximum effect wikipedia commons While adding to its stockpile of almost 200 nuclear warheads, China is on the verge of arming itself with a new highly effective, multi-stage nuclear weapon.
The Washington Times devoted some attention to the new Pentagon report on China's military strategy and found the CCP is using this third missile to compliment its medium and long-range nukes.
This new armament is an intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a multiple independently targetable re-entry wikipedia commons vehicle (MIRV).
Put simply, this means the Chinese are creating a "first-strike" warhead that was hotly contested for its destabilizing effects during the Cold War and could increase their nuclear stockpile exponentially.
The Soviets wanted to ban MIRVs completely as early as the late 1960s.
MIRVs are mobile, can be put inside submarines and carry multiple warheads, capable of striking several targets, or just one target far more effectively than traditional missiles.
The Russians, who already admitted to helping China's fighter jet program, have highly advanced MIRV technology in their RSM-56 Bulava submarine missile which just went into serial production.
China's new warhead will compliment its new Jin-Class ballistic missile submarine the Pentagon says "appears ready" to enter the CCP fleet.
In addition to sending MIRVs out with its submarines China is also storing its warheads in underground facilities connected by 3,000 miles of "obscure tunnel network[s]".
Richard Fisher, of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told the Times, "Taken together, a well-protected, growing ICBM force that will soon have active defenses should be of great concern to the United States,"Story highlights Gawker chief: Idea of positive online comments has become a joke
Nick Denton speaks at the South by Southwest Interactive festival
He said the bigger a site is, the harder it is to curate comment sections
One idea? Making certain stories only open to a few select commenters
In the early days of the Internet, there was hope that the unprecedented tool for global communication would lead to thoughtful sharing and discussion on its most popular sites.
A decade and a half later, the very idea is laughable, says Gawker Media founder Nick Denton.
"It didn't happen," said Denton, whose properties include the blogs Gawker, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9 and Lifehacker. "It's a promise that has so not happened that people don't even have that ambition anymore.
"The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership -- that's a joke."
Denton was speaking at South by Southwest Interactive, the annual festival here devoted to Web and digital culture.
He said that commenting on his own sites (which he's seen make reporters cry) has gotten so bad that he doesn't engage.
JUST WATCHED CNN at SXSW: Social media in Arab Spring Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH CNN at SXSW: Social media in Arab Spring 02:56
JUST WATCHED Turning homeless people into 'hot spots' Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Turning homeless people into 'hot spots' 03:14
"I don't like going into the comments.... For every two comments that are interesting -- even if they're critical, you want to engage with them -- there will be eight that are off-topic or just toxic," he said.
And as sites get more popular, it's harder to control the comments, which inevitably get nastier.
"What you can manage on a small site... the level of discussion you can have on those is not the level you're able to have on a newspaper site or one of our sites. Our smaller blogs have 2 million unique (visitors per month).... It's hard to have that intimacy."
So, what's the solution?
When it comes to improving open discussion threads, Denton, during an interview-style discussion with blogger and Expert Labs director Anil Dash, seemed quicker to shoot down ideas that others are trying than to provide proposals of his own.
Having editors and reporters engage their readers in the comments? "The writer of the piece has to move on to the next piece. They don't have time to moderate all those comments."
Require readers to post using their real names? "My own view is that anonymity is at the heart of the Internet."
Give other commenters more power to "up-vote" or "down-vote" posts? "We don't really believe in the democratic process of decision-making when it comes to discussion," Denton said.
For example, he said, Jezebel has made lots of hay off of sexual harassment accusations against American Apparel Chief Executive Officer Dov Charney. Denton said he'd love to see Charney come into the comments section to defend himself.
"If you put it to a vote, 90% would vote to ban him. They hate that guy," Denton said. "If Dov Charney went into the Jezebel comments, he'd be torn limb from limb; his limbs aren't all that would be torn off."
The answer? Denton said his sites are planning to post some stories that allow only a hand-picked, pre-approved group of people to comment on them. That, he said, would make the comment section an extension of the story and allow people, like Charney in the above example, to have their say without fear of being piled onto by others.
"I think it's part of the answer," he said. "What I want is, I want the sources -- I want the experts to be able to comment in these discussions."
When he took questions, Denton had to do a little answering about the responsibility the tone of a site itself has in guiding its comments section.
Many of Gawker's sites aren't known for being particularly delicate (One of today's top Gawker headlines: "Arnold Schwarzenegger's Son Injures Ass Skiing, Tweets Photo").
"It's certainly true that nice sites run by nice people... that encourages good behavior," Denton said. "But it's not as if it's entirely the writer setting the tone for the comments. Sometimes, it's the comments setting the tone for the writer."There are three primary components to my S&P+ team projections: recent history, returning production, and recruiting. I wrote about the first two earlier this week, and with Signing Day in the rear view, it’s time to look at recruiting.
The purpose of recruiting in these projections is to fill in the gaps. Returning production tells you how much of last year’s team returns, and recruiting gives you an idea of what will replace departures.
I use a simple, two-year average for the recruiting portion. Here's how:
Because these ratings rank all 130 FBS teams, I've found a blend of Rivals ratings and the 247Sports Composite tends to predict the best. Neither service tends to have ratings for everyone signed by some mid-majors, and splitting the difference creates the best correlations for me between recruiting success and on-field success.
I also use a blend of point totals (how the recruiting services determine their class rankings) and per-recruit averages. Teams signing 32 guys in one year don't end up getting a long-term advantage over teams signing 23, but teams with tiny classes (like Clemson, which signed just 14) won’t grade out incredibly. This works, since recruiting rankings are proof of depth as much as elite talent.
These two services and two data points combine to create a percentile average for each school. For 2017, No. 1 Alabama's was 99.8 percent, No. 65 Boise State’s was 46.8, and No. 130 Idaho’s was 4.5.
Average the last two classes together, and voila! Two-year averages. You can do the same for five-year averages. All are below.
By now, you know the other primary Signing Day story lines: Nick Saban’s machine is still humming, Ohio State is keeping up, Georgia surged, Texas had a disappointing haul, Kobe Buffalomeat, etc.
Now it’s time to look at the entire picture. Below are 2017, five-year, and two-year rankings.
The two-year rankings are what I use in projections, but I wanted to share all of it.
We start with the top 25.
2017 recruiting rankings (Nos. 1-25) Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Alabama 99.8% 1 99.4% 1 0 99.6% 1 0 Ohio State 99.6% 2 98.3% 2 -2 99.1% 2 3 Georgia 99.1% 3 96.4% 6 0 98.0% 6 1 Michigan 98.9% 4 87.2% 19 10 98.6% 4 10 USC 98.8% 5 97.8% 4 2 97.9% 7 -5 Florida State 98.7% 6 97.7% 5 2 98.9% 3 0 LSU 98.0% 7 98.0% 3 -4 98.1% 5 3 Oklahoma 96.9% 8 90.6% 14 -2 92.4% 11 5 Florida 93.6% 9 92.8% 10 -2 94.1% 8 12 Texas A&M 93.2% 10 93.9% 9 -1 92.0% 12 1 Miami-FL 92.5% 11 88.0% 17 0 88.6% 17 4 Notre Dame 92.0% 12 94.8% 8 0 93.0% 10 0 Auburn 91.5% 13 95.1% 7 2 94.1% 9 -5 Penn State 91.1% 14 85.6% 21 -5 88.4% 18 -1 Tennessee 88.8% 15 91.9% 13 -2 91.2% 14 -5 Stanford 88.3% 16 88.6% 16 -2 89.4% 16 8 Maryland 87.3% 17 67.4% 37 -4 76.1% 32 15 South Carolina 85.9% 18 85.6% 20 -2 82.4% 21 7 Oregon 85.6% 19 84.9% 22 3 81.8% 23 -4 Clemson 85.4% 20 92.1% 12 -2 91.4% 13 -7 UCLA 84.4% 21 92.2% 11 -2 90.2% 15 -4 Nebraska 83.2% 22 77.9% 26 2 82.2% 22 7 Washington 81.5% 23 77.7% 27 -2 77.4% 28 2 Mississippi State 79.4% 24 78.0% 25 -2 76.2% 31 -8 Arkansas 78.4% 25 74.3% 31 0 78.1% 26 -1
From year to year, not a lot changes here. The teams that recruit well tend to be the teams that always recruit well.
But there are still some shifts. As it pertains to the S&P+ projections, here are some of the most important:
Largest positive change in two-year recruiting rankings (Power 5)
Iowa State (19 spots, from 68th to 49th)
Maryland (15 spots, from 47th to 32nd)
Florida (12 spots, from 20th to eighth)
BYU* (11 spots, from 66th to 55th)
Michigan (10 spots, from 14th to fourth)
Illinois (10 spots, from 67th to 57th)
Oregon State (nine spots, from 52nd to 43rd)
Stanford (eight spots, from 24th to 16th)
Utah (eight spots, from 43rd to 35th)
Iowa (eight spots, from 49th to 41st)
South Carolina (seven spots, from 28th to 21st)
Nebraska (seven spots, from 29th to 22nd)
* A half-decade into BYU’s independence, I still have no idea how to classify the Cougars.
You can forgive Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain if they are looking for a fast-forward button. Both will be forced to deal with key departures in 2017 — Michigan’s returning production is the third-lowest in FBS, while Florida’s returning defensive production, key to the Gators’ back-to-back SEC East titles, ranks 103rd.
Generally speaking, that portends a drop-off. Florida’s offense might pick up the slack, but the thought of having to rely on an offensive attack probably sends shivers down Gator fans’ spines. Meanwhile, if S&P+ projections were based entirely on returning production and last year’s ratings, Michigan would be projected to fall from the S&P+ top five to the teens.
Both will be good in 2017. But if recruiting is any indication, both will be even better in 2018.
Maryland and Iowa State deserve a moment in the spotlight.
Matt Campbell has recruited at a top-50 level, which is tricky to pull off in Ames. The Composite ranked D.J. Durkin’s Terrapin haul 18th, absurdly good for Maryland... or any other program averaging under five wins over the last six seasons.
For national projections, however, the big stories are Florida and Michigan, which both moved from strangely low standings back to their usual spots in the top 10. McElwain’s 2015 class ranked 21st per 247, but the Gators have ranked 12th and 10th the last two years. That might not be good enough for Gator fans, but you can work with that.
2017 recruiting rankings (Nos. 26-50) Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Virginia Tech 77.9% 26 77.4% 28 3 70.1% 37 -5 Texas 77.1% 27 90.4% 15 4 86.1% 19 -7 Kentucky 76.9% 28 76.1% 29 -3 76.5% 30 6 North Carolina 76.8% 29 79.0% 24 1 77.0% 29 -3 Louisville 74.8% 30 71.3% 33 -6 72.1% 34 5 Utah 72.4% 31 64.3% 42 -4 71.4% 35 8 Colorado 72.1% 32 51.0% 61 5 57.7% 47 3 Ole Miss 72.1% 33 87.9% 18 -2 84.9% 20 -5 Michigan State 72.0% 34 80.9% 23 2 79.3% 25 -7 Pittsburgh 71.2% 35 64.5% 41 4 74.0% 33 2 TCU 70.7% 36 71.2% 35 0 78.0% 27 4 Baylor 69.2% 37 73.7% 32 2 80.1% 24 3 Wisconsin 68.5% 38 71.3% 34 0 71.0% 36 -3 Oklahoma State 68.0% 39 69.9% 36 -2 64.7% 40 0 Iowa 66.5% 40 58.1% 50 -1 64.4% 41 8 Arizona 66.1% 41 64.9% 39 -5 62.8% 42 2 Georgia Tech 64.0% 42 57.8% 51 6 54.2% 54 -6 Rutgers 64.0% 43 53.5% 56 3 48.5% 63 -3 Arizona State 62.7% 44 75.8% 30 2 68.9% 38 -16 Duke 61.9% 45 57.5% 52 0 68.5% 39 -2 Illinois 61.6% 46 52.4% 58 -2 50.9% 57 10 Oregon State 61.4% 47 58.4% 49 -5 62.4% 43 9 Iowa State 61.2% 48 52.5% 57 -8 57.3% 49 19 Washington State 60.7% 49 55.4% 54 -3 56.8% 51 5 Texas Tech 60.4% 50 62.0% 45 3 61.1% 45 -4
And now we look at the other side: the teams that are falling.
Largest negative change in two-year recruiting rankings (Power 5)
Arizona State (16 spots, from 22nd to 38th)
Missouri (16 spots, from 34th to 50th)
California (15 spots, from 38th to 53rd)
Mississippi State (eight spots, from 23rd to 31st)
Vanderbilt (eight spots, from 51st to 59th)
Wake Forest (eight spots, from 58th to 66th)
Clemson (seven spots, from sixth to 13th)
Texas (seven spots, from 12th to 19th)
Michigan State (seven spots, from 18th to 25th)
Boston College (seven spots, from 64th to 71st)
Arizona State and Missouri have gone 20-29 over the last two years; ASU has dealt with severe turnover on the coaching staff, and Missouri has dealt with not only a coaching change but also, potentially, the residual effect of 2015 protests. That the two have gone from top-30ish recruiting to more like top-50 probably makes sense.
Per the headlines, the big story is Texas, which ranked 10th per 247 in 2015 and seventh in 2016 but fell out of the top 25 on Wednesday. There’s no way to spin that as a positive.
Recruiting hasn’t been Texas’ problem, though.
With all the star recruits in the world, the Longhorns haven’t finished higher than 36th in S&P+ since 2012 and haven’t finished in the S&P+ top 10 since 2009.
If new coach Tom Herman can cull a top-30 product from a top-30 class, that’s a step in the right direction. And he did just produce back-to-back top-50 finishes at Houston, which was not, on average, recruiting at a top-50 level.
2017 recruiting rankings (Nos. 51-75) Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Missouri 60.3% 51 66.6% 38 5 56.8% 50 -16 NC State 57.4% 52 64.6% 40 -7 59.4% 46 -1 Northwestern 57.1% 53 58.5% 48 5 57.7% 48 -2 West Virginia 56.1% 54 63.4% 43 -7 61.6% 44 -2 Virginia 53.1% 55 61.1% 46 -2 50.5% 58 4 Minnesota 52.2% 56 53.7% 55 -3 55.5% 52 1 Memphis 51.4% 57 35.7% 75 -13 46.8% 65 9 Central Florida 50.5% 58 47.4% 65 6 49.2% 60 -3 Syracuse 50.3% 59 50.1% 62 -1 48.9% 62 -3 Kansas State 49.0% 60 51.3% 60 -1 41.7% 68 -5 Cincinnati 48.5% 61 46.4% 68 4 42.4% 67 3 Vanderbilt 48.2% 62 60.0% 47 7 49.5% 59 -8 BYU 47.7% 63 46.5% 67 -3 53.2% 55 11 Indiana 47.5% 64 57.2% 53 -2 49.0% 61 -6 Boise State 46.8% 65 48.6% 64 -5 46.9% 64 1 Kansas 46.4% 66 45.3% 69 -2 35.4% 75 2 Boston College 44.6% 67 47.4% 66 0 38.6% 71 -7 Wake Forest 42.1% 68 48.7% 63 1 45.6% 66 -8 Purdue 41.9% 69 44.5% 71 4 38.3% 72 -1 Houston 40.3% 70 44.9% 70 2 52.6% 56 5 UTSA 38.9% 71 22.6% 93 -1 27.7% 86 12 Florida Atlantic 38.0% 72 30.0% 80 -7 31.6% 80 1 California 37.8% 73 62.7% 44 8 55.3% 53 -15 East Carolina 37.5% 74 31.7% 78 3 34.9% 76 -3 South Florida 37.2% 75 51.4% 59 10 40.0% 70 -16
Once we step out of the top 50, we get into a mix of strong mid-majors and weaker Power-5 programs. And with my season preview series beginning next week, this is a good time to look at the best in the mid-major universe.
Top 10 recruiting classes of 2017 (Group of 5)
Memphis (57th overall) UCF (58th) Cincinnati (61st) Boise State (65th) Houston (70th) UTSA (71st) FAU (72nd) ECU (74th) USF (75th) SDSU (76th)
First, five of these 10 are AAC schools. The conference continues to separate itself from the rest of the mid-majors, while still remaining comfortably behind the Power 5.
Second... hello there, UTSA!
Frank Wilson was hired from LSU by the Roadrunners primarily because of his recruiting prowess, and he quickly engineered the school’s first bowl berth in 2016. And now come the real fruits. Wilson pulled off the best class in Conference USA, edging out Lane Kiffin’s first FAU haul. It will be interesting to observe any shifts in the C-USA balance of power, especially with WKU changing head coaches and old power Marshall cratering in 2016.
2017 recruiting rankings (Nos. 76-100) Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk San Diego State 37.0% 76 38.8% 73 -1 36.6% 74 5 Toledo 36.0% 77 29.7% 81 -3 30.3% 81 6 Southern Miss 35.6% 78 28.5% 83 1 29.8% 82 6 Colorado State 35.2% 79 31.0% 79 -7 40.0% 69 7 Navy 32.1% 80 27.3% 85 -11 29.0% 83 27 Middle Tennessee 30.9% 81 26.6% 87 -15 28.9% 84 9 SMU 30.9% 82 32.5% 77 1 34.5% 77 5 Florida International 30.1% 83 21.5% 100 2 24.8% 92 13 Western Kentucky 29.5% 84 24.6% 91 2 25.1% 91 1 Tulsa 29.5% 85 27.4% 84 5 27.4% 87 2 Ball State 29.5% 86 19.6% 106 -2 22.3% 96 15 Bowling Green 28.3% 87 22.2% 96 -1 21.4% 98 5 Miami-OH 27.3% 88 23.7% 92 -13 26.8% 88 2 Fresno State 25.7% 89 29.4% 82 4 27.7% 85 -13 Western Michigan 25.6% 90 35.4% 76 -7 37.0% 73 5 Central Michigan 25.5% 91 19.2% 109 8 19.5% 106 -15 Louisiana Tech 24.9% 92 27.2% 86 5 25.6% 89 -5 Texas State 24.7% 93 22.5% 94 2 20.6% 101 8 Tulane 23.1% 94 26.1% 89 9 24.6% 93 1 UL-Monroe 22.8% 95 15.8% 119 -4 17.8% 108 10 Marshall 22.3% 96 41.5% 72 0 32.7% 78 -3 Connecticut 21.5% 97 25.5% 90 13 20.1% 104 -21 Troy 21.4% 98 20.4% 104 -6 23.0% 94 13 Georgia State 21.4% 99 15.6% 121 -8 16.6% 113 8 Charlotte 19.9% 100 17.1% 116 4 14.6% 119 -19
Service academy recruiting rankings are notoriously strange. A lot of guys commit, many don’t get accepted, many change their plans, and plenty without recruiting profiles end up on the roster. So the grain-of-salt method is the way to go with Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Still, it might mean something that Army and Navy saw the two biggest overall shifts in their two-year rankings and that Air Force wasn’t dramatically far behind.
Largest positive change in two-year recruiting rankings (Group of 5)
Navy (27 spots, from 110th to 83rd)
Army (23 spots, from 126th to 103rd)
Ball State (15 spots, from 111th to 96th)
FIU (13 spots, from 105th to 92nd)
Troy (13 spots, from 107th to 94th)
UTSA (12 spots, from 98th to 86th)
ULM (10 spots, from 118th to 108th)
Air Force (10 spots, from 125th to 115th)
Memphis (nine spots, from 74th to 65th)
MTSU (nine spots, from 93rd to 84th)
Meanwhile, Mike Neu is evidently making moves at Ball State.
2017 recruiting rankings (Nos. 101-130) Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Team 2017 class Rk 5-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 5-year Rk 2-year avg (2017) Rk Change in 2-year Rk Northern Illinois 19.4% 101 18.6% 112 -10 14.1% 122 -5 Wyoming 19.3% 102 17.3% 113 -4 17.3% 110 6 New Mexico 18.8% 103 21.3% 103 -1 20.2% 102 4 North Texas 18.6% 104 17.2% 115 6 16.2% 114 -15 Army 18.5% 105 15.9% 118 -8 20.2% 103 23 Arkansas State 18.4% 106 22.4% 95 10 21.3% 99 -14 San Jose State 18.2% 107 26.4% 88 -2 20.8% 100 -20 Georgia Southern 18.0% 108 21.5% 101 -5 22.9% 95 0 Nevada 17.6% 109 21.8% 97 4 18.8% 107 -11 Utah State 17.2% 110 18.9% 110 3 17.8% 109 -5 Buffalo 16.9% 111 15.8% 120 6 15.2% 117 -3 Appalachian State 16.7% 112 19.6% 107 -6 17.0% 112 3 UL-Lafayette 16.6% 113 21.8% 98 -1 15.5% 116 -8 Temple 16.4% 114 35.8% 74 1 32.4% 79 -10 UNLV 16.2% 115 21.4% 102 7 25.5% 90 -4 Old Dominion 15.4% 116 21.7% 99 -21 14.9% 118 -5 Massachusetts 15.1% 117 19.6% 108 -8 21.7% 97 4 Ohio 14.9% 118 17.3% 114 3 14.6% 121 -2 Hawaii 14.7% 119 15.6% 122 22 14.6% 120 -18 Rice 13.5% 120 18.8% 111 20 12.6% 124 -12 Air Force 11.4% 121 16.0% 117 -4 16.0% 115 10 Kent State 10.8% 122 12.9% 125 1 7.3% 128 -5 South Alabama 10.2% 123 19.9% 105 2 17.2% 111 -14 UAB 8.9% 124 20.1% 105 Eastern Michigan 8.1% 125 13.9% 124 5 8.7% 126 -6 Akron 8.1% 126 14.2% 123 8 7.2% 129 -5 UTEP 8.0% 127 12.7% 126 1 13.0% 123 -1 New Mexico State 5.8% 128 11.4% 127 9 7.8% 127 0 Coastal Carolina 4.8% 129 4.8% 130 Idaho 4.5% 130 11.3% 128 0 8.9% 125 3
If we looked at positive shifts, we have to look at the negative ones, too.
Largest negative change in two-year recruiting rankings (Group of 5)
UConn (21 spots, from 83rd to 104th)
San Jose State (20 spots, from 80th to 100th)
Charlotte (19 spots, from 100th to 119th)
Hawaii (18 spots, from 102nd to 120th)
USF (16 spots, from 54th to 70th)
North Texas (15 spots, from 99th to 114th)
CMU (15 spots, from 91st to 106th)
South Alabama (14 spots, from 97th to 111th)
Arkansas State (14 spots, from 85th to 99th)
Fresno State (13 spots, from 72nd to 85th)
That is most certainly not the right direction, UConn.Linebacker Thomas Davis will be back in the Panthers lineup on Sunday after serving a one-game suspension for a blindside block to the head of Packers wide receiver Davante Adams, but he’s not done talking about the reaction to that hit.
Davis apologized to Adams on Twitter after Adams accused him of headhunting, but he said Thursday that he takes issue with those who think that the hit makes him a dirty player.
“It’s very unfair,” Davis said, via ESPN.com. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff that’s being said. Obviously, people are going to form their own opinions based on what they saw. At the end of the day, I know for 13 years I’ve played the game the right way. I can rest easy on it.”
Davis was also fined $48,620 for a hit on Buccaneers wide receiver Adam Humphries earlier this season and that elicited some of the same reaction. Coach Ron Rivera backed up Davis Thursday, saying the veteran is a “physical player” without being a dirty one.
Whatever the label people choose for Davis, Rivera and the rest of the Panthers will be happy to have him back as they try to beat the Falcons and put together a long stay in the postseason.This is my take on creating a ground station, and it turned out really great.
I simply took the tripod and removed both the video handle and half the camera mount and installed the hardware as shown in the pictures.
The antennas reach a height of about 180cm when the tripod is fully extended.
Tripod:
http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-NEW-53-Inch-PROFESSIONAL-Flexible-Tripod-Mount-Stand-for-Camera-Camcorder-Portable-p-43767.html
Boscam FR632 video receiver:
http://www.banggood.com/Boscam-FR632-Diversity-5_8GHz-32CH-Auto-Scan-LCD-AV |
this help build confidence and coordination but will also inspire a generation of children to get on a bike and have a go.”
You can find full details of the events and how to enter on the Strider British Balance Bike Championship website.Cheap Violins for Sale Are Not a Good Deal
If you are new to the violin, you might be tempted to buy one of the low-priced violins advertised all over the Internet – by low-priced I mean anything under about $300.
Don't do it.
Having a cheap violin will make an already-difficult skill even more difficult to learn and will cause persistent frustration in your practice. Your violin will refuse to be in tune, the angle and placement of the strings will be off, the tone of the instrument will be squeaky and unappealing, and the tuners will likely bend and break.
This year has seen a flood of cheap, factory-made violins from China, priced impossibly low. This low price point makes a $400 violin seem like a bad deal, but this is actually a reasonable price for a student violin made from good-quality wood with a fitted bridge, fitted pegs, etc.
How can you tell the difference between a quality fractional-sized or full-sized violin and a substandard "violin-shaped object," or "VSO"?
One fairly reliable indicator is the fingerboard. Is it made from ebony? Ebony is the best wood for violin fingerboards, and it is naturally black. A VSO typically has a fingerboard made from a light wood that has been painted black, said Tom Metzler of Metzler Violin Shop in Glendale, Calif. If you turn the instrument at an angle, you can check for brown patches on the underside of the fingerboard, close to where it has been attached to the fiddle. If you find brown patches, that is one indication that the fingerboard has been painted, and that it is not ebony.
If you look underneath this violin fingerboard, you will see the "unpainted" patch. That fingerboard is definitely not made of ebony!
When the fingerboard has been made from cheaper wood that isn't ebony, it is more susceptible to warping, which causes the fingerboard either to be curved upward, or to have a counter-curve, making it more difficult to play. It can also cause rattling and squeaking, if the string vibrates against the fingerboard.
The cheap VSOs generally come with one-size-fits-all bridges that are rather thick and squarish. A quality violin has a bridge with feet that are individually fitted to stand properly on that specific violin. If you look at the feet of the bridge and there are gaps underneath, the bridge probably was not fitted to the fiddle. This can cause instability, making the bridge fall down more easily and also making it lean instead of stand upright.
The top of the bridge should be arched and sloped down to the E-string, to create the proper angle for the bow to touch each string. In a VSO, this often is not the case, the strings may be on a simple, non-sloping arch or possibly almost like a row. If all the strings site straight in a row, it's very difficult to play on one string without hitting another. This business with the angle of the bridge is more important than you might think; you feel it constantly when you play. If the angles are well-calibrated you will feel an ease in crossing strings; if not, there will be persistent frustration.
A poorly-made VSO bridge, on the left, and a properly fitted bridge that slopes down the E string, on the right.
Having the feet of the bridge sit "just so" on top of the violin makes a significant difference in the sound of the violin, the way it transfers into the belly of the fiddle. Another sound issue can involve the sound post, which is rather hidden from view. The sound post sits underneath the right side of the bridge, inside the violin, and is critical in transferring the sound from the vibrating strings into the violin. It is important that it fits just right and that it stays standing. Unfortunately, in a VSO, "usually they are cut far from the mark, fall over easily and don't transfer the sound properly," Metzler said.
If the bridge is too high, it raises the strings too high. When you are pressing your fingers down on the strings, high strings can feel very uncomfortable and also hinder the speed of your fingers. If the strings are too low, they can vibrate against the fingerboard, causing undesirable squeaking and rattling.
Another question to ask: Is the purfling simply painted onto the violin? The "purfling" is that little double line that traces the shape of the violin. It's supposed to be a thin layer of inlaid wood, which protects the body of the violin. If a maker has "cut corners" here, it's likely that other details have been short-changed.
Also, the neck may not be carved – someone with more violin experience would be able to tell if a neck is not carved from simply feeling it. The un-carved neck on a cheap violin might work all right in the beginning, but as soon as the student starts using higher positions, it can cause awkwardness and hinder a student's ability to work well in higher positions.
You can also look at the label. Generally, a good-quality instrument has a label inside that says who made it, where it was made, and in what year it was made. You can find the label by peeking inside the left "f" hole. VSOs often have no label at all. To be fair, some finer violins also have no label, but it's another thing to check.
Let's talk about pegs, which hold the strings in place and are turned when tuning the violin. In a good violin, pegs are made from boxwood, but in a VSO, they are often made of soft brown wood and "often they will break off in your hands," Metzler said. I have personally had this experience, of tuning a student's instrument and having the peg simply snap off at the base. There's no cure, other than a new peg. The pegs also fit into holes in the peg box, and if the holes are not exactly the right size, the pegs will either slip, or they will stick.
The strings that come with a VSO tend to be the first thing people notice that is bothersome. They tend to be steel and tinny-sounding. Be prepared to spend between $25 and $50 to replace them, first thing.
Looks can be deceiving, when it comes to violins. A new, shiny violin may well be a VSO. I'd much rather have a somewhat beat-up old Suzuki Nagoya, with a good tone and good craftsmanship. That said, you can find good violins that are new, as well.
Though most VSOs are Chinese, not all Chinese-made instruments are bad. In fact, "there are lots of really good student instruments, and 95 percent of them are Chinese," Metzler said. Some of the better brands of student instruments include old Suzuki violins from Japan, new Suzuki violins from China, Scott Cao, Yamaha, Vivo, Angels, Eastman, Century Strings – there are plenty more.
But buying a violin online, without testing it, is a risky way to go. If you take a chance on a cheap violin, you may well spend an additional $200 upgrading the strings, getting a better bridge, getting an appropriate sound post – and then you still may not like the way it sounds or feels!
I've heard the argument that "I'm just experimenting" or "My child may not like it, so I don't want to make a big investment" to justify buying a VSO. This is a false economy, and I will tell you why: if you are stuck with one of these grossly substandard instruments, you (or your child) will not want to play it. You may not even be conscious of the reasons why you find yourself not liking the violin, but it will be a combination of being displeased with the tone, sometimes even finding the sound of the instrument painful, being unable to tune it, having parts break off, the feel of a cheap violin that doesn't really fit in the hand, the visual ugliness of something cheaply made, and the overall bad feeling of having an object that was not made with care.
Conversely, if you buy or rent a well-made violin, you will enjoy its pleasant tone, you will enjoy the way its mechanics support you, the way it fits in the hand and the craftsmanship behind it.
A violin shop will usually allow you to test a violin before buying or renting it; this is usually possible even when you are renting from an out-of-town shop. If you have a teacher, enlist your teacher's help in selecting a good instrument.
For all of these reasons, I would urge you to consider renting or buying a violin and not a Violin-Shaped-Object.
You might also like:
Laurie's Violin School: What Violin Should You Buy?
Everything You Need to Know About Buying a Violin
12 things to look out for when buying a second hand violin
Helpful Tips for Buying Your First Violin
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This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.The Chinese government is launching a nationwide registry aimed at keeping melamine out of the food supply and in the industrial sector, where the chemical is typically used for making plastic products.
China’s general office of the State Council issued a notice saying the purchase and sale of the industrial chemical–which continues to show up as a dairy adulterant to create the facade of higher protein content–must be conducted on a “real-name” basis so that products can be traced, according to state media. The notice requires that dairy manufacturers keep records of all raw materials purchased and test for melamine before sending product into commerce.
“In cases of delayed crackdowns against illegal dairy production dens or re-emergence of melamine-tainted milk products, local governments should be held accountable,” reads the notice. “Local governments should send officials to be stationed at all dairy enterprises to enforce relevant food safety regulations.”
Chinese public health officials have struggled to earn consumer confidence and crack down on dairy adulteration in the wake of a highly publicized 2008 melamine dairy scandal that killed six infants and sickened more than 300,000.
In July, Chinese authorities seized 76 tons of milk containing melamine, some of the products contained over 550 times the legal limit of the chemical, bringing the total amount reportedly seized in 2010 to 25,000 tons.
Last week, authorities in China’s Shanxi province arrested seven people suspected of producing 26 tons of melamine-laced milk. Some reports suggested the tainted dairy was leftover from the 2008 scandal, even though the government has long since ordered all of melamine dairy destroyed.
Wang Dingmian, former chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Dairy Association, told China Daily that the notice is “concrete” but improved safety will depend on effective implementation. Dingmian says the punishments are too light for offenders. He also believes transparency will play a role in holding dairy companies accountable.
“Consumers should be granted the full right to know, so they can make their own choices as to which products to choose. Public selection is the best way to eliminate low-quality products and manufacturers,” he said. “But first of all, the government and the media has the responsibility to ensure transparent information.”There may be a new trend in the NFL, other than millionaire players refusing to stand for the national anthem.
As more and more fans become disgruntled, there appears to be a growing number of empty seats in NFL stadiums on Sundays.
At least, according to photos being posted in social media during live games.
The Jacksonville Jaguars put themselves at the forefront of the kneeling controversy when the team opted to disrespect the national anthem while on foreign soil, doing so at a game played last month at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
Jacksonville owner Shad Khan called President Donald Trump the “great divider” last week at a Chicago conference — the Pakistani-American billionaire also called fellow team owners racists.
“You’ve got a bunch of 85-year-old guys who don’t think they’re racist, but they are racist,” Khan said, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
It’s was enough to prompt a now-former Jaguars fans to go to extraordinary “heights” to boycott both the team and the NFL.
‘Be American’: NFL boycott is taken to whole new level with man’s sky high message to protesters https://t.co/Je50MAvZjl pic.twitter.com/phryBVs2ok — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) October 16, 2017
Photos of the Jacksonville game shared online Sunday may indicate how effective these efforts are:
You know who isn’t winning? The NFL. This was kickoff time in Jacksonville. Look at those empty seats! pic.twitter.com/fd7CwOuHk4 — Fistful of Doom (@fistfulofdoom) October 15, 2017
As for the Jacksonville game, adding to hometown crowd’s woes, the opposing team ran back the opening kickoff Sunday 103 yards for a touchdown.
https://twitter.com/bzazzie/status/919779331395555330
TV ratings are also taking a beating.
Nielson data obtained by Sporting News shows the NFL’s average TV audience through Week 5 of the 2017 season dropped 7 percent vs. the same period of the 2016 season.
“Worse for the league, the average game audiences are down 18 percent compared to the first five weeks of the 2015 season,” Sporting News reported.
Even the Dallas Cowboys, who all but single-handedly saved the NFL last year, are seeing a drop in ratings — which may explain why team owner Jerry Jones recently declared that he will not tolerate players kneeling during the national anthem.
Here’s a sampling of more empty seats Sunday from around the country, shared by social media users:
@EmptySeatsPics 17-7 Falcons with 6 min left in the 3rd. No one here pic.twitter.com/UedDu6WOkf — Bubba (@BubbaGuest) October 15, 2017
https://twitter.com/SocialClaude/status/919633373102071810
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza reminded Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has been accommodating of players disrespecting the national anthem, of the price of embracing left-wing politics.
‘Be American’: NFL boycott is taken to whole new level with man’s sky high message to protesters
“How’s it going with those protests @NFL? This should teach you next time what the Left has to offer you,” D’Souza tweeted.
How’s it going with those protests @NFL? This should teach you next time what the Left has to offer you pic.twitter.com/cxb8kQvNhG — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 11, 2017
But the tweet of the week belongs to social media user Christopher Greene, who stated: “The Only Stadium that Should be Full on Sunday is the Stadium of God. Boycott @NFL I only Kneel for Jesus…”
https://twitter.com/amtvmedia/status/919560042063454209andcorgimakesthree:
This girl is papilloma free! The growth on her back was a papilloma, basically a wart. She’s had it for about two years or so. I monitored it and showed it to the vet from time to time. Recently, it grew a little bit, and was leaking a little clear liquid. Yeah, it’s gross. 🤢 After about 2 hours of skin cancer on animals googling, and sending wart photos to different friends, we decided to take her in and have it looked at. Again, it was removed and is now being biopsied. We hope to have a negative report out, and can move on from my preoccupation with skin cancer! 🧐🧐🧐 the biggest question for skin issues is the growth pace and size. Monitor the size. If it suddenly starts to grow, get it checked. There are other factors, such as color and symmetry; however, for Cupcake’s case, the focus was on size and growth. Check your pets for skin issues…#pethealth #threecorgis #corgisofinstagram #skingrowth
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#corgioftheday #corgiears #corgisarelove #corgismile #vetvisit #instagramcorgis #corgies #doggiez4doggiez #doggystyles #love #fortheloveofpets #doggo #doggiedaddy #corgidog #ilovemydog #dogadventures #2pawz #doggolife #pawz #corgidaily #corgistation #corgisnuggles #corgivideo
(at El Segundo Animal Hospital)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs-1ymHnscv/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=fmt63cuds6jaUPDATE: Patrick Hobbs will be Rutgers' next AD
PISCATAWAY -- Julie Hermann is out as Rutgers athletics director, a person familiar with the decision told NJ Advance Media on Sunday.
The person with knowledge of the situation requested anonymity because university President Robert Barchi hadn't announced the decision publicly.
(UPDATE: Barchi announced the firings of Hermann and football coach Kyle Flood in a letter to the Rutgers community on Sunday afternoon.)
A second person familiar with the situation told NJ Advance Media Sunday morning that Hermann was expected to be asked to resign, and her oversight over the football program was the chief reason for her ouster.
Hermann met with Barchi at his Piscataway home neighboring the Rutgers practice fields Sunday afternoon. Richard Edwards, chancellor of Rutgers-New Brunswick, who served as the co-chair of the committee that appointed Hermann as AD in May 2013, arrived at 12:10 p.m.
Hermann arrived at Barchi's home at 12:25 p.m. for the meeting. She left 11 minutes later.
RELATED: Steve Politi grades the Julie Hermann Era at Rutgers
The university's office of enterprise risk management, ethics and compliance has been investigating allegations of failed drug tests and other issues that could result in NCAA infractions and possible sanctions, multiple people familiar with the situation have told NJ Advance Media.
It marks an abrupt end to the 2 1/2-year tenure of Hermann, who has made national headlines for a series of gaffes while also being lauded by Barchi for her fundraising efforts.
The Rutgers football program has been in the news for a string of controversies, headlined by the arrests of seven players and the three-game suspension of Flood after an investigation found the fourth-year head coach to be in violation of a university academic compliance policy.
Hermann has not publicly spoken about the football-program controversies since the news surfaced in late August.
Hired on May 14, 2013, Hermann had a guaranteed contract through June 30, 2018. She earned a base salary of $450,000 annually, with bonus opportunities of $50,000 conditioned on achieving academic and athletic performance goals determined by Barchi.
Fans reaction in two words: Good riddance
Her contract states that she could be disciplined or terminated for cause if found to have violated NCAA rules or if she failed to report or take all reasonable means to prevent a violation of which she knew or reasonably should have known.
Hermann, who was hired after a six-week search, was hailed by Barchi as "one of the most respected athletic administrators in the country" after working 16 years for a Louisville program that had grown into a national power. She was just one of five female athletic directors among the 125 schools at the Football Bowl Subdivision level at the time of her hiring, signing a five-year contract that would pay her $450,000 annually.
She arrived at a difficult time in Rutgers history. Mike Rice, then the basketball coach, was fired after ESPN aired video clips of his hurling basketballs and gay slurs at his players. Tim Pernetti, the popular athletic director who ushered the university into the Big Ten, followed him out the door soon after.
"We need to be an open book," Hermann said at an introductory press conference at the Rutgers Visitors' Center in Piscataway. "It is a new day. It is fixed.... That will never happen again on this prestigious campus."
But her tenure was besieged with controversy from the beginning. A lawsuit in 1997 alleged that Hermann, who was head volleyball coach at the University of Tennessee at that time, discouraged an assistant coach from getting pregnant. The coach, Ginger Hineline, won $150,000 in a suit against the school.
"There's no video. Trust me," Hermann said at the press conference when asked about a wedding video in which she made the discouraging comments. But, days later, Hineline gave a copy of that video to The Star-Ledger.
ALSO: Wrapping up Rutgers' loss to Maryland
Other questions about her time in Tennessee soon surfaced. Eleven former volleyball players, in separate interviews with the newspaper, accused her of abusive tactics as a coach. "The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable," the players on her 1996 team wrote in a letter to Hermann that led to her resignation.
Hermann denied the allegations. In a brief press conference outside the Hale Center on June 5, 2013, she promised that the difficult start would not hold her back from becoming a successful leader for Rutgers athletics.
"I'll put up with it. I'll deal with a national embarrassment," she said. "I'll do whatever it takes to make certain that these students have that same opportunity to live out their dreams."
The controversies continued. When cornerback Jevon Tyree quit the team and accused an assistant coach of bullying him, Hermann, said he had twice spoken to the player's parents to address their concerns. Tyree's father, Mark Tyree, said the conversations never took place. "That's ridiculous that she would even say that. That's scary."
PLUS: Time for Barchi to clean house | Politi
A university review cleared Hermann of any wrongdoing. Hermann would find herself in headlines again in April 2014 when, while addressing a Rutgers journalism class, she said it would be "great" if The Star-Ledger went out of business.
Still, Barchi supported Hermann. When asked in June 2014, as the university officially entered the Big Ten, if he was pleased with her job performance, he replied, "I am indeed.... I looked at a lot of athletics directors, I liked what I saw, and I thought Julie could do the job if given the chance to do the job. And we're going to do our best to support her and provide her with the opportunity to succeed."
Her several public missteps aside, the Rutgers athletics department has shown significant strides in recent months.
In June, the university Board of Governors rubber-stamped a multi-phase facilities plan that calls for a new practice gym for the men's and women's basketball programs, among others, and a massive facelift to the football team's headquarters.
In October, Hermann announced a privately funded indoor practice facility for the baseball and softball teams.
Her fundraising has been lauded by Barchi, who in March signed off on a $30,000 bonus for Hermann after she met parts of the four performance thresholds set forth by her contract.
Barchi also has publicly lauded Hermann for implementing a comprehensive program called R-Care, which provides Rutgers student-athletes holistic health care, academic support, career advice, leadership development and other intervention that position Scarlet Knights players for success.
Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.Day[9] Profile Blog Joined April 2003 United States 7366 Posts #1
Welcome to Trial of the Xel’Naga: Day 3. Tonight, Red Bull and Day[9]TV bring you StarCraft II eSports with a twist. YOU the spectator are granted super powers to join the game live and change the outcome!
Tonight’s theme is STORM. Which players will the maelstroms plague with violent storms and which players will be blessed by their psionic power? The grand finals will consist of ALL three themes. Tonight, you decide the fates.
Trial of the Xel’Naga will consist of an 8-person single elimination 2v2 bracket. Rather than playing alone, each pro player will be joined by an amateur player chosen from the audience. Thursday and Friday, 4 players will play each night and 2 will advance. On Saturday, the advancing players will compete in the semifinals and finals matches.
+ Show Spoiler +
– The planet cracker is the ultimate weapon of war. Unleash an incredibly powerful mother ship, which patrols the map and annihilates any unit or building that is unlucky enough to stray into its path.
– Ever wish your marines or zerglings could blink? Cause storms to cloud judgment and reality alike, briefly granting all tier one units the ability the blink for a short duration.
– Nothing says storm like a good old-fashioned duck-and-cover! Launch impending maelstroms which force all units to make a split second decision: run to the safe zone or be taken by the weather.
– Shakuras' storms are as unpredictable as they are violent. Summon multiple random-location vortexes to the battlefield, sucking up any units that are caught too close.
– Everything else was just warm-up: this ability shows the true power of the elements! Unleash a storm unlike any other, summoning a continuous onslaught of giant psionic storms, vortexes, and forcefields all over the map.
- Test a player's awareness and micro. Cause the harmless tower in the middle of the map to erupt into action, spawning endless seeker missiles that target, stalk, and explode upon random units throughout the map.
- Does your favorite player need mega help? Grant mega sentries to your favorite team players! They're a chaotic unit that bolsters any army and can summon forth oversized forcefields.
– Does what it sounds like! Nothing tricky here.
– No units can attack anything for two minutes! Quick, move your banelings to his mineral field and set up your tank lines on their own highground!
Planet Cracker – The planet cracker is the ultimate weapon of war. Unleash an incredibly powerful mother ship, which patrols the map and annihilates any unit or building that is unlucky enough to stray into its path. Basic Blink – Ever wish your marines or zerglings could blink? Cause storms to cloud judgment and reality alike, briefly granting all tier one units the ability the blink for a short duration. Safe Zone – Nothing says storm like a good old-fashioned duck-and-cover! Launch impending maelstroms which force all units to make a split second decision: run to the safe zone or be taken by the weather. Random Vortex – Shakuras' storms are as unpredictable as they are violent. Summon multiple random-location vortexes to the battlefield, sucking up any units that are caught too close. Storm Catastrophe – Everything else was just warm-up: this ability shows the true power of the elements! Unleash a storm unlike any other, summoning a continuous onslaught of giant psionic storms, vortexes, and forcefields all over the map. Seeker Missile Tower - Test a player's awareness and micro. Cause the harmless tower in the middle of the map to erupt into action, spawning endless seeker missiles that target, stalk, and explode upon random units throughout the map. Mega Sentries - Does your favorite player need mega help? Grant mega sentries to your favorite team players! They're a chaotic unit that bolsters any army and can summon forth oversized forcefields. Kill All Units – Does what it sounds like! Nothing tricky here. Silence – No units can attack anything for two minutes! Quick, move your banelings to his mineral field and set up your tank lines on their own highground!
Welcome to Trial of the Xel’Naga: Day 3. Tonight, Red Bull and Day[9]TV bring you StarCraft II eSports with a twist. YOU the spectator are granted super powers to join the game live and change the outcome!Tonight’s theme is STORM. Which players will the maelstroms plague with violent storms and which players will be blessed by their psionic power? The grand finals will consist of ALL three themes. Tonight, you decide the fates.Trial of the Xel’Naga will consist of an 8-person single elimination 2v2 bracket. Rather than playing alone, each pro player will be joined by an amateur player chosen from the audience. Thursday and Friday, 4 players will play each night and 2 will advance. On Saturday, the advancing players will compete in the semifinals and finals matches. Tonight, BlinG, iNcontroL, NoNy, and Illusion will challenge the fates!
To participate, visit To participate, visit www.RedBullUSA.com/LAN when the event goes live! We will be posting polls periodically throughout the event. Simply follow the caster’s directions to decide the fate of the players! Whenever I encounter some little hitch, or some of my orbs get out of orbit, nothing pleases me so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places. www.day9.tv
An2quamaraN Profile Joined March 2011 Poland 378 Posts #2 Yay!
Thewayisshut Profile Joined January 2012 United States 12 Posts #3 Go Go bling! He made a fan out of me with his play at the jungle map, especially in the first game.
Dexington Profile Blog Joined January 2011 Canada 6519 Posts #4 This map looks much more fun than the last one. In my opinion, the last one was ruined by the infestors. Hopefully mega sentries aren't as imba.
Yes, I know it's for fun, but ridiculously over powered units aren't. "Man you guys are missing out waving your stats dicks about instead of watching this pvp" - bbm
Dfgj Profile Joined May 2008 Singapore 5813 Posts #5 On September 02 2012 09:02 Dexington wrote:
This map looks much more fun than the last one. In my opinion, the last one was ruined by the infestors. Hopefully mega sentries aren't as imba.
Yes, I know it's for fun, but ridiculously over powered units aren't.
The bigger issue was that the other abilities (bane mines, critters) didn't force reactions so much as'sit back and defend'. That meant the games had to get forced into something more chaotic, unlike the fire map where nukes did not give a fuck if you wanted to sit back, and treasure banes had to be hunted.
At first glance, I'm liking this map's abilities. The bigger issue was that the other abilities (bane mines, critters) didn't force reactions so much as'sit back and defend'. That meant the games had to get forced into something more chaotic, unlike the fire map where nukes did not give a fuck if you wanted to sit back, and treasure banes had to be hunted.At first glance, I'm liking this map's abilities.
Fionn Profile Blog Joined October 2009 United States 20365 Posts #6 All I ask is that if a player wins early due to taking an advantage of a choice made by the audience or online fans, that you don't randomly give the other team 30 mega sentries. Writer https://twitter.com/FionnOnFire
DMXD Profile Joined February 2008 United States 4064 Posts #7 Really hope the maps tonight is better. Last night was pretty bland compare to the first day maps. I really want to see the maps that can push the pro gamers to the limit of their multitasking and map awareness.
LeapofFaith Profile Joined November 2011 United States 389 Posts #8 These abilities seem like they give less of an advantage than the abilities from yesterday, which is pretty good.
rasnj Profile Joined May 2010 United States 1959 Posts #9 On September 02 2012 09:36 LeapofFaith wrote:
These abilities seem like they give less of an advantage than the abilities from yesterday, which is pretty good.
The responsibility is really the "game master"'s. With about 20 abilities some are bound to be crazy, especially if you click them 9times in a row like was done yesterday with some. They really should be used a few times every 4 minutes or so, not every minute, and ideally extreme abilities at most once or twice per game.
I like the concept of crazy maps with random events happening all over, but I really feel that if they do something like this in the future they should make it 1v1 and focus on the pros, the abilities should pretty much all be fairly random and be given to random or all people, and you should be able to ask for random help a fixed number (say 3) times. Maybe if you had a good game master this could work out, but this would mean someone who was not biased, had experience with the map and abilities, and understand how to direct a game, not absolutely control it. The responsibility is really the "game master"'s. With about 20 abilities some are bound to be crazy, especially if you click them 9times in a row like was done yesterday with some. They really should be used a few times every 4 minutes or so, not every minute, and ideally extreme abilities at most once or twice per game.I like the concept of crazy maps with random events happening all over, but I really feel that if they do something like this in the future they should make it 1v1 and focus on the pros, the abilities should pretty much all be fairly random and be given to random or all people, and you should be able to ask for random help a fixed number (say 3) times. Maybe if you had a good game master this could work out, but this would mean someone who was not biased, had experience with the map and abilities, and understand how to direct a game, not absolutely control it.
ReAson75 Profile Blog Joined August 2010 United States 127 Posts #10 Can't wait for to see the storm map in action!
SilSol Profile Joined April 2012 Sweden 2736 Posts #11 Might be interesting! dBlinG or incontroL gogo! http://fragbite.se/user/117868/silsol since 2006 http://www.reddit.com/u/silsol77
FluX- Profile Joined August 2010 United States 209 Posts #12 The stream is live! :D TeSPA | The eSports Association -- http://www.tespa.org/
Evangelist Profile Blog Joined June 2011 1243 Posts Last Edited: 2012-09-02 02:28:09 #13 Er. Isn't the whole point of this to dick around? Why are people talking about taking it seriously? I watched the vods from yesterday and it was absolutely hilarious from start to finish. Also, Husky is absolutely fucking brilliant at this sort of stuff.
Fionn Profile Blog Joined October 2009 United States 20365 Posts #14 On September 02 2012 11:27 Evangelist wrote:
Er. Isn't the whole point of this to dick around? Why are people talking about taking it seriously? I watched the vods from yesterday and it was absolutely hilarious from start to finish. Also, Husky is absolutely fucking brilliant at this sort of stuff.
I can play a fun game of basketball with my friend, but if some dude runs outta nowhere when I'm 10 with 2 minutes left, tackles me and let's my friend score 12 points in that mainframe, then it's not so fun. I can play a fun game of basketball with my friend, but if some dude runs outta nowhere when I'm 10 with 2 minutes left, tackles me and let's my friend score 12 points in that mainframe, then it's not so fun. Writer https://twitter.com/FionnOnFire
SolidMoose Profile Joined June 2011 United States 1217 Posts #15 On September 02 2012 09:07 Fionn wrote:
All I ask is that if a player wins early due to taking an advantage of a choice made by the audience or online fans, that you don't randomly give the other team 30 mega sentries.
I think a structure like a lifeline system would be smart. Give each team a limited number of help requests and the audience chooses what it is. Then you prevent stupid things like 10 giant infestors, and limiting requests keeps games from going on forever.
I know this is suppose to be "fun" but fun can have some structure too. It just feels like so much is out of the players hands they might as well be doing this with bots playing eachother. I think a structure like a lifeline system would be smart. Give each team a limited number of help requests and the audience chooses what it is. Then you prevent stupid things like 10 giant infestors, and limiting requests keeps games from going on forever.I know this is suppose to be "fun" but fun can have some structure too. It just feels like so much is out of the players hands they might as well be doing this with bots playing eachother.
amd098 Profile Blog Joined January 2011 Korea (North) 1280 Posts #16 On September 02 2012 09:24 DMXD wrote:
Really hope the maps tonight is better. Last night was pretty bland compare to the first day maps. I really want to see the maps that can push the pro gamers to the limit of their multitasking and map awareness.
not to mention it was really silly when day9 went all out crazy not to mention it was really silly when day9 went all out crazy North Korea is best Korea!
Stanlot Profile Joined December 2010 United States 5741 Posts #17 Not gonna lie, blink zealots sound awesome. MC: "Sentry Forcefield Forcefield Marauder... cage Marauder die die"
mrtomjones Profile Joined April 2011 Canada 4017 Posts #18 Got to love that shirt.
ensign_lee Profile Joined June 2010 United States 1175 Posts #19 Woooooh!
ramask2 Profile Joined June 2011 Thailand 1008 Posts #20 It might be more fun (and interesting) if each player gets to pick a power that they can request once in each game. Things like silence, gold minerals, treasure goblins etc. Casters can then speculate and build tension to when he would use that ability.
Of course, there would still be poll voting, but |
It was your typical cartoon super hero fare except that this little critter got his superhuman strength from smoking cigarettes (I think they were cigarettes). Whenever he found himself in a weakened state, he'd simply light another doobie and off he'd fly. I've yet to find anyone else who remembers this 'toon so it may simply be the result of my own early drug dependence. Oh, and I also recall that whatever text showed up on screen, such as a traffic sign or store names, 'twas in Chinese, Japanese, or some other 'ese. Ring any bells?
SDStaff Scott replies:
Ah, America’s confused love/hate relationship with the cartoon. In the early 90’s, Bart Simpson proclamation that he was an “underachiever and proud of it!” prompted some schools to ban students from wearing t-shirts featuring the yellow-skinned character; next MTV’s Beavis & Butt-Head are blamed for the death of a child due to Beavis’ obsession with fire — yet in 1965, a superhero was arguably teaching kids to smoke — a good 20 years before villainous Joe Camel hit the scene — and nobody objected.
Having said that, whatever drugs watching 8-Man inspired you to abuse didn’t affect your memory of the show — you’ve pretty much got it down. 8-Man originated as a weekly comic strip in Japan (those in the know and who obsess over such things refer to these Japanese comics as manga), and eventually was produced as a half-hour cartoon show (56 episodes were produced). The animated 8-Man was a hit in Japan, and, as was the case with other Japanese series (Astro-Boy, Gigantor, Speed Racer, etc.), it was soon imported into America, redubbed, re-edited, retitled (from 8-Man in Japan to The Eighth Man here), and hit the airwaves. Both manga and anime (Japanese animation, also beloved by these same social misfits) versions followed the same general plot: Police detective Peter Brady is murdered by a notorious gangster, then brought back to life — as a humanized robot with superhero strength named Tobor (read the name backwards and groan) — by a brilliant scientist, and goes on to fight crime.
After having read that, I know what you’re thinking: This 8-Man sounds like it might have inspired a popular 70’s live-action show. And while it is possible, it’s still highly doubtful that producer Sherwood Schwartz was watching 8-Man when naming the middle boy on The Brady Bunch. Other, more fanciful minds have found similarities between 8-Man and a little show called The $6 Million Man (and, years later, the film “RoboCop”).
Now about those cigarettes: While most doctors will tell you to quit smoking if you want to be able to continue participating in any sort of strenuous activity such as beating up criminals, 8-Man/Brady/Tobor was advised the opposite: Feeling rundown? Light up! When in need of a burst of energy, 8-Man recharged his atomic energy supply with tiny strength pills, which were in the form of cigarettes. After a few drags on his special smokes, 8-Man was as alive with pleasure as any of the playful subjects in a typical Newport ad, and once again ready to battle his nefarious foes.
It seems that back in the 60’s, when this series first aired, parents were either blissfully unaware of what was happening on the shows their kids watched, or they were smart enough to realize, unlike today’s fretful folks, that they were just harmless cartoons. 8-Man may have been unique in that he got his strength from smoking a substance manufactured in a lab and wrapped in rolling papers, but characters on other shows from this same era got their strength in equally suspicious ways — at least by today’s standards. Henry Cabot Henhouse III was transformed immediately into Super Chicken after gulping down his “Souper Sauce,” and both Roger Ramjet and Underdog were popping pills to get their anabolic highs. Just try getting that on TV today. Better, apparently, that kids be watching the slightly masked profanity and the supposed hilarious running gag of a child being violently killed each week on the abysmally-written, -acted, and -animated South Park.
Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.
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STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED.If you're a Mass Effect fan, this will be 45 minutes well spent. It seems strange that the first game debuted in 2007 — an eternity in video gaming — but it did, and YouTuber Raycevick gives the series’ hold on the gaming consciousness a splendid recap in this retrospective.
Raycevick does not shortchange the viewer on the context. He establishes the landscape of role-playing games coming into the Xbox 360's generation, Japan's preceding dominance of the genre on consoles, and the fact a true science-fiction narrative, particularly an original work, was a relative outlier to the scene.
BioWare shook up that dynamic with a landmark work in 2003's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and a sequel one year later, and developed gameplay elements essential to Mass Effect's appeal with a rough draft in 2005's Jade Empire.
That said, this is no hagiography. Raycevick is clear-eyed about Mass Effect’s gameplay shortcomings and morality system paradoxes while acknowledging the bridge BioWare built from traditional role-playing games into the action environment expected of a console video game.
Still, for any fan whose blood gets pumping at the optimistic, surging notes of the original Mass Effect opening theme, this is the equivalent of flipping the channel over to an interesting documentary on a lazy weekend afternoon.
Mass Effect Andromeda, featuring all-new characters in a completely different galaxy, is coming March 21, five years after Mass Effect 3. You can meet the new crew in this video. But a good look back at how far the series has come, and what it has done for role-playing games on consoles, should tide fans over for a little while.Rory MacDonald had one request after bulldozing right through B.J. Penn for 15 minutes. He wanted Carlos Condit.
Now he’ll get his wish.
MacDonald (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) he’s been granted the rematch with Condit (28-6 MMA, 5-2 UFC), and UFC President Dana White confirmed the booking to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).
The fight is targeted for March 16 at Bell Centre in Montreal. Though the UFC has not officially announced that show, sources close to the event said it will be UFC 158, a pay-per-view. The placement of the MacDonald-Condit fight was not revealed, though it will be positioned on the main card.
MacDonald’s loss to Condit is the lone setback of his career. It came at UFC 115 in June 2010, and it came after MacDonald had won the first two rounds on a pair of scorecards. He took Condit down several times in the first two frames before Condit rallied in the third and was able to get a TKO stoppage with just seven seconds left in the fight.
After his win over Penn (16-9-2 MMA, 12-8-2 UFC) this past Saturday at UFC on FOX 5 in Seattle, MacDonald said his loss to Condit two and a half years ago left him “humiliated,” which is why he wants another chance at him.
“There’s a guy that humiliated me a couple years ago, and I want my revenge,” MacDonald said on Saturday. “Carlos Condit, I want a rematch. Accept my challenge. Let’s do it in March – I’m going to get my revenge.”
MacDonald told MMAjunkie.com Radio calling out Condit and asking for it in Montreal, where he trains, wound up working out.
“In Montreal – I got exactly what I wanted,” MacDonald said. “You can’t get what you don’t ask for. I’m very, very happy.”
MacDonald said the way in which he lost to Condit, which came in front of his home-province fans in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been a motivating factor for him to get some measure of redemption.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for two and a half years,” MacDonald said. “It’s something I’ve wanted more than anything since that night. It was embarrassing. I got beat up in front of my friends and family. It was just a very sad moment for me. It changed who I was, and I just want to get back to it.”
Condit is coming off a loss to UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, MacDonald’s teammate at Tristar Gym in Montreal. The fight was a title unification bout for St-Pierre’s 170-pound belt and Condit’s interim title, which he won in February with a unanimous decision win over Nick Diaz at UFC 143.
Although he’s just several days removed from a dominant performance against Penn, which included a pair of 30-26 scores, and the targeted date for his fight with Condit is just three months away, MacDonald said he will take some time off before jumping right back into training.
“I need a little break. I need a week or two to let my injuries pass, let my mind relax. It’s been four months of training and focus on B.J. Penn. I need a little downtime with my family, relax and reset.”
MacDonald has won four straight since his loss to Condit, and he hasn’t lost a round. He dominated Nate Diaz at welterweight at UFC 129 in Toronto, including two 30-26 scores. He stopped Mike Pyle with a first-round TKO at UFC 133. And he stopped Che Mills with a second-round TKO at UFC 145 before beating Penn on Saturday.
Condit had a five-fight streak, including his win over MacDonald, which won “Fight of the Night,” before his loss to St-Pierre. Condit on Tuesday told FUEL TV he had agreed to the matchup.
MacDonald said playing the role of matchmaker following the win over Penn made sense, and it worked like a charm.
“Just avenge my loss to Carlos – beating people up is all I’m in this for,” he said. “He’s coming off his loss, and I’m coming off a winning streak since that loss (to Condit). Beating B.J. Penn put me up a little in the division, so I thought it made sense.”
For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, including UFC 158, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.
(Pictured: Rory MacDonald)Copy and paste this link into an e-mail or instant message: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/DiRT-Showdown-Crash-Gameplay-Sizzle/26f2b418-1dd9-41b3-b0c3-a13154496996?cid=SLink Click to create and send a link using your email application
Feed your appetite for destruction as eight players go head-to-head in the DiRT Showdown ‘Crash’ video. Featuring the demolition-derby event Rampage, players earn points for spectacular smashes on their rivals’ vehicles and eliminating other drivers. The video also shows Knock Out mode, where players use their vehicles as weapons to force opponents off a raised platform in a chaotic battle for domination, earning points for hits, knock outs and owning the ring alone. DiRT Showdown combines pick up and play controls with hyper-energised events on a world tour of motorised mayhem. Use boost in full contact races, crash your way through demolition derby events and unleash stunts and tricks in freestyle hoonigan events. Welcome to DiRT Showdown.The Clintons channeled the royal family as they announced the birth of Chelsea Clinton’s new baby Monday.
Bill and Hillary Clinton were close behind when Chelsea and Marc Mezvinsky were spotted leaving the Lenox Hill Hospital with their newborn son Aidan this week. The family smiled and waved to onlookers who had gathered outside.
You couldn’t help but notice that their exit from the hospital looked just like Prince William and Kate Middleton’s when they welcomed their two children in 2013 and 2015.
Chelsea even wore a similar outfit to Middleton’s — a blue dress and nude heels — Page Six noted Tuesday. (RELATED: Employees Are Fleeing The Clinton Foundation Because Chelsea Is So Awful, Report Says)
They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (RELATED: You Too Can Live Like Chelsea Clinton For A Mere $6 Million)Sound is pressure. Both the blare of a trumpet and softly spoken words are just waves passing through the air. When those waves hit your eardrum, they're interpreted as sounds. But when they bounce off other objects—say a bag of chips—they make the bag's thin foil wiggle. Using high-speed video and advanced imaging algorithms, computer scientists have figured out how to reverse engineer the gentle flapping of a chip bag to figure out the sounds that set it in motion.
These vibrations are tiny. They're fast. They're all but imperceptible. But they exist, and in the video above from MIT PhD student Abe Davis you can see how researchers reproduced musical notes and human voices from these minute motions captured on video. The technique, which Davis dubbed a “visual microphone,” can even work with a regular video camera.
The research raises the specter of all sorts of science fiction possibilities: who needs to read lips or plant recording bugs when you can just lift a conversation off a nearby snack bag?
This isn't the first attempt to lift sounds off images of the environment, but previous efforts, the researchers say in a report, were “active in nature, requiring a laser beam or pattern to be projected onto the vibrating surface.” This latest advancement lets them do away with any such requirements. Using the approach, says MIT, the team were able to lift audio signals off “aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant.”
According to their website the researchers plan to release their code to the world. We're sure there are some corporations or agencies who can't wait to get their hands on a tool just like this.The last publicly available release of Java 6 is to be released on February 19th 2013. After that date all new security updates, patches, and fixes for both the runtime and SDK of Java SE 6 will only be available through My Oracle Support, and will therefore only be available to users with a commercial license with Oracle.
In view of this, at the end of last year Oracle began automatically replacing instances of Java SE 6 with Java SE 7 via auto-update. In the announcement, Oracle said that they
... will start auto-updating Windows 32-bit, Java Runtime Environment (JRE) users from JRE 6 to JRE 7 in December 2012. The Java auto-update mechanism is designed to keep Java users up-to-date with the latest security fixes. To achieve this goal Windows users that rely on Java’s auto-update mechanism will have their JRE 6 replaced with JRE 7. In December 2012 Oracle will start to auto-update a sample of users from JRE 6 to JRE 7 to evaluate the auto-update mechanism, user experience and seamless migration. Oracle will then start auto-updating all Windows 32-bit users from JRE 6 to JRE 7 with the update release of Java, Java SE 7 Update 11 (Java SE 7u11), due in February 2013.
The move has proved somewhat controversial. On a blog post Wayne Citrin, Chief Technology Officer of Java/NET interpretability vendor JNBridge wrote
This is absolutely astonishing. Oracle has decided that, in order to fix extensively-reported security problems, they will not only update Java 7 (their latest version of Java), they will also completely delete a completely separate product. Yes, Java 6 is a separate product from Java 7. They can be installed side-by-side, and many users have both Java 6 and Java 7 installed on their machines. Some of their applications depend on Java 6, and others might depend on Java 7, and these dependencies are typically hard-coded or configured to point to the correct, and different, file locations. Can you imagine if Microsoft released an update to.NET 4.0 that also removed.NET 2.0? This is just as serious. Worse, it appears that they are taking it upon themselves to replace installations of Java 6 with Java 7 even if the users have only Java 6 on their machines.
As a result, he says, "You should strongly consider turning off automatic Java updates".
InfoQ spoke to Citrin to clarify his position. "I actually think the best thing that the user could do is update their browser plug-in to the latest Java 7," he told us, "or simply disable Java in the browser." He also had a number of suggestions for how Oracle could deal with the current situation
a. Change from side-by-side installs to in-place installs -- Java 7 gets installed in place of Java 6. That would require strict backward compatibility to older versions so that the user would not notice. Probably not a good option at this time, but would have been the best long-term answer. b. Continue providing updates to Java 6 for at least a little while longer. Kicks the can down the road, but ultimately doesn't solve the problem. c. As part of the Java 7 update, check whether the user’s Java browser plug-in is something other than Java 7. If not, switch it. This would probably be the best all-around solution. Most of the attacks come through the browser, and most people wouldn't notice. It would be unlikely to break anything.
Oracle has in fact taken a number of precautions with the update process. For enterprise users the most important is that the Java auto-update process updates only the latest version of Java on a user's Windows machine - if you have multiple versions of Java installed, only the most recent one will be replaced. In addition, where an enterprise manages the Java versions on behalf of users, auto-update is generally turned off and therefore they won't be affected. That said, Citrin tells us that whilst enterprise customers should not be affected by auto-updates, it has happened "according to the customer we spoke to. They’re an ISV, and they had several customers report problems."
The subject of silent automatic updates for Java was also discussed on the security conference call last week. This isn't a silent update, of course, but as with the Ask toolbar, users often click through installers without reading them, a point that Citrin also made when we spoke to him. Given that, it is interesting to review Donald Smith's comments on auto-updates in this context
The challenge is of course that you get - if that was a feature that came out, you have an ecosystem with a long history of it not working that way, and you would suddenly have a large segment of people saying, "How do I prevent this from happening?"
As Java is increasingly targeted by malware and virus writers, it is certainly a challenge for Oracle to encourage users to keep up-to-date.
InfoQ did contact Oracle for clarifications on this story but they declined to comment.Reorder Custom SharePoint 2010 and 2013 Lists
This is a very common request from client when we do create them custom SharePoint lists. “How can I re-order the list?” In fact, you could create an extra column in your custom list via SharePoint Designer (SPD) or via your internet browser. Add a new column and have it as a “Number” field, name it “Display Order” and start identifying the order of each list item. Well, but we are going to use another way. The little trick I am going to show works perfectly in both SharePoint 2010 and 2013.
Why not adding a custom column?
Well, you cannot call it “Order” and the reason why SharePoint already have a field called “Order” (we will review later). If you try you will get this error:
So save you some time and let’s just use the one Out-Of-the-Box (OOB). In fact, if you go to the following URL:
For 2010: /_layouts/Reorder.aspx?List={ListGUID}
For 2013: /_layouts/15/Reorder.aspx?List={ListGUID}
You should see this.
Well, that’s it you could show your user how to get the list GUID ID and then send them to this page. But let’s be a little nicer and save them one step. We are going to add a custom action directly into the list settings for them to click and get redirected there.
Adding the custom action button
Ok. So you are going to need SPD to do the following.
Open the SP site hosting the list you would like to add the custom action
Click on “List and Libraries” and select your list. You should now see the “Custom Action” button
Click on “Custom Action” >> “ View Ribbon”
Complete the form as follow: Name: Change Item Order Description: This will allow user to reorder this list Navigate to URL: /_layouts/Reorder.aspx?List={ListGUID} (for 2010) /_layouts/15/Reorder.aspx?List={ListGUID} (for 2013) Select the image URL for 16×16 rendering 32×32 rendering
Going back to your list you should now see the new button action under List Tools. By clicking on it, your users will be able to reorder list item.
That’s it! Comment below if you have any questions!A friend writes:
In August 1968 I was on an SDS trip to Cuba, one of about 30 student activists from around the US. One day we went to the mission of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam in Havana (it had been called the National Liberation Front but had recently taken on a new name). We decided to see if the NLF, as we called them, could settle some debates in the US antiwar movement. After exchanging pleasantries with the representative of the PRG/NLF, we had the following exchange.
SDS students: We have a debate in the antiwar movement. Some of us think we should organize militant, obstructive demonstrations that are openly in support of victory for the NLF. Others argue we should organize much larger, peaceful, legal demonstrations around the demand of immediate US withdrawal from Vietnam. Which should we do?
PRG/NLF rep: Some of you should do one, and others should do the other.
SDS students: We have another debate in the antiwar movement. When a male antiwar activist gets a draft induction notice, some of us think he should refuse to serve, either going to jail or going to Canada. Others of us argue that he should quietly go into the military to organize among the soldiers for an end to the war. Which should we do?
PRG/NLF rep: Some of you should do one, and others should do the other. And when an antiwar activist goes into the military and ends up in Vietnam, there are ways to arrange contact between the activist and the local NLF fighters.
After that exchange, I began to see why the NLF was so successful in their struggle to force the US out of Vietnam.“They saved an economy that would have gone to the dogs because young people didn’t want to work with cows,” Mayor Dalido Malaggi of Pessina Cremonese said. Though the dairy industry is mostly mechanized today, human labor is still necessary 365 days a year, he explained.
The work is split in two four-hour shifts per day, about 12 hours apart. “Young Italians don’t want to work those kinds of hours,” he said. “They’d prefer to work in factories and have evenings and weekends free.”
It was a fortunate match, because many of the immigrants already knew what it took to keep a farm running.
“This is dairy land, and many of us have cows in Punjab,” said Jaswinder Duhra, who has lived in Italy for 25 years, working first as a bergamino and then for one of Italy’s best-known cheese manufacturers. “We’re used to the work that we do here.”
There are no official statistics of how many Indians work in dairy barns here, but Mr. Solfanelli said that of the 3,000 agricultural laborers in the province, about a third are Indian.
One measure of their presence was the inauguration last month of the Gurduwara Sri Guru Kalgidhar Sahib, a Sikh temple designed to hold 600 comfortably (thought at least six times as many people attended the opening ceremony on Aug. 21). It has been touted as the largest Sikh temple in Continental Europe.
Built in an industrial area that includes a factory of vacuum pump compressors and a cold-cut production plant, the temple was inspired by Sikh models in India “but is both a monument and a center for the community,” said its designer, Giorgio Mantovani. (Other Sikh temples in the vicinity have been located in repurposed poultry farms or warehouses.)
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The road from the drawing board to the gleaming white structure that rises amid soya and corn fields was not without its rocky patches.
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Municipal permits were given and withdrawn in a nearby town when the temple became a politically thorny issue, so another site was found. A decade’s worth of bureaucratic hurdles also had to be overcome, money had to be raised by the Sikh community, and loans found to make up the rest of the price tag of €2 million, or nearly $3 million. “It took years, but we all pitched in as best we could,” Mr. Duhra said.
The temple is still missing a fountain in front of the entrance and the gilded cupolas that characterize Sikh architecture. The latter have been a matter of some concern, because Cremona’s clammy, foggy winters “make gold a bad choice,” Mayor Malaggi said. Various other construction materials are being considered.
While the mayor was an active supporter of the temple, and the road sign into town proudly proclaims Pessina Cremonese to be “free from racial prejudices,” there was some opposition from local politicians with the Northern League, the political party most closely associated with anti-immigrant oratory in Italy. A small group of protesters from Forza Nuova, an extreme right party, demonstrated when the temple opened.
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Manuel Gelmini, a Northern League lawmaker in Cremona’s provincial council who unsuccessfully tried to block the building of the temple, said his main concern was the Kirpan, the ceremonial sword carried by orthodox Sikh. “For us, it’s a weapon, and people shouldn’t be allowed to go around armed,” he said.
He also objected to the use of Punjabi as the lingua franca in the temple. “They live in Lombardy,” he said. “How can there be integration if we allow them to speak their own language in a public space?”
But tellingly, the Northern League has not campaigned openly against the Indian immigrants working as bergamini. “As long as they respect our laws, work legally and learn Italian, they are welcome in our country,” Mr. Gelmini said.
Dilbagh Singh arrived in Italy when he was 14, and now, 12 years later, he speaks with the distinctive accent of his adopted hometown, Nogara, near Mantua. He said his compatriots “come here to work, and want to live peacefully.” To this end, Mr. Singh runs a Web site on Sikhs in Italy so that “Italians can understand us.”
“We want people to know who we are,” he said.
Nearly 16,000 Indian immigrants are legally employed in agriculture in Italy, with the Lazio region becoming the newest pole of immigration, especially for seasonal workers. “You only have to travel 100 kilometers from Rome to discover a world most people don’t even know exists,” said Patrizia Santangelo, a filmmaker whose documentary about the Sikh community in the province of Latina, “Visit India,” is to have its premiere in October.
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Ms. Santangelo’s documentary exposes some of the exploitation that many immigrant workers are subject to, regardless of their provenance.
“They often live in camps, like homeless people, and can get paid low wages, 2 to 4 euros an hour for 12-hour days,” she said. “But what struck me is that even though the live in difficult conditions, the Indian workers are still able to see the positive side of situations.”
In the north, life seems less harsh, at least on the surface. Many of the Indian immigrants have become Italian citizens. Many have bought homes and settled their families here.
According to the national statistics agency, about 40 percent of all Indian immigrants to Italy are women, but only a small percentage have jobs. In the case of Pessina Cremonese, concerns about their isolation have been sporadically addressed with Italian lessons and work-training programs, and labor unions have offered similar programs in other towns.
Many of the Indian immigrants have also raised children in Italy, who imagine a different future.
“They work hard at school; they’re not spoiled like our kids,” said Gianluigi Fiamenghi, who employs seven Indian workers on his dairy farm of 1,700 cows. “And their children won’t want to work on a farm, they’ll go to university and want to get ahead.”
One of Mr. Fiamenghi’s workers, Prem Singh, moved to Italy in 1995, and many of his relatives followed. He and his wife are raising three children now in primary school. “They feel more Italian than Indian,” he said, adding that he had no plans to return to his native land. “We’ve put down our roots here. It’s our home, and that’s that.”Modern peacekeeping has evolved dramatically since the blue-helmeted U.N. military force won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. Since 2005, the number of police officers within the total force of 95,400 peacekeepers has more than doubled from about 6,000 to 12,200 in 17 countries.
U.N. police are already battling kidnappings and drug crime in Haiti and illicit lumber trading in Liberia. The aim of the joint effort is to increase the ability to track the movement of criminals around the world by sharing resources and common standards, according to Mr. Noble. He is also pressing ahead with plans for special electronic passports for the agency’s staff of more than 600 Interpol investigators to speed border crossings.
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is contributing more than $2 million to finance the development of international global policing standards, according to Andrew Hughes, an Australian who currently heads the U.N.’s force of police officers.
The ambition is to create a series of networks to counter borderless organized criminal operations, Mr. Hughes said. Women, in particular, are being recruited, with a goal of reaching 20 percent of the U.N. force and the development of all-female units like the group of 140 peacekeepers from Bangladesh that is about to be deployed.
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“We’re working with refugees,” Mr. Hughes said. “Many of the victims of atrocities are women, and they’ve had enough of men with guns and uniforms.”
He said that among the most critical tasks for a global police force were combating illegal arms and drug trafficking. His own officers in West Africa have watched the growth of cocaine smuggling by Colombian and Venezuelan drug cartels through weakened countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia to the lucrative consumer markets in Europe.
The United States remains the biggest market for cocaine, according to the U.N.’s annual report on drugs and crime. But in the past three years, South American cartels have moved more drugs to Europe using transit points like Guinea Bissau, where the president and the head of the military were killed in sophisticated bombing attacks in March. Each year, at least 50 tons of cocaine from Andean countries passes through West Africa to the streets of Europe, where the drugs are worth almost $2 billion, according to the U.N. report.
“Organized crime is a business that looks for opportunity to expand their market enterprise,” Mr. Hughes said. “When you have a breakdown in police and courts and corrections, organized crime is ripe. We also see the toxic effect of corruption, because they are able to corrupt officials, which makes it difficult to build a functioning society.”
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In Afghanistan, where heroin and hashish trafficking is also a thorny issue, NATO announced plans this month to start training the local police — a move it has avoided in the past to concentrate on military responsibilities.
But Mr. Noble of Interpol says he takes a dim view of transforming warriors into beat cops, because the mind-sets are so different.
“We caution on making the delegation of civil police development tasks to military structures,” Mr. Noble said, citing the example of an attack that freed hundreds of Taliban from a prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, last year. Although Interpol immediately asked for information about the missing prisoners, he said, “we were really shocked and dismayed to learn there were no fingerprints and photographs despite billions spent to train police there.”
With the meeting of justice ministers on Monday, which coincides with a general assembly of Interpol police members, the group is expected to debate the global police issue and to craft a declaration that would lead to an action plan for international police peacekeeping within 12 months.Blind Foundation local coordinator for telephone information services Alan Swallow has been reading the Southland Times paper for sight-impared people for 17 years. --
Every morning at 6am Southland man Alan Swallow gets out of bed, has breakfast and reads the paper.
And for that he is an unsung hero.
When he reads The Southland Times in the morning, he reads it aloud and records it for people who are visually impaired.
The Blind Foundation provides its members with the Telephone Information Service (TIS) which has articles from more than 70 newspapers, radio and TV schedules, finance information, public and government notices and updates from the Blind Foundation.
For 17 years Swallow has read the paper for the TIS service.
He is also the volunteer coordinator for the TIS service in Invercargill.
In the early days of the service someone would head down to the local studio to record the news for the day and they had one chance to get it right, Swallow said. Nowadays, the news readers can work from home using their phone.
The TIS service is available 365 days a year, and it could sometimes take him an hour to get through the local news items he had chosen, he said.
"It doesn't take much effort, but it does take a commitment because people are relying on it."
The service had struggled for some time with volunteers because it was a service not many people knew about.
"If people knew what it did and who'll benefit from it we would get more volunteers."
It was satisfying to know that people were benefiting from what he was doing, Swallow said.
"It's a good way to start the day."
Liz Anstice
For Blind Foundation social function organiser Liz Anstice, the opportunity to give back to a foundation that had given much to her, was a nice aspect of the role.
"It's nice to be giving back to the foundation which has given so much to me."
Anstice took on the role two years ago.
She said the biggest challenge was building the trust that people had in the local branch of the foundation.
Anstice reformed the social committee group and changed things up so people did not get bored, she said.
"The socials are growing nicely with the members that are coming along."
The Christmas functions had been so well received members from the Blind Foundation in Balclutha were coming down for them, Anstice said.
However, sometimes getting members to the events was a challenge because of a lack of volunteers available to transport them, she said.
Anstice also manages the Red Puppy Appeal street collection and the appeal during Blind Week.
She was blown away by the number of volunteers she had during the puppy appeal and had to find extra spots for collectors, she said.
She has been involved with the foundation for five years after she became visually impaired.
In February Anstice travelled to Auckland for the Blind Foundation Star Awards as she was a finalist for the Volunteer Recognition Award.
She did not win the top prize, but walked away with a highly commended certificate.
She had not realised how much work she had done until they read out her achievements, she said.
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*Southland Blind Foundation celebrates 125 years— California has become the largest state in America to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives using doctor-prescribed drugs after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the “End of Life Option Act” Monday.
In a letter addressed to the California State Assembly, the governor wrote: “In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death. I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill. And I wouldn’t deny that right to others.”
Brown, a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian, had |
badge that tells people you were terrible at a mediocre-ish licensed game. Worst. Achievement. Ever.
Frontlines: Fuel of War - Noob
Welp, here's some more l33tspeak for you. Calling someone a "noob" is a way of insulting their playing skills; a "dis," if you will. It's short for "newbie," and if you're rewarded with this Achievement in Frontlines: Fuel of War, it's likely because you're not very good at this game; or really, any other.
You receive this Achievement for killing yourself off ten times in any multiplayer match. There are lots of ways to do it, really. Grenades, rockets, or even falling from a great height a few times in a row will get you some sweet, non-existent points to add (or not) to your Gamerscore.
Guitar Hero 3 - Tail Between Your Legs
Boss Battles were a strange addition to the Guitar Hero series, but they actually provided a unique challenge to your plastic fretwork skills. At three points during the campaign, you'd do musical skirmish against a different rock god. Before you start, though, you're asked if you're ready to commit.
But what if you're not? What if you've got food at the door, or your kid is screaming, or the apocalypse is literally happening around you? Careful if you click that "NO" button, because *BLOOP* there's a special zero-point Achievement for that, too. It's called "Tail Between Your Legs," and it assumes that you ran screaming in fear from Tom Morello, and not because you didn't want your Hot Pocket to get cold.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 - Lost the Plot
Golf is already hard enough without having someone mocking you for your own personal failures. You've gotta smack a tiny ball toward an equally tiny hole, all while avoiding sand, water, and wind. And you have to do it in three to five swings. The only way it would be more difficult is if rabid wolves were hunting you down, which is why this "Achievement" stings more than most.
Sometimes every force of nature is conspiring against your attempt to land that putt, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 will grace you with a lovely "Lost the Plot" Achievement if you're unable to complete a hole in under ten strokes. It's enough to make you go into a Happy Gilmore-like rage. But quietly, of course; this is a gentleman's (and gentlewoman's) game.
Superman Returns - Not That Super
Even the world's greatest superhero needs some help now and then but that doesn't mean he has to show it off to the world like the giant "S" emblazoned on his chest. But that's just what happens when you try to cheat in Superman Returns.
If you put in one of the invulnerability or power-up codes, you'll also receive the "Not That Super" Achievement for your less than scrupulous actions. The codes might make the crappy game more palatable, but the Achievement still feels like a metaphorical punch in the crotch with a kryptonite fist.
NHL 2K7/2K8 - Quitter!
There's a special circle in hell for people who quit online matches for no good reason, and it's unfortunate that there's no real way to know if the person you're playing against is going to duck out right when they're about to lose. Luckily, NHL 2K7 and 2K8 have a way of letting the whole world know if you're a big poopy sore-loser-head.
If you wimp out of ten ranked online matches in a row, you are granted the rather telling "Quitter!" Achievement. Now the whole world will know what a terrible sport you are. For the record, this is the only Achievement here that feels completely deserved. Just take your lumps and move on.EXCLUSIVE: Deadline’s Jeremy Gerard and Jujamcyn Theatres majority owner and president Jordan Roth talk about the state of the industry, the only stipulation being no holds barred.
GERARD: Well of course there is no Tony Award for Best Song, but there ought to be. We’re seeing a surge on Broadway of contemporary song-writing teams and the original cast albums they generate are best sellers; note the Grammy Award for Hamilton. This season we have Sara Bareilles in her Broadway debut with Waitress and songs by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell in their debut with Bright Star, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Glenn Slater with School of Rock and Duncan Sheik with American Psycho.
The Best Song wouldn’t necessarily come from the Best Score; in fact it offers a way to celebrate songs from shows that didn’t otherwise work. I’m thinking, for example, of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ “Once Upon A Time,” a gem from their 1962 flop All American, or “I Never know When,” a favorite sung by a very young Elaine Stritch in Walter and Jean Kerr’s 1958 Goldilocks (the songs were by the Kerrs with Leroy Anderson and Joan Ford).
This occurred to me when I saw Hamilton last week for the third time (I know what readers are thinking. Sorry, no one said life is fair) and concluded that “The Room Where It Happens” is the best new Broadway song since Rent‘s “Seasons of Love.” It’s the song Aaron Burr sings when he realizes that Alexander Hamilton has earned what he never will have: a seat at the power table. And it crystalizes in one dazzling lyric why: Hamilton lives for ideas, for revolution, for putting himself on the line day after day for what he believes. Burr wants the goodies of power without the risks. He’s an empty vessel. It’s such a perfect, terrifying metaphor for today’s entitled, risk-averse strivers, and the electrifying staging of the number drives the point home further.
But consider that, if we must have contests, “The Room Where It Happens” would get strong competition from Bareilles’ “She Used To Be Mine,” the show-stopper from Waitress. A killer number, a win for Best Song could spread some love to two musicals and encourage contemporary songsmiths to keep coming back to Times Square. Moreover, a Best Song Tony Award could be expanded beyond Tony voters to include the public and — is this really me speaking? — raise the bar on the Tony broadcast’s appeal beyond theater freaks.
ROTH: I’m sorry, I thought I was supposed to be talking with Jeremy Gerard. Who’s this? I’m into this idea, and I think you’re onto something in mentioning the contribution of the staging — and I would add Leslie Odom Jr.’s electrifying performance. The Best Song award could be shared by all the artists who made it what it is on stage, and in that way it wouldn’t just be Best Score Lite. The Oscars give Best Song and Best Score both to the writers, but in a film, a song and a score function differently, while in a musical, the score is the sum of the songs. Last season, my vote would have gone to “A Musical” from Something Rotten!, a perfect example of how multiple perfect elements can create a perfect musical theater number. Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick’s hilarious words and music, translated by Casey Nicholaw’s genius choreography and Gregg Barnes ever-changing costumes and brought to life by the extraordinary Brad Oscar and Brian D’Arcy James and a terrific tap-happy ensemble.
Speaking of which, if we’re adding categories, my vote goes to a new Tony for Best Ensemble.
And to your thought of inviting fans to vote, some of these additional categories are included in the audience choice awards conducted by other websites. It’s always interesting to see where the fan voters and the Tony voters agree and disagree. Some might say that exposes the divide between the art house and the mass market, but that distinction is less about aesthetics and more about the reality that you vote for what you’ve seen. By definition, more people have seen a popular show, so it’s more likely to win an award voted on by the audience. While there’s definitely an important place for fans choosing winners of some awards and maybe even a special Tony, the big win for fans is when they discover a new favorite show they didn’t know they’d love, after it wins a big award. Let’s call that “A Gentleman’s Guide to the Power of the Tonys.”
GERARD: Next subject: The season is over and the numbers are in, and no surprise, they’re good-not-great. Total box office revenue was flat compared with last year and audience numbers are down a bit. This also got me thinking about a subject rarely broached: Is the Broadway audience finite? The year-on-year attendance numbers suggest it’s at least consistent. So the question is, do more shows mean increase the chance of failure because the audience is spread too thin and there aren’t enough ticket-buyers to go around even if every show is a hit? Would fewer shows mean bigger audiences? These are the kinds of issues that come to mind in the run-up to the Tony races, when shows open and fall like dominoes in a predictable seasonal ritual.
ROTH: Ah, there’s the Jeremy I know and love, spinning negative. Attendance and grosses were neither flat nor down. They were both up a bit — attendance by 1.6% and grosses by 0.6% (not a huge number, but if it were negative 0.6%, you’d call it down not flat). I’m surprised you didn’t highlight that, for the first time in history, the average ticket price went down, by more than a dollar. Adding up all these numbers finally gives us the answer to how do we lower ticket prices and still keep Broadway healthy: by getting more people to come. And happily, we have. Over the last three years, attendance has increased an impressive 15%.
But to your question, yes the Broadway audience is finite. Not because there are just so many people who’ll ever come, but because there are a finite number of seats in our theaters. That’s the limit, but we’ve got a way to go till every seat for every show is filled. And we can work towards that through our outreach, through our pricing, and most importantly through our shows. The best marketing for a show is a show, and the more shows we present that speak to and reflect wider audiences, the wider our audience will become. Would fewer shows mean more seats filled for the others? On the whole, I don’t think so. There are certainly some shows that can hover as one of the choices a ticket buyer wants to see but never inch up to Number 1 to close the sale. This can be true for many long-running hits as they soften. But if audiences aren’t interested in seeing a show, having fewer other shows to chose from isn’t going to change that.The Hyperloop One boys are at it again. This time, the company is reportedly countersuing its co-founder and chief technology office Brogan BamBrogan for $250 million, claiming that he and three others tried to stage a hostile takeover and conspired to start their own company.
The countersuit comes one week after an explosive lawsuit was filed by BamBrogan and three other plaintiffs against Hyperloop One, claiming incidents of assault, defamation, wrongful termination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, and violation of California’s labor code.
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Hyperloop One is among the leading companies working to make Elon Musk’s futuristic Hyperloop transportation system a reality, and it grabbed headlines conducting public tests of its propulsion system.
The countersuit filed by Hyperloop One today refutes BamBrogan’s lawsuit claim-by-claim, and alleges that four employees referred to as the “Gang of Four” organized a rebellion against the other leaders in an attempt to overthrow the company.
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The lawsuit claims the “Gang of Four sowed the seeds of their illegal conspiracy” after learning that they would be terminated following disruptive misconduct.
The countersuit also refutes one the most damning allegations in BamBrogan’s original lawsuit: that the brother of board chair Shervin Pishevar, who worked as a lawyer for the company, walked into Hyperloop One’s office and placed a hangman’s noose on BamBrogan’s desk.
The company claims that it was just a lasso.
“[T]he Sham Complaint attempts to dramatize a workplace incident—a rope tied with a lasso knot, not a hangman’s knot, left on the desk where BamBrogan’s keeps his trademark cowboy hat—into a story about a threatening ‘hangman’s noose’ that is tabloid fodder and fiction,” the lawsuit says.
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“BamBrogan went so far as to file a reckless request for a restraining order—part of his publicity stunt aimed to gain leverage in this litigation—and the judge in that case summarily dismissed his request in a hearing that lasted less than one minute.”
Co-founder Shervin Pishevar and board member Joe Lonsdale announced they would reduce their voting shares to 20 percent each a few weeks ahead of the highly publicized lawsuit. Previously, they controlled a combined 78 percent of voting shares. The move was reportedly to “show goodwill toward employees.”
It’s still unclear if the countersuit was also intended to show goodwill toward employees, or if it was intended to send a message to the “gang of four” who are allegedly trying to hijack the company. Given the heaps of insane detail in both the original lawsuit and countersuit, it’s safe to say that this clusterfuck won’t be going away anytime soon.
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Update: Justin T. Berger, attorney for Brogan BamBrogan and three other plaintiffs, said in a statement: “Hyperloop One’s cross complaint goes beyond revisionist history—it’s pure fiction, and that will be shown by the evidence.”DHS Hiring 10,000 ICE Agents As 950,000 Illegals With Deportation Orders Remain in U.S.
DHS Authorizes Hiring More ICE Agents For Enforcement And Removal
The Department of Homeland Security has authorized the hiring of 10,000 additional ICE agents to help with enforcement and removal of illegal aliens according to a report from Breitbart.
The move to hire additional ICE agents was announced in a memo from Department of Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly.
From Breitbart:
Secretary Kelly ordered the director of ICE to immediately begin the process of hiring 10,000 to effectively enforce the immigration laws in the interior regions of the U.S., according to a DHS memo obtained by Breitbart Texas. In addition, Kelly authorized the agency to hire additional operational and mission support staff, along with legal staff. Kelly said the memo implements the Executive Order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” issued by President Trump on January 25.
The announcement to hire 10,000 additional ICE agents comes as a report was released by the Washington Examiner on Monday showing that nearly 950,000 illegals remain inside the U.S. with deportation orders.
From The Washington Examiner:
The 680 seized in recent sweeps by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents represent just.07 percent of the 950,062 with deportation orders as of May 21, 2016. Responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, provided by Thomas D. Homan, currently the acting ICE director, revealed the struggle the agency faces as it moves to deport illegals, many with criminal records and slapped with “final orders of removal” after exhausting their court appeals. He said that ICE has custody of just 11,006, or 1 percent, of the 950,062 ordered deported.
Follow Ryan Saavedra On Twitter @NewsRevoltRyanIt's Friday, which means it's time for PC Perspective's weekly mailbag, our video show where Ryan and team answer your questions about the tech industry, the latest and greatest hardware, the process of running a tech review website, and more!
Here's what you'll find on today's show:
00:32 - Successor to ATX design standard?
02:42 - 64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows gaming performance?
04:03 - What comes after Windows 10?
05:33 - How to save SLI and CrossFire?
07:59 - How does a CPU/GPU go from wafer to shipped product?
10:00 - The maturity of Ryzen since launch?
13:54 - Windows 7 security updates with Kaby Lake?
16:11 - Comparing new CPUs to older generations?
18:14 - Did Intel see Ryzen's good performance coming?
22:09 - Node shrinks and power usage?
24:21 - Gone fishin'?
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to make sure you never miss our weekly reviews and podcasts, and please consider supporting PC Perspective via Patreon to help us keep videos like our weekly mailbag coming!Wheldon won the marquee Indianapolis 500 race in 2005
British IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon has died following a massive accident at the Las Vegas Indy 300.
The Buckinghamshire-born star, 33, was one of 15 drivers involved in a crash at the second corner on lap 13 of the season-ending race.
Media playback is not supported on this device Race a recipe for disaster - Blundell
Wheldon, who began IndyCar racing in 2002, was series champion in 2005 and won the Indy 500 in 2005 and 2011.
He had been without a permanent race seat this season but was bidding to win a $5m jackpot by winning in Las Vegas.
The accident at the oval-shaped track happened when a number of cars came into contact on turn two, sending several of them airborne, smashing into the outside wall and catch fence. The cars were traveling at speeds of over 200mph.
WHELDON PROFILE Born: 22 June 1978
22 June 1978 IndyCar wins: 16
16 IndyCar champion: 2005
2005 Indy 500: 2005 & 2011
2005 & 2011 1999: Wins US F2000 Championship and is named 'Rookie of the Year'
Wins US F2000 Championship and is named 'Rookie of the Year' 2001: Wins CART Dayton Indy Lights 'Rookie of the Year' award
Wins CART Dayton Indy Lights 'Rookie of the Year' award 2002: Makes IndyCar debut with Panther Racing
Makes IndyCar debut with Panther Racing 2003: Named IndyCar 'Rookie of the Year' for Andretti Green Racing
Named IndyCar 'Rookie of the Year' for Andretti Green Racing 2004: Finishes season second
Finishes season second 2005: Wins the marquee Indianapolis 500 race, becoming the first Englishman to do so since Graham Hill in 1966
Wins the marquee Indianapolis 500 race, becoming the first Englishman to do so since Graham Hill in 1966 2005: Claims IndyCar drivers' championship in second full season
Claims IndyCar drivers' championship in second full season 2006: Finishes runner-up in championship after a tie-breaker
Finishes runner-up in championship after a tie-breaker 2009: Finishes second at Indianapolis 500 after starting from 18th
Finishes second at Indianapolis 500 after starting from 18th 2010: Comes second again at Indianapolis 500
Comes second again at Indianapolis 500 2011: Wins Indianapolis 500
With cars burning and debris littering the track, the race was red-flagged.
It was the first-ever death at the circuit in its 40-year history.
Wheldon was airlifted to the nearby University Medical Center where he was joined by his family - including his wife Susie and two young sons Sebastian and Oliver - but his death was announced to his fellow drivers in a meeting back at the track.
On Monday, Clark County coroner Michael Murphy announced that autopsy results showed Wheldon was killed by blunt trauma to the head.
It was the first IndyCar fatality since 2006, when Paul Dana was killed during the warm-up for the season-opening Toyota Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Wheldon had started the race at the back of the field and had made up 10 places in the first 12 laps before the crash.
IndyCar chief executive Randy Bernard said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
IndyCar bosses decided to end the Las Vegas race following the crash. Instead, the drivers took part in a five-lap salute, with Wheldon's number 77 the only number on the scoreboard.
Organisers also played the song Danny Boy, followed by Amazing Grace, as crew and mechanics stood around the track.
Media playback is not supported on this device Track was packed for Wheldon crash - Legard
Wheldon, who was driving for Sam Schmidt Motorsports on Sunday, had failed to secure a regular ride this season after being replaced by JR Hildebrand at the Panther Racing team.
Despite that, Wheldon put together a deal with Bryan Herta Autosport for the Indianapolis 500, a race he ended up winning after Hildebrand crashed going into the final turn.
Wheldon then took up Bernard's offer to pay $5m (£3.1m) to any non-regular series driver who won the season finale at Las Vegas.
There were 34 cars entered in the Las Vegas race - one more entry than was the case at the far bigger Indianapolis 500 circuit.
Earlier in the week, drivers had voiced concerns about speeds of close to 225mph being reached at the track during practice.
"I'll tell you, I've never seen anything like it," said driver Ryan Briscoe.
"The debris we all had to drive through the lap later, it looked like a war scene from Terminator or something. I mean, there were just pieces of metal and car on fire in the middle of the track... just debris everywhere."
Former IndyCar and Formula 1 driver Mark Blundell was at the circuit and witnessed the accident.
"IndyCar racing is dangerous," he told the BBC. "The difference [between IndyCar and Formula 1] is that you are running four cars wide, only inches apart from each other doing 220mph.
"When there is a problem, it normally turns out to be a big problem because a small error can be quite costly."
He was six years old when I first met him. Right now I'm numb and speechless. One minute you're joking around in driver intros and the next he's gone Dario Franchitti Scottish driver and friend
The Briton also suggested the Las Vegas track was not big enough for the number of cars - 34 - that were competing on Sunday.
Consequently, when there is an accident it can, he said, result in "something quite catastrophic".
He added: "That's what you saw today - 15 cars out in one go and unfortunately the loss of Dan Wheldon, a guy who was a huge talent.
"He never quite got to the upper echelons of Formula 1 but was very well-known and very well-respected.
"He was a very accomplished driver who still had a huge career in front of him. It's big loss to British motorsport."
The scrapping of the race meant Scotland's Dario Franchitti secured a third straight series crown, as title rival Will Power was also caught up in the accident.
But Franchitti's only thoughts were for Wheldon and the 38-year-old was in tears in his car before setting off on the five-lap salute.
"Right now I'm numb and speechless. One minute you're joking around in driver intros and the next he's gone," said Franchitti.
"He was six years old when I first met him. He was this little kid and the next thing you know he was my team-mate.
"We put so much pressure on ourselves to win races and championships and today it doesn't matter."A 23-year-old Texas man allegedly confessed to decapitating his 21-year-old wife before putting her head into their freezer, PEOPLE confirms.
A Bellmead police spokesman tells PEOPLE David Dauzat was arrested on Thursday morning following an alleged brief standoff with officers.
On Thursday, officers from several surrounding towns descended on Bellmead Thursday morning. Soon after setting up a perimeter around Dauzat’s mobile home, authorities made contact with the young father, who barricaded himself inside his mobile home with his two young children, ages 1 and 2.
Ultimately, authorities convinced Dauzat to surrender, after which he allegedly emerged covered in blood, the spokesman says.
The children are now in the state’s custody, according to police spokesman.
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As he was being handcuffed, Dauzat allegedly confessed to killing his wife, Natasha Dauzat, the spokesman says.
He is being held at the McLennan County Jail on $500,000 bond, charged with one count of murder. He has yet to enter a plea and it was unclear Friday if he had a lawyer.
The police spokesman says authorities are still trying to establish a motive.Neither of the men standing before the Baltimore Liquor Board looking for permission to reopen “Kings and Diamonds,” a strip club on The Block that had been shut down for more than 90 days, was actually its owner.
Licensees Roberto Silva and Mustafa Jackson each had 0% financial interest in the club, at 414-16 East Baltimore Street, according to the paperwork before Commissioner Aaron J. Greenfield.
“Is anyone here who is an owner?” asked Greenfield.
Pointing to an imposing bald man who had been in the back of the room, Silva said, “Right there: Mr. Jackson.”
“Why wouldn’t he have come up?” Commissioner Dana Moore said under her breath, as Jackson made his way to the microphone.
A quick Google search might have turned up the likely answer.
A felon turned businessman, Kenneth Antonio “Kenny Bird” Jackson is said to have inspired plot lines on the HBO series The Wire, about Baltimore and its drug trade, and a major character in the series, Stringer Bell.
Convictions including manslaughter, theft and drug possession, a murder charge resulting in acquittal at trial, allegations of political influence-buying, a number of Liquor Board violations at strip clubs he has operated, including the Eldorado Lounge that the city purchased to make way for Westside redevelopment – Jackson’s lengthy Wikipedia page and decades of news stories document his notoriety in detail.
There was no mention of any of this on Thursday, as the three-member board voted unanimously to give Jackson permission to re-open the club with licenses for liquor and adult entertainment.
“I brought [Silva] in along with my son,” Jackson said, referring to Mustafa Jackson, who was standing at his side. “They’re actually going to be running and operating the club.”
“We’re not going to have adult entertainment all the time – that’s not the way we’re going to market it,” Jackson told the commissioners.
“We want to have the ability to use that [adult entertainment license], but that’s not what we want to do every day,” he explained.
Loophole in the Law
State law prohibits those convicted of a felony from holding a liquor license, but there is no prohibition against them owning a business that sells or serves alcoholic beverages.
It’s a large loophole, according to Becky Lundberg Witt, staff attorney for the Community Law Center.
“I’m sure this has happened multiple times before,” Witt said, noting that a liquor business can have multiple owners, but only put the three “cleanest” ones on the license.
“It’s just such a glaring example in this case,” she said. “I mean, it wasn’t that hard for me to find out about Jackson’s history. What is the commissioners’ responsibility for ensuring that the ownership of a club is clean?”
Commissioner Moore, an attorney who has been acting as spokesperson for the commissioners, said she knew nothing about Jackson’s history.
“None of the paperwork we received had his name on it,” she told The Brew, adding that she would be looking into the matter.
Documents on file with the Liquor Board for Kings and Diamonds list Silva and Mustafa Jackson as licensees. The elder Jackson and a person named William Shepherd, who was not at the hearing, are listed as each owning 50% of the business.
“So you’re not on the license, right?” Moore said Thursday, pointing to Kenneth Jackson. “And you don’t own the building?”
“No,” he answered to both. “I own the company.”
Liquor Board rules require that each licensee be an owner and operator of the business, a provision that Witt says the commissioners have only been enforcing recently.
How, then, could they allow the club’s two young sole licensees to have no ownership in the business?
Silva said Thursday he will be buying Shepherd’s 50% share.
“He’s out,” Kenneth Jackson added.
“My Good Friend Larry”
Describing himself as a Baltimore native who has been working as a DJ in Washington in recent years, Silva told the commissioners he envisions the club as an “upscale” venue for an urban clientele.
“We need someplace downtown that feels safe, that is clean, that is not just... some rinky-dink place,” he said.
At one point, Silva mentioned “my good friend Larry,” and Moore asked him who he was referring to.
Larry Young, the former city senator-turned radio talk show host, was the person he was speaking of, Silva said.
It’s a reference that harks back to the 1990s when Young, the a state senator, backed a controversial liquor license application for the Royal Cafe, a jazz club and restaurant.
Questions were raised after the licensee could not explain how the project, in the former Sons of Italy building, was to be financed,and Jackson was reported to be the person planning to operate it.
The Eldorado
Questions of political influence were also raised years ago about the sale of the Eldorado Lounge, a strip club operated by the Jackson family on the west side in an area slated by City Hall for redevelopment.
“The city paid the Jacksons $450,000 for the building and, later, $250,000 more to settle a lawsuit brought by the Jacksons that alleged the city reneged on a deal to move the club near The Block,” according to a 2001 Baltimore Sun story. “City officials abandoned the plan after questions were raised about the move’s legality and the location’s appropriateness.”
(One Season 5 Wire plot line has a fictional city council president reacting angrily to newspaper stories about the sale of a strip-club property owned by a drug dealer named Fat Face Rick.)
These days, the Eldorado Lounge, located at 4100 East Lombard Street, is the address of Four One Four LLC, the corporate entity associated with Kings and Diamonds, which lists Kenneth Jackson as the registered agent.
Through LLCs, Jackson has contributed to the campaign funds of a number of city and state officials, including Larry Young, former mayor Sheila Dixon, former Councilman William “Pete” Welch, state Senator Nathaniel T. Oakes (indicted on corruption charges last month), state Sen. Joan Carter Conway and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young.
In the most recent election cycle, for example, he gave the Young campaign $1,500 through his Four One Four group.Get the biggest Weekday Leicester City 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
Leicester City defender Robert Huth will be out of action for up to two months after undergoing ankle surgery.
Huth picked up a problem in the early stages of pre-season and is missing from City’s squad at the Premier League Asia Trophy in Hong Kong after having minor surgery.
Manager Craig Shakespeare said they had feared the diagnosis could have been worse for the German.
Leicester City transfer news: Riyad Mahrez ready to take pay cut as Roma prepare €30m second bid
"Robert reported back for pre-season and got into some discomfort with his ankle,” he said at a press conference in the Hyatt Hotel in Hong Kong ahead of tomorrow’s first pre-season friendly against West Bromwich Albion.
“He's had an operation and thankfully it was successful.
“We have had some more positive news on it. We are expected six to eight weeks.
“It is unfortunate for Robert but we thought the diagnoses could be worse so on a positive spin we think in six to eight weeks he will be back.”Illustration: Michael Mucci As we know, Tony Abbott once described himself as a "weather vane" on climate change; the winds that blow him about are political. Otherwise why would he classify coal as good and wind farms as bad? Do rocks and wind turbines have moral qualities? This is not about an open minded examination of energy markets. Like all of this government's big decisions, it's about ideology and politics. If you want to understand the frenetic claim and counter-claim you're going to hear on this subject, you'll find this simple, two-point guide indispensable. The political rubric is:
1. If the argument is decided mainly on climate or environment considerations, Labor wins. 2. If it's decided mainly on electricity prices, the Coalition wins. So Labor will be telling us that we have to deal with dangerous climate change; it will promote its ambition to increase Australia's renewable energy share to 50per cent over the next 15 years. And the government will be telling us that it is dealing responsibly with climate change, while Labor's plan would be a giant wrecking ball shattering the economy. The winner is not the one who can provide the best answer. It's the one who can set the question. If the election is a referendum on the environment, Labor wins. If it's a referendum on electricity prices, the government wins. That's why Abbott opened the week with his Sunday message trying to set the terms for the campaign to come. "Under this government, Australia will continue to make a strong and responsible contribution to the global effort to address climate change, but we'll do this without sacrificing jobs or prosperity."
As the first half of this statement implies, the government's first task is to neutralise the environmental angle, to defeat the charge that it's doing nothing about climate change. It will do this by announcing a carbon emissions target similar to Canada's. The Canadian plan is, as ANU's climate change economist Frank Jotzo says, "the lowest denominator, less than the US target, but with an economy comparable to Australia's". The current pledges by some of the major developed countries, expressed as emissions reduction targets for 2025 using the starting point of 2005: the US is pledging to cut by 26-28per cent, the EU by 23 per cent, Britain by 41per cent and Canada by 24per cent. Using a later end point, Canada's target is also expressed as a 30per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2030.
The defensive work done, Abbott then moves to the offensive – attacking Labor. You could see the opening salvo in this assault on the front page of the Daily Telegraph on Monday with its banner headline: "ALP's $600billion Carbon Bill". The subheading: "Power bills up 78per cent". These startling figures are based on modelling commissioned by Labor, so it must be true, no? ANU's Jotzo: "I went into the spreadsheet they used to get these numbers. The modelling had a high, central and low price scenario. "They've taken the high price scenario. Then they've presented everything in cumulative and nominal terms, not in real terms. "Presenting the future in today's dollar's makes no sense whatsoever unless you want to make the numbers look bigger."
It's propaganda, naturally. Abbott is trusting that his scare campaign of 2011-13 will be as potent today as it was then. Public confidence in Bill Shorten's Labor is about as high as it is in Abbott's government, so this campaign might yet work. But much has changed since Abbott electricity scare Mark 1. First, the electorate knows that last scare campaign was just that. Labor's carbon tax came and went; the economy grew unhindered. Second, the energy market has changed dramatically, and is about to change even more dramatically. You won't hear Abbott pointing out that all Australia's coal-fired electricity generators are scheduled to be retired over the next 10 years.
You won't hear him saying what Moody's credit rating agency said in its Monday report on the coal sector: "Coal remains a main fuel source for electricity production worldwide, but the concerted efforts by large coal-importing nations – including the US, China and Japan – to move towards renewable sources and natural gas continue to reduce demand for coal." Or even citing last week's speech by his Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, pointing out that China's imports of coal declined by 37.5per cent year on year in the first six months of this year. Or the International Energy Agency's point that the price of a solar system has "been divided by three in six years in most markets, while module prices have been divided by five". So, costs fell by a factor of three in six years, and the agency expects it to halve again by 2030. But never mind the facts. This is politics. Peter Hartcher is international editor.Jose Manuel Barroso intervened in the Scottish independence debate "because he wants to become secretary general of Nato", a French MP has claimed.
Socialist Axelle Lemaire said it was "clearly tactical" for the European Commission president to suggest it would be "difficult if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the EU.
The deputy - dubbed the "MP for Paris-on-Thames" because her northern Europe constitency includes so many British-based voters - is just the latest continental politician to question Mr Barroso's remarks, made on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show last month.
Visiting Scotland, Ms Lemaire said: "It is extremely important to remain neutral and respect the independence debate.
"President Barroso of the European Commission got involved in the debate and give his view on behalf of the member states, which haven't said anything. I thought it was not correct.
"It is clearly tactical because he wants to become secretary general of Nato and he thinks that having the support of Britain for the nomination is a good thing. I take the opposite view, which is that I should not get involved."
Brussels spin doctors sought to qualify Mr Barroso's remarks almost as soon as he made them, especially his comparison of Scotland with the former Serbian province of Kosovo, which has never been recognised by anti-separatist states such as Spain or Ukraine.
Earlier this month Joelle Garriaud-Maylam, a senator from the opposite side of French politics from Ms Lemaire, also attacked the EC president.
Speaking in the Senate, she said: "The threats formulated by Mr Barroso are inappropriate and the result of Spanish and English pressure. London is increasingly worried. They (the threats) are not credible. If Scotland votes for independence, it will stay in the European Union. It would |
the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect. If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.
President Obama has finally stepped up in the net neutrality battle, calling on the FCC to reclassify broadband as Title II, with forbearance, to create strongnet neutrality rules. Here's the key bit:He also encourages the following setup, while acknowledging that the FCC is independent and can create whatever rules it wants.The White House has also released the following video of President Obama discussing this:Make sure not to miss the first few seconds of the video, in which the White House appears to acknowledge the "internet slowdown day" with a mock buffering image:Many people engaged in the net neutrality fight had been annoyed at President Obama for not taking a strong stand on net neutrality -- a promise he had campaigned on. Instead, the White House was pretty quiet about things, and President Obama made a bunch of vague, non-committal statements about it. Making a clear and bold proclamation supporting reclassifying under Title II (with the important forbearance) is a big step forward. It won't sway Republicans who have fought against Title II from the beginning, but it may finally give folks who had been wavering and playing a political game of not fully supporting Title II in the past the political cover they need. And that includes those at the "independent" FCC...This won't necessarily change the end result here, but this is a big win for net neutrality supporters who had been feeling abandoned, and certainly provides some political support to full reclassification to protect an open internet. It could have and should have come much earlier, but better late than never.
Filed Under: barack obama, broadband, fcc, forbearance, net neutrality, open internet, president obama, prioritization, reclassification, title iiMichele Anderson (R) in Seattle, Washington in this January 10, 2008 file photo. REUTERS/Marcus R. Donner
(Reuters) - A Washington state woman was found guilty on Friday of murdering six family members during a Christmas Eve gathering in 2007 after a dispute over money, prosecutors and a newspaper said.
Michele Anderson, 37, of Carnation, was convicted on six counts of aggravated first-degree murder, the King County prosecuting attorney’s office said on its Facebook page.
The Seattle Times reported the King County Superior Court jury found Anderson guilty of gunning down her brother, sister-in-law, their two children, ages 5 and 3, and her parents in the parents’ home.
Anderson will spend the rest of her life in prison, the newspaper said.
Anderson’s former boyfriend, Joseph McEnroe, was convicted almost a year ago in the murders and was sentenced to six life terms.
The jury heard testimony from 38 prosecution witnesses during the five-week trial. Anderson’s defense team rested its case without calling any witnesses.
Detectives said Anderson and McEnroe provided lengthy confessions, the Seattle Times said. Anderson was angry with her brother for refusing to pay back $40,000 she told investigators he borrowed from her.
Trial testimony showed that she was angry at her parents for taking her brother’s side and for asking that she and McEnroe start paying rent, and for utilities and car insurance, after living rent-free in a mobile home on the parents’ property, the newspaper said.
Prosecutors could not be reached immediately for details.Researchers at Mayo Clinic have shown that senescent cells -- cells that no longer divide and accumulate with age -- negatively impact health and shorten lifespan by as much as 35 percent in normal mice. The results, which appear today in Nature, demonstrate that clearance of senescent cells delays tumor formation, preserves tissue and organ function, and extends lifespan without observed adverse effects.
"Cellular senescence is a biological mechanism that functions as an 'emergency brake' used by damaged cells to stop dividing," says Jan van Deursen, Ph.D., Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular biology at Mayo Clinic, and senior author of the paper. "While halting cell division of these cells is important for cancer prevention, it has been theorized that once the 'emergency brake' has been pulled, these cells are no longer necessary."
The immune system sweeps out the senescent cells on a regular basis, but over time becomes less effective. Senescent cells produce factors that damage adjacent cells and cause chronic inflammation, which is closely associated with frailty and age-related diseases.
Mayo Clinic researchers used a transgene that allowed for the drug-induced elimination of senescent cells from normal mice. Upon administration of a compound called AP20187, removal of senescent cells delayed the formation of tumors and reduced age-related deterioration of several organs. Median lifespan of treated mice was extended by 17 to 35 percent. They also demonstrated a healthier appearance and a reduced amount of inflammation in fat, muscle and kidney tissue.
"Senescent cells that accumulate with aging are largely bad, do bad things to your organs and tissues, and therefore shorten your life but also the healthy phase of your life," says Dr. van Deursen. "And since you can eliminate the cells without negative side effects, it seems like therapies that will mimic our findings -- or our genetic model that we used to eliminate the cells -- like drugs or other compounds that can eliminate senescent cells would be useful for therapies against age-related disabilities or diseases or conditions."
Darren Baker, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at Mayo Clinic, and first author on the study is also optimistic about the potential implications of the study for humans.
"The advantage of targeting senescent cells is that clearance of just 60-70 percent can have significant therapeutic effects," says Dr. Baker. "If translatable, because senescent cells do not proliferate rapidly, a drug could efficiently and quickly eliminate enough of them to have profound impacts on healthspan and lifespan."Occupy activists have staged a protest over "fat cat pay" on the roof of a central London building.
After meeting in Piccadilly Circus at around 3pm on Wednesday afternoon after the end of the main TUC-organised march to protest against public sector pension reforms, around 200 activists including a steel band made their way through London's theatre district towards an undisclosed location.
Guided by a red flare, the head of the march suddenly entered Panton House, the headquarters of mining giant Xstrata, which occupies the third and fourth floors of the five-storey building. Activists beckoned the crowd forward into the building, which was not guarded.
According to Xstrata's annual report its CEO, Mick Davis, received a pay and free share package worth £17.7m in the last financial year.
More than 40 activists streamed into the building and raced up the stairs on to all floors. Inside, chants were raised against high pay. Police including territorial support group officers arrived within minutes to evict them.
Protesters made their way on to the roof, while below officers blocked the entrance and managed to evacuate the rest of the building. Smoke bombs were also set off which tripped the building's fire alarms.
Currently protesters have been encircled by police on the ground floor of the building and activists appear to be continuing their protest within the containment area.
Another 20 protesters remained on the roof, and police officers were in attendance attempting to get them down.
Many activists left the area soon after the action. Around 45 remained and are currently kettled. One of the activists inside the kettle who only wanted to be known as Morden said: "I'm here because the public sector is getting cut. All the people who are getting hurt by them are the poorest in the country. All the people who don't suffer are the bankers and the rich people."
In a press release Karen Lincoln, a supporter of Occupy London, said: "Mick Davis is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets. In this time when the government enforces austerity on the 99%, these executives are profiting. The rest of us are having our pensions cut, health service torn apart and youth centres shut down. We refuse to stand by and let this happen."After hovering between 2,000 and 7,000 votes behind since Election Day, Arizona's medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 203, went from 3,000 votes behind on Wednesday night, to 1,500 Thursday night, and at the time of this writing was just 724 votes shy of the lead.
Ballot counting continues until Tuesday, 11/16. The remaining ballots are a mix of late mail-ins (people who voted early by mail, but at the last minute) and provisional ballots (votes cast, but for which the voters' eligibility could not be documented on Election Day), but most are provisional. According to the Secretary of State's office they are from Maricopa County, the largest part of the state, and more conservative on average than the state as a whole. However, Maricopa ballots also were likely among the ones counted over the last two days.If provisional voters across the state are a skewed sample relative to Arizona voters as a whole -- for example, some have speculated that members of the relatively less motivated Democratic voter base were activated by late get out the vote efforts -- then the remaining ballots could also skew the same way that the last two days worth have. If so, Prop 203 will pass.In any case, with just 724 votes making the difference between the current yes and no count, it could go either way, or it could end up within a margin of 200 and go to a recount. Proposition 203 is very much in play after all.Budget airline woos customers after Michael O'Leary concedes it needs to stop 'unnecessarily pissing people off'
Ryanair has halved its excess baggage fee to €10 (£8.37) a kilo in its latest attempt to appease customers frustrated and angry with its additional charges and reputation for abrasive service.
The budget airline said it was giving customers an "early Christmas present", following the admission from Ryanair's outspoken chief executive, Michael O'Leary, that the company needed to change its culture after shareholders said the airline's "macho" image was harming business.
O'Leary conceded the airline should take a softer approach and stop "unnecessarily pissing people off".
Ryanair said it had also tried to improve its service by launching a new website and introducing a 24-hour grace period for minor booking errors, and it will be reducing airport bag fees from 3 January and introducing allocated seating on all flights from 1 February.
The company has also brought in "quiet flights" between 9pm and 8am, with no public announcements made on flights other than required safety notices.
Robin Kiely, Ryanair's head of communications, said: "Christmas is traditionally a time when people travel with lots of baggage. As an early Christmas present to our customers, Ryanair is cutting excess baggage fees by 50%.
"We want to say a very sincere thank you to our 81 million passengers and wish them all a very happy Christmas."Story highlights Analyst says Zuckerberg showed "immaturity" by wearing hoodie to New York meetings
The Facebook CEO has been courting Wall Street investors in casual wear
The comments suggest a culture clash between Silicon Valley and Wall Street
Blogger: If hoodies mean billions of dollars, keep wearing them
Facebook has raked in billions and will make a splash when its stock hits the open market next week. So, what are folks on Wall Street concerned about?
Mark Zuckerberg's hoodie, apparently.
Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg that the Facebook CEO's decision to show up for a meeting with potential investors dressed down in his trademark casual outerwear suggests that he's too immature to run a massive corporation.
"He's actually showing investors he doesn't care that much; he's going to be him," Pachter said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. "I think that's a mark of immaturity.
"I think that he has to realize he's bringing investors in as a new constituency right now, and I think he's got to show them the respect that they deserve because he's asking them for their money."
JUST WATCHED IPO process like being a 'rock star' Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH IPO process like being a 'rock star' 02:24
JUST WATCHED Facebook 'roadshow' begins today Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Facebook 'roadshow' begins today 02:37
Pachter went on to say that Zuckerberg might be a better product manager or designer than CEO.
Needless to say, the tech world got a good laugh out of it all.
The Next Web led with this not-so-subtle headline: "Odd analyst mocks Zuck's hoodie, ironically sounding stupid in a suit while doing so."
In the article, Michael Wilhelm notes that if Zuckerberg had shown up in a suit, it could actually have signaled that Facebook was moving away from its winning formula, which could spook employees (and presumably investors) who like the way things run now.
"And finally: 'he's going to be him, and he's going to do what he's always done,'" Wilhelm writes. "That's to say that he's going to build a $100 billion business and change the world? That's what the hoodie signifies? Well then, I think that he shouldn't take it off at all costs!"
"This analyst is smoking stuff that is outside the realm of legality," he wrote. "Now if you were looking for a problem with Zuckerberg's hoodie, then you should see it for what it really is: a fashion abomination."
And Box CEO Aaron Levie weighed in on Twitter: "Yahoo CEO: No hoodie; AOL CEO: No hoodie; Facebook CEO: hoodie. Coincidence?"
It's not like Zuck doesn't know how to clean up. He donned a coat and tie last year when he and other technology luminaries had dinner with President Obama, and wore a suit a few months later when Obama visited Facebook for a town hall event.
In fact, he bucked the Valley Casual look for an entire year not so long ago. On his Facebook Timeline, Zuckerberg wrote that, in 2009, he wore a tie every day.
"After the start of the recession in 2008, I wanted to signal to everyone at Facebook that this was a serious year for us," he wrote. "Great companies thrive by investing more heavily while everyone else is cutting back during a recession. But great companies also make sure they're financially strong and sustainable.
"My tie was the symbol of how serious and important a year this was, and I wore it every day to show this."
Maybe Zuckerberg, sitting on the verge of a blockbuster stock offering, no longer feels the need to prove himself.There are not enough academic jobs vacant in Australia each year to employ all our PhD graduates.
This imbalance risks training an increasing numbers of doctoral students on a promise that cannot be fulfilled: that is future academic employment.
We need to accept a hard truth that Australia needs to rethink the design of the PhD and the expectations around it, or radically reduce intake to doctoral programs.
In 2015, Australia graduated over 10,000 postgraduate research students – the vast majority of these were doctoral students. There were over 65,000 research higher degree students enrolled at Australian universities last year with most full or part time PhD students.
The number of PhDs in Australia will continue to grow. Enrolments in higher degrees have increased by almost half since 2001, and although much of this has been through more international doctoral students, domestic student numbers continue to grow year on year.
Most of these PhD graduates do not end up in a career of teaching or research at a university, or even teaching or research somewhere else.
There are currently over 50,000 staff employed in full-time or fixed-term academic roles in Australian universities. The number of positions vacant each year is nowhere near enough to accommodate even a small proportion of new Australia PhD graduates, let alone those who completed in prior years.
If the majority of PhD students, then, do not end up in ongoing academic employment, are designs for doctoral program right? Are student expectations realistic if they enter the degree with aspirations for a teaching and research career as many, perhaps most, do?
The Australian government recently accepted the excellent report from ACOLA on doctoral training. This looks at many of these challenges. There are broad issues related to research training and the academic workforce that the sector must now face.
Rethinking the PhD
There is a real need to think about the prospect of academic employment for PhD graduates. Much of the teaching in Australian higher education is delivered by sessional staff at universities.
Australian universities now depend on sessional teachers, short-contract researchers and other casualised and fixed-term staff to operate.
Many universities wouldn’t be viable without these staff. But for most academics, sessional employment is not a replacement for an ongoing position, offering little in the way of development of career progression.
Sessional work itself is not a problem unless it shows that many doctoral graduates find this as their only option. Or if it shows that students are being set up with unrealistic expectations of their future prospects for permanent academic employment.
We risk an unsustainable academic Ponzi scheme. This is not just an Australian trend, the US faces a similar challenge for large numbers of sessional staff.
But thinking through doctoral programs is more than just about managing PhD candidate expectations.
It is about doctoral training in a mode which combines the apprenticeship model, learning how to research, with more formal components of the other areas of learning that work in non-academic environments.
They need to be able to leverage the broad range of skills acquired through doctoral training, such as project management and strong writing skills.
Many students contribute as junior researchers to projects. This is critical to student research training and the overall research effort. However, to ensure they finish their degree with the right skills set will likely require a more diverse set of experiences and training. We need to avoid at worst viewing PhD students as a cheap research workforce.
Redesigning the PhD in Australia is a big task. It requires an ongoing discussion about enrolling such a large cohort of doctoral students who will not work in academia.
In an age of the innovation economy and government focus on thinking past the mining boom, there is much to be said for doctoral trained workers.
They are a great national resource to be celebrated, where time spent in PhD research is recognised for the skills developed beyond an area of deep expertise.
But the decisions we make now about how we train PhDs will be with Australia for a long time. If we don’t change, we need to consider training fewer of them.Based on hair color, who do you think has the most sex in the city? (Photo: Courtesy)
When you think about your hair in relation to sex, it’s usually about things like whether your guy should pull it more often. Turns out the actual color of your locks might have an interesting association with sex that you may not have expected. Heads-up, blondies: You all are apparently having the most sex (and, it stands to reason, the most fun), according to data from Match.com. Can’t say I’d look good as a blond, but I’m tempted to go to a salon and pull a Kimmy K all the same.
Match.com crunched some of the numbers in their Singles in America survey of almost 6,000 people. One of the most enlightening results is that 27 percent of single blond women think about sex several times a week, compared with 24 percent of brown-haired women and 22 percent of black-haired women.
Related: 10 Ways to Seduce Your Man in Seconds
Single blond women are also more likely than women with other hair colors to have tried a one-night stand on for size. Here are the specific stats of how many women with different hair colors have had one-night flings:
60 percent of blonds
58 percent of red-haired women
51 percent of brown-haired women
48 percent of other-haired women
44 percent of gray-haired women
43 percent of black-haired women
35 percent of white-haired women
Related: What Men Really Think About Your Lingerie
Lastly, single blond women have racked up more sexual partners than women with other hair colors. Here are the exact numbers of average partners:
Blond hair: 10.1
Red hair: 9.4
Gray hair: 8.9
Other colors: 8.8
White hair: 8.5
Black hair: 8.2
Brown hair: 7.8
Of course it’s important to note that this study doesn’t imply causation, so it’s not necessarily that having blond hair makes women have more sex or one-night stands. It is, however, an interesting link that I’d like to learn more about. Scientists, get on that please, will you?
Based on your hair color, do these results make sense to you?
By Zahra Barnes
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10 Things He’s Thinking When You’re Naked
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62 Brand-New Wedding Dresses to Swoon Over
27 Cringeworthy Fashion DON’TsThe militarization of U.S. foreign policy certainly didn’t start with President Donald J. Trump; in fact, it goes back several decades. However, if Trump’s first 100 days in office are any indication, he has no intention of slowing down the trend.
During a single week in April, the Trump administration fired 59 Tomahawk missiles into a Syrian airfield, and dropped the largest bomb in the U.S. arsenal on suspected ISIS tunnels in Afghanistan. This 21,600-pound incendiary percussion device that had never been used in combat—the Massive Ordinance Air Blast or MOAB, colloquially known as the “Mother of All Bombs”—was used in the Achin district of Afghanistan, where Special Forces Staff Sergeant Mark De Alencar had been killed a week earlier. (The bomb was tested only twice, at Elgin Air Base, Florida, in 2003.)
To underscore the new administration’s preference for force over diplomacy, the decision to experiment with the explosive power of the mega-bomb was taken unilaterally by General John Nicholson, the commanding general of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. In praising that decision, Pres. Trump declared that he had given “total authorization” to the U.S. military to conduct whatever missions they wanted, anywhere in the world—which presumably means without consulting the interagency national security committee.
It is also telling that Pres. Trump chose generals for two key national security positions traditionally filled by civilians: the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor. Yet three months into his administration, he has left unfilled hundreds of senior civilian governmental positions at State, Defense and elsewhere.
An Increasingly Shaky Ban
While Pres. Trump has not yet enunciated a policy on the subject of political assassinations, there has so far been no indication that he plans to change the practice of relying on drone killings established by his recent predecessors.
Back in 1976, however, President Gerald Ford set a very different example when he issued his Executive Order 11095. This proclaimed that “No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”
He instituted this prohibition after investigations by the Church Committee (the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho) and the Pike Committee (its House counterpart, chaired by Rep. Otis G. Pike, D-N.Y.) had revealed the extent of the Central Intelligence Agency’s assassination operations against foreign leaders in the 1960s and 1970s.
With a few exceptions, the next several presidents upheld the ban. But in 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered an attack on Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s home in Tripoli, in retaliation for the bombing of a nightclub in Berlin that killed a U.S. serviceman and two German citizens and injured 229. In just 12 minutes, American planes dropped 60 tons of U.S. bombs on the house, though they failed to kill Gaddafi.
Twelve years later, in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered the firing of 80 cruise missiles on al-Qaida facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan, in retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Clinton administration justified the action by asserting that the proscription against assassination did not cover individuals whom the U.S. government had determined were connected to terrorism.
Days after al-Qaida carried out its Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush signed an intelligence “finding” allowing the Central Intelligence Agency to engage in “lethal covert operations” to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy his terrorist network. White House and CIA lawyers argued that this order was constitutional on two grounds. First, they embraced the Clinton administration’s position that E.O. 11905 did not preclude the United States’ taking action against terrorists. More sweepingly, they declared that the ban on political assassination did not apply during wartime.
Send in the Drones
The Bush administration’s wholesale rejection of the ban on targeted killing or political assassinations reversed a quarter-century of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy. It also opened the door to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct targeted killings (a euphemism for assassinations).
The U.S. Air Force had been flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), since the 1960s, but only as unmanned surveillance platforms. Following 9/11, however, the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency weaponized “drones” (as they were quickly dubbed) to kill both leaders and foot soldiers of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The United States set up bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan for that purpose, but after a series of drone attacks that killed civilians, including a large group gathered for a wedding, the Pakistani government ordered in 2011 that the U.S. drones and U.S. military personnel be removed from its Shamsi Air Base. However, targeted assassinations continued to be conducted in Pakistan by drones based outside the country.
In 2009, President Barack Obama picked up where his predecessor had left off. As public and congressional concern increased about the use of aircraft controlled by CIA and military operators located 10,000 miles away from the people they were ordered to kill, the White House was forced to officially acknowledge the targeted killing program and to describe how persons became targets of the program.
Instead of scaling the program back, however, the Obama administration doubled down. It essentially designated all military-age males in a foreign strike zone as combatants, and therefore potential targets of what it termed “signature strikes.” Even more disturbing, it declared that strikes aimed at specific, high-value terrorists, known as “personality strikes,” could include American citizens.
That theoretical possibility soon became a grim reality. In April 2010, Pres. Obama authorized the CIA to “target” Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and a former imam at a Virginia mosque, for assassination. Less than a decade before, the Office of the Secretary of the Army had invited the imam to participate in an interfaith service following 9/11. But al-Awlaki later became an outspoken critic of the “war on terror,” moved to his father’s homeland of Yemen, and helped al-Qaida recruit members.
"The Bush administration’s wholesale rejection of the ban on targeted killing opened the door to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct targeted killings."
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On Sept. 30, 2011, a drone strike killed al-Awlaki and another American, Samir Khan—who was traveling with him in Yemen. U.S. drones killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al- Awlaki, an American citizen, 10 days later in an attack on a group of young men around a campfire. The Obama administration never made clear whether the 16-year-old son was targeted individually because he was al-Awlaki’s son or if he was the victim of a “signature” strike, fitting the description of a young militaryage male. However, during a White House press conference, a reporter asked Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs how he could defend the killings, and especially the death of a U.S.-citizen minor who was “targeted without due process, without trial.”
Gibbs’ response did nothing to help the U.S. image in the Muslim world: “I would suggest that you should have had a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al-Qaida jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”
On Jan. 29, 2017, al-Awlaki’s 8-year-old daughter, Nawar al-Awlaki, was killed in a U.S. commando attack in Yemen ordered by Obama’s successor, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the media continued to report incidents of civilians being killed in drone strikes across the region, which frequently target wedding parties and funerals. Many inhabitants of the region along the Afghan-Pakistan border could hear the buzz of drones circling their area around the clock, causing psychological trauma for all those who live in the area, especially children.
The Obama administration was strongly criticized for the tactic of “double-tap”—hitting a target home or vehicle with a Hellfire missile, and then firing a second missile into the group that came to the aid of those who had been wounded in the first attack. Many times, those who ran to help rescue persons trapped inside collapsed buildings or flaming cars were local citizens, not militants.
An Increasingly Counterproductive Tactic
The rationale traditionally offered for using drones is that they eliminate the need for “boots on the ground”—whether members of the armed forces or CIA paramilitary personnel—in dangerous environments, thereby preventing loss of U.S. lives. U.S. officials also claim that the intelligence UAVs gather through lengthy surveillance makes their strikes more precise, reducing the number of civilian casualties. (Left unsaid, but almost certainly another powerful motivator, is the fact that the use of drones means that no suspected militants would be taken alive, thus avoiding the political and other complications of detention.)
Even if these claims are true, however, they do not address the impact of the tactic on U.S. foreign policy. Of broadest concern is the fact that drones allow presidents to punt on questions of war and peace by choosing an option that appears to offer a middle course, but actually has a variety of long-term consequences for U.S. policy, as well as for the communities on the receiving end.
By taking the risk of loss of U.S. personnel out of the picture, Washington policymakers may be tempted to use force to resolve a security dilemma rather than negotiating with the parties involved. Moreover, by their very nature, UAVs may be more likely to provoke retaliation against America than conventional weapons systems. To many in the Middle East and South Asia, drones represent a weakness of the U.S. government and its military, not a strength. Shouldn’t brave warriors fight on the ground, they ask, instead of hiding behind a faceless drone in the sky, operated by a young person in a chair many thousands of miles away?
"Drones allow presidents to punt on questions of war and peace by choosing an option that appears to offer a middle course, but actually has a variety of long-term consequences for U.S. policy."
Since 2007, at least 150 NATO personnel have been the victims of “insider attacks” by members of the Afghan military and national police forces being trained by the coalition. Many of the Afghans who commit such “green on blue” killings of American personnel, both uniformed and civilian, are from the tribal regions on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan where U.S. drone strikes have focused. They take revenge for the deaths of their families and friends by killing their U.S. military trainers.
Anger against drones has surfaced in the United States as well. On May 1, 2010, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square. In his guilty plea, Shahzad justified targeting civilians by telling the judge, “When the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children; they kill everybody. They’re killing all Muslims.”
As of 2012 the U.S. Air Force was recruiting more drone pilots than pilots for traditional aircraft—between 2012 and 2014, they planned to add 2,500 pilots and support people to the drone program. That is nearly twice the number of diplomats the State Department hires in a two-year period.
Congressional and media concern over the program led to the Obama administration’s acknowledgment of the regular Tuesday meetings led by the president to identify targets for the assassination list. In the international media, “Terror Tuesdays” became an expression of U.S. foreign policy.
Not Too Late
To many around the world, U.S. foreign policy has been dominated for the past 16 years by military actions in the Middle East and South Asia, and large land and sea military exercises in Northeast Asia. On the world stage, American efforts in the areas of economics, trade, cultural issues and human rights appear to have taken a back seat to the waging of continuous wars.
Continuing the use of drone warfare to carry out assassinations will only exacerbate foreign distrust of American intentions and trustworthiness. It thereby plays into the hands of the very opponents we are trying to defeat.
During his campaign, Donald Trump pledged he would always put “America First,” and said he wanted to get out of the business of regime change. It is not too late for him to keep that promise by learning from his predecessors’ mistakes and reversing the continued militarization of U.S. foreign policy.LOS ANGELES — Craig Sager rocked the loudest suit and the loudest pair of Nikes at the ESPYS red carpet on Wednesday. He won the fashion competition, if there was one. It’s not surprising that he’d pull out all the stops, but it never gets old seeing him do it. Sager owned the red carpet.
Here’s a view from For The Win‘s Snapchat (ftwusatoday).
LOOK AT THE SHOES. He had cheetah print shoes to match the actual cheetahs on his suit.
Terrell Owens, who was on the red carpet as a correspondent for a website called Young Hollywood, was the only one who was wearing a suit that could compete with Sager’s fabric.
In May it was announced that Sager will be receiving the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPYS. Sager worked the NBA sidelines through the playoffs as he battles Leukemia.Iowa State University’s football team may not be nationally ranked this season, but the home field where the players compete has been nationally ranked for years.
In 1996 and 2012, the Sports Turf Managers Association named Iowa State’s Jack Trice Stadium as College Football Field of the Year. The university says Jack Trice Stadium “boasts one of college football’s most plush and beautiful fields.”
Here at LawnStarter, we couldn’t agree more. We’d actually go a few yards farther, though: Jack Trice Stadium ranks No. 1 on our list of the Best College Football Fields With Good Ol’ Grass. The Jack Trice field scores a touchdown, from the beautifully painted end zones to the eye-catching midfield logo to the immaculately manicured Kentucky bluegrass.
Tim VanLoo, manager of athletic turf and grounds at Iowa State University
Photo: Blake Lanser/Iowa State Daily
“We try to make it the most consistent playing surface we can so our athletes will know what they get each time on the field. Most of that work comes from late April to late July,” Tim VanLoo, manager of athletic turf and grounds at Iowa State, said in 2012.
To come up with our ranking, we looked at the Sports Turf Managers Association’s list of College Football Field of the Year winners from 1996 through 2014. We then narrowed the list by focusing only on primary football fields, not practice fields, and only on NCAA Division I FBS fields that still have natural grass. Among the nine most aesthetically pleasing fields we settled on, Iowa State surfaced to the top, edging out Northwestern University. Those two schools are the only two-time College Football Field of the Year victors.
Labor of (Lawn) Love
VanLoo told SportsTurf Magazine in 2013 that in recent years, Iowa State’s field had endured a record-breaking flood and a record-breaking drought.
“I am a creature of habit, so I don’t like to stray very far from what has worked before, but Mother Nature usually forces me to change something,” said VanLoo, who’s secretary-treasurer of the Sports Turf Managers Association.
In 2014, VanLoo told the Iowa State Daily newspaper that painting the Jack Trice field for a home game is the most labor-intensive part of maintaining the grass. He says it takes about 55 hours of manpower to paint the field with about 160 to 175 gallons of paint.
Iowa State University’s Jack Trice Stadium
Photo: Iowa State University
Despite the hours of labor and gallons of paint, VanLoo says it would be a “terrible tragedy” to convert the Jack Trice field from natural grass to artificial turf. For one thing, he says, it would be too costly to make the switch.
“With this being an agricultural school and having one of the top turf-grass programs in the country, there’s other things that play into that. I actually think artificial turf will go back the other way and more stadiums will go back to natural turf,” VanLoo told Iowa State Daily.
Turf Truth
Although firm data isn’t available, Casey Carrick, associate sports turf manager at the University of North Carolina, says more college football fields now have artificial turf than natural grass. One reason that college football programs have shifted to artificial turf, he says, is that they perceive it’s easier and cheaper to maintain. But Carrick says that’s not entirely true.
“While they can be a little less maintenance day-to-day, they still require a good amount of preparation and upkeep,” says Carrick, a member of the Sports Turf Managers Association. “I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that once the artificial turf is worn out — in five to eight years — the cost to replace could reach up to $750,000.”
Jack Trice Stadium at dusk
Photo: John Andrus/Iowa State Daily
Carrick, who prefers natural grass over artificial turf, says he doesn’t expect grass football fields to disappear anytime soon, as new innovations are making it easier to grow and maintain the real thing.
“You can’t beat the look and smell of a fresh-cut field,” he says, “and you just don’t get that with an artificial field.”
Latitude With Logos
Carrick cites |
Secondly, Liriano simply isn’t performing well in 2016 and is owed another $20.25MM through the end of the 2017 season as of this writing ($7.25MM for the duration of ’16 and $13MM in ’17). Liriano was terrific for the Bucs from 2013-15, posting a 3.26 ERA with 543 strikeouts against 214 walks in 518 innings out of the rotation. However, his old control problems have resurfaced in 2016, as he’s averaged 5.6 walks per nine innings (including tonight’s start) en route to a 5.17 ERA. Liriano is still averaging better than a strikeout per inning, and his velocity is holding steady (92.3 mph average fastball), but in addition to his glut of free passes he’s been exceptionally homer-prone.
Pomeranz, meanwhile, is a more plausible trade candidate, but the Padres needn’t feel motivated to deal him. Unlike many summer trade candidates, Pomeranz is controlled for multiple years beyond the 2016 season; San Diego can keep him through at least 2018 by way of arbitration, and the fact that he’s only now in the midst of a breakout season at age 27 has suppressed his arbitration earnings to date. Pomeranz is earning $1.35MM as a first-time arbitration-eligible player, but he’s pitched like a top-tier starter for an otherwise dismal Padres staff. In a team-leading 81 innings this season, the former No. 5 overall draft pick has posted a 3.00 ERA with 10.7 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and a 45.6 percent ground-ball rate.
Certainly, there’s reason to approach Pomeranz’s success with some degree of caution. The former top pick, like many before him, posted dreadful numbers at Coors Field for the first three seasons of his career before being flipped to the A’s. Pomeranz posted solid numbers in Oakland, but he did so as more of a swingman than a regular member of the Athletics’ rotation. He’s never topped 147 innings in a single season (combined between the Majors and minors), and he hasn’t even climbed that high since 2012. He also battled a shoulder injury last season and dealt with a biceps injury back in 2013. Pomeranz figures to surpass his 2015 innings total the next time he starts for San Diego, and how well his arm can hold up over the life of a full season’s worth of innings remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, he’s an intriguing asset whose stock is on the rise while playing for a last-place club with an aggressive general manager and front office in place, so the debate of whether he should be traded or retained figures to be one of the more interesting topics as the non-waiver trade deadline draws nearer. Pomeranz has already been connected to the O’s and Marlins this week alone, and other suitors figure to line up in the weeks to come.
The other piece of the equation in this scenario is whether the O’s have the necessary talent to acquire either of these arms (or another rotation upgrade). Entering the season, Baseball America and ESPN’s Keith Law pegged the Orioles as having the game’s fourth-worst farm system. That’s not to say that the O’s don’t have appealing players, but the lack of depth in their system will allow other teams ample opportunity to offer superior packages in trade talks.Nesbit: May 1997 to August 2010
This is a very special story. It's actually a tribute, told by George Kerscher, the man who knew and loved Nesbit as no other person could ever have known or loved him. George is the Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium, and Nesbit was by his side as he journeyed to meetings and conferences around the world. Those of us who knew Nesbit could not help but adore him – he was indeed very special.
Nesbit and I graduated from Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California, in February 1999, Class 591. At 21 months old, Nesbit became my first guide dog, and over the years we traveled together safely throughout the world.
Nesbit warmed and wagged his way into the hearts of people everywhere we went, but he had special eyes for Gail, my wife (his significant other). While still in training in February 1999, Gail visited me. Nesbit and I were on the stairs at the GDB dorm when Gail arrived – Nesbit was so excited he started to go ballistic. Maureen, the trainer, witnessed the meeting and finally asked that I get my dog (and my wife) under control; it was like that throughout our wonderful years together. I was his boss, and Gail, who loved him dearly, was the sunshine of his life.
My work involves a great deal of travel both national and international, and Nesbit guided me. However I was not able to have Nesbit with me on every trip – it was extremely difficult to get a dog, even a guide dog, into some countries. Also, some of my business travel requires excruciatingly long flights – sometimes I would make the journey alone in order to save Nesbit from the prolonged discomfort. Although there is never any additional cost in travelling with a dog guide, on planes Nesbit would have to curl up under the seat and my legs – Nesbit was a large dog. And, there are of course washrooms on planes, but they are for the human passengers, not for guide dogs!
1st "Million Miler" Guide Dog
Nesbit was Delta Airlines' first guide dog to become a "Million Miler". At a special event held one evening at the 2008 CSUN Conference, Delta personnel presented Nesbit with his own frequent flyer card and a plaque hallmarking his "million mile" accomplishment. Actually, we had both become Million Milers, but Nesbit was the first dog to reach that benchmark.
Although that was Nesbit's last CSUN Conference (he retired shortly afterward) he had attended many over the years. Everywhere he would go at CSUN he would see people he knew. He had the floor plans and layout memorized – it was almost like coming home for Nesbit.
A Job Well Done
Nesbit's job was to guide me and keep both of us safe, and he was brilliant at his job. I recall Nesbit guiding me through the streets of Rome. Cars were moving very fast and furiously whizzing past in a chaotic sea of movement. Nesbit was rock solid and steady. He never faltered in the chaos of Rome or any other congested city.
Almost everywhere we went, Nesbit was made welcome, almost everywhere. I recall a technical meeting in Amsterdam fairly early on in Nesbit's career as my guide dog. It was a large group and at the end of the day we ventured out to find a place to eat, deciding on a Chinese restaurant big enough to hold our group. As Nesbit and I walked in, the person at the door would not allow Nesbit to enter – no dogs allowed. It took a lot of explaining and discussion, but we were finally permitted to enter and have dinner with the group. Nesbit of course did not have dinner. As always he lay under the table. If a dog could be called a perfect gentleman, that dog would have been Nesbit.
We met people we knew almost everywhere we went. No matter what hotel, what country, if Nesbit and I were in the lobby (or anywhere else for that matter) and someone Nesbit knew came into the room, his tail would wag so hard his whole back end would swing from side to side.
I am sincerely grateful to Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California for the brilliant training they provided. A huge thanks goes to all the staff, volunteers, and donors who make having a guide dog like Nesbit possible.
In some ways dogs are like people – some like to lead, and some prefer to follow. Nesbit liked to lead the group, he always wanted to be first. If we started out walking at the back of a group of people, before we reached our destination Nesbit would have managed to squeeze between the others, taking me to the front to lead the pack. When we were walking and encountered a group (large or small) of people coming toward us, he would not go around, he wouldn't hesitate, he would take me right through them. What was amazing though was that they always parted to let us through.
Nesbit had a wonderful life. We traveled the world together but he also loved his time in Montana, especially at our cabin on the Clearwater River. He loved to swim and would go into the water even on the coldest of days. Lilly, our pet yellow lab, was his lifelong canine companion. I cannot forget the experience of taking them for a brisk morning walk in the woods, them bounding over logs, dashing through the trees, and then heading back for breakfast.
Nesbit guided me continuously through March 2008, when I returned to Guide Dogs for the Blind to get Mikey. He had spent his retirement years with Gail, me and Lilly, at our home and at the cabin he loved so much. Nesbit passed away in the most peaceful of situations in our home with Gail and me tenderly beside him. There will never be a dog as wonderful as Nesbit. Only I understand the relationship that I had with Nesbit through the handle of the harness that led me safely through so many cities around the world.
Nesbit's warm, beautiful eyes guided George safely to and around hundreds of places in the world, but those loving eyes also stole the hearts of the people who met him.Originally published June 14, 2014 at 8:07 PM | Page modified June 16, 2014 at 9:47 AM
Delta Air Lines is making a major push to turn Seattle-Tacoma International Airport into a hub, taking on the airport’s dominant carrier, Alaska Airlines. Some analysts think Delta wants to take over Alaska.
Sources: Delta Air Lines, Alaska Air Group, SEC filings, the Port of Seattle.Employee and financial figures include Delta Connection and Horizon Air units.
Alaska: 53.4 percent of Sea-Tac passengers for the year through April. Its passenger count grew 4.8 percent from a year earlier.
Delta: 13.5 percent of Sea-Tac passengers for the year through April. Its passenger count grew 32.5 percent from a year earlier.
Delta: About 2,800 employees in Washington state and almost 80,000 worldwide.
Delta: 758 Boeing and Airbus jets, with an additional 151 on order.
Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Richard Anderson has ambitious plans to build up Seattle as the airline’s West Coast international gateway and its eighth domestic hub.
Delta will not only offer more flights out of Seattle — many of them in head-to-head competition with Alaska Airlines — but will also base more jobs here and spend heavily on facility improvements at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The chief of the world’s third-largest airline is not shy about pushing assertively into a market where hometown favorite Alaska Air carries more than half of all passengers.
Some analysts see Delta exerting pressure for an endgame in which the giant Atlanta-based enterprise swallows its smaller Pacific Northwest rival.
Anderson deflects talk of that possibility and insists Delta is here “to be successful unilaterally” in a rough-and-tumble industry.
“There’s no drama. It’s just business,” Anderson said. “Is Airbus tough with Boeing? Is Apple tough on Microsoft? It’s a competitive marketplace.”
On Monday, Delta, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., inaugurates direct flights from Seattle to Hong Kong, bringing to 10 the number of its daily international nonstop routes out of the city, six to Asia and four to Europe.
Anderson said that adding such destinations from Seattle is “huge for the economic and cultural development of the community.”
Delta’s expansion requires building up its base at Sea-Tac. Anderson said the airline has about 2,800 employees based here now and will soon grow past 3,000.
“We’re in the process right now of hiring 1,400 flight attendants and 600 pilots,” he said. “A lot of those will end up based here.”
The Port of Seattle plans a new $350 million international-arrivals facility — the first phase is scheduled to open in 2018 — to be paid for by the airlines that use it.
“Given the sheer number of arrivals we’ll have there, the lion’s share of that will be Delta’s,” said Anderson. “We’re fully prepared to meet that obligation.... Seattle is a strategic priority for Delta.”
More routes, more ads
Near term, Seattle travelers will certainly benefit, said Michael E. Levine, a former senior airline executive now on the faculty of New York University School of Law.
Expect more flight options, more routes and connections, more perks and special offers, and cheaper airfares. Both airlines are already bombarding the region with ads.
“You have two good airlines trying to make friends with people in Seattle,” Levine said. “What could be bad?”
Local Alaska loyalists may possibly view Delta as an invader, like some corporate Darth Vader.
But Levine said it’s by far the best managed of the three big U.S. network carriers, with qualities similar to those that distinguish Alaska, but on a vastly bigger scale.
Delta is the most profitable airline in the world. Excluding special tax gains, it made $2.7 billion last year.
It handles much of its own maintenance in-house and has high operational reliability. The company’s profit-sharing scheme paid out just over $500 million to employees last year and labor relations are better than at most airlines. That helps ensure better service for passengers.
Bob Cortelyou, Delta’s vice president of network planning, said Seattle has the potential to be a big global travel gateway and yet lags behind cities such as nearby Vancouver, B.C., in international connections.
Seattle’s relative closeness to Asia, compared to the big California cities, offers Delta flexibility in the aircraft it can fly on trans-Pacific routes.
So Cortelyou’s opening new direct routes with smaller airplanes such as the Boeing 767 or 777, or the Airbus A330, rather than four-engine jumbo jets.
“Seattle has a strong corporate base, a strong economy and a relatively affluent population. It’s also a tremendous geographic location for flights to Asia,” Cortelyou said.
“It befuddles my mind why Vancouver is so much stronger. Seattle has all these great demographics and a smattering of service.
“That’s not right, and we’re fixing that.”
Feeder network
Of course, if Delta was solely creating an international gateway, that would be no threat to Alaska Air.
However, it’s also been building a feeder network to bring its passengers from cities all along the West Coast and even Alaska.
This summer, it will grow to 86 departures out of Sea-Tac every day.
Delta’s Seattle routes to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Las Vegas, Anchorage, Juneau and Vancouver, B.C., as well as planned flights to Spokane, create head-to-head confrontations on Alaska’s bread-and-butter destinations.
And last month, Delta announced it will open service this winter to Maui in Hawaii and to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in Mexico.
Those aren’t feeder routes to an Asian gateway. Delta is going after prime winter vacation traffic out of Seattle in direct competition with Alaska.
If that seems aggressive on Delta’s part, Alaska is not sitting back.
This month, Alaska opens seven non-Seattle routes out of Salt Lake City, which is a longstanding Delta hub.
And when Delta opened its direct flights from Seattle to London in March, Alaska announced a special double-miles offer to its frequent fliers who flew on British Airways, the only other carrier going direct to London.
In terms of airline competition, all these seem like moves in an undeclared war.
Dominant position
In that confrontation, Alaska for the moment is in a dominant position. For the year through April, Alaska carried just over half of all passengers out of Sea-Tac. Delta carried just over 13 percent.
Levine, of NYU — who worked with Anderson at Northwest Airlines and is a longtime friend of the Delta CEO — said that to build a sustainable international hub at any airport requires a strong domestic feeder network.
“You can’t possibly build it at Seattle without Alaska,” he said.
One option for Delta is to persuade Alaska to agree to an exclusive partnership, so that Alaska essentially provides the feeder network for Delta’s international routes, Levine said.
But Alaska has denied this to previous suitors. It has a longstanding “Swiss neutrality” approach to other carriers, forging nonexclusive cooperative agreements with multiple airline partners — including Delta, for now at least — that allow travelers to book one ticket and fly different legs of a journey with Alaska and with a partner.
So in lieu of an exclusive deal, we have an airline war.
“Delta is trying to build enough pressure that Alaska will realize that it’s not in the same kind of bargaining position it’s been in historically,” said Levine. “I think Delta has decided, if you can’t join them, beat them.”
The alternative for Delta, Levine said, is to work toward a takeover of Alaska. The current competitive battle could, in time, hurt Alaska’s share price and make a transaction more manageable.
“My guess is, Delta is prepared to spend some money to do that,” Levine said.
In an interview, Alaska Air Group Chief Executive Brad Tilden conceded that Delta’s encroachment into Seattle likely means overcapacity in the year ahead.
“Seattle will have a lot more (airline) seats than it probably needs,” Tilden said, adding that Delta’s growth “will create pressure on the (financial) performance for both of us.”
He said Alaska will stick to its strategy of low costs, low fares, superior operational performance and good service to passengers.
“I have a lot confidence that over the years ahead, we’ll do these basic things well and come out of this just fine,” Tilden said.
He also adamantly reiterated his leadership team’s opposition to being acquired.
“We believe the best answer for all our constituents — our owners, our employees, our customers and our communities — is for Alaska to be a strong, vibrant, independent, Seattle-based airline,” Tilden said.
Ray Neidl, airline consultant with Nexa Capital, said a takeover of Alaska Air would cost Seattle a highly successful hometown carrier, with a regional niche and a local history and culture that have won passenger loyalty.
“If Alaska was absorbed into a bigger airline, you’d lose that unique magic it has with its customers and its employees,” Neidl said.
Levine said it’s unpredictable which airline will come out on top.
“This is a very complicated game that is going to be played out,” he said. “It’s a close call. It’s a real uphill fight for Delta.”
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com
Four weeks for 99 cents of unlimited digital access to The Seattle Times. Try it now!CTVNews.ca Staff
When night falls in Thunder Bay, Ont., a team of Indigenous volunteers begins patrolling the streets in search of the city’s most vulnerable.
They call themselves the Thunder Bay Bear Clan Patrol, and their mission is simple: to help protect the homeless and other groups from violence in the community’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.
Earlier this week, CTV’s Manitoba Bureau Chief joined the group on their nightly patrol. Each member said they’d experienced discrimination on the streets, like racist insults and even being pelted by eggs.
Volunteer Kristen Redsky said she was once nearly abducted by a taxi driver.
“So I kind of wanted to help out in any way and volunteer and be extra eyes,” Redsky told CTV News.
In the past two years, an influx of drugs and sex trafficking has made the city’s downtown more dangerous. New gangs, which are believed to have come from Toronto and Ottawa, are fighting over what they consider a lucrative northern market for drugs. It’s also meant that more Indigenous women are being forced into the sex trade.
Thunder Bay Police Service spokesperson Chris Adams said officers are aware of the problem.
“It’s fair to say in the last couple of years that there’s been more of a heightened awareness of human trafficking and there’s been more training for the officers. And it’s definitely something we’re concerned about,” Adams said.
As police crack down on crime, the Bear Clan Patrol slowly combs the streets by car, using a headlight to scan the darkness. They regularly drive past the train tracks looking for anyone who may have been beaten and abandoned.
The Bear Clan first formed in Winnipeg after 15-year-old Tina Fontaine was murdered and dumped in the city’s Red River. At the time, the group was part of a movement to make the streets safer for Indigenous people.
Similar concerns inspired the group to form in Thunder Bay. At least eight Indigenous students who moved to the city for schools were found dead in recent years, and most of their bodies were found in a nearby river.
In January, an Indigenous woman walking down the street was struck by a trailer hitch thrown from a vehicle. She was with her sister at the time, who said she heard someone from the vehicle say “I got one” after she was hit.
Barbara Kentner suffered life-threatening injuries and died six months after the incident.
An investigation is underway into the Thunder Bay Police Services Board, which has been accused by Indigenous leaders of failing to adequately address concerns about the teen deaths. Sen. Murray Sinclair, who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is leading the probe.
The Thunder Bay Bear Clan Patrol hopes that their work not only makes the streets safer, but also helps change perceptions.
“We go out there with our positivity and that’s what we get back, positivity,” volunteer Ivory Tuesday said.
With a report from CTV’s Mantioba Bureau Chief Jill MacyshonADVERTISEMENT
The video: While backyard chefs were preparing last week for their Memorial Day barbecue feasts, the legendary and elusive Bigfoot was taking a stroll through the Pacific Northwest... or not. A hiker named Samantha used her iPhone to record her friends as they maneuvered through the lush Spokane, Wash., woods. (See the video below.) Just as one friend approaches a tree, a slouching, dark figure ambles across the bucolic scene at the top of the video screen. The group continues on, apparently unaware of their their close encounter with the mysterious creature. Upon returning home and viewing the nine-second clip, the hikers said the Bigfoot sighting scared "the crap" out of them. Theirs is not the first alleged Sasquatch sighting, but joins a long history of video and photographic "proof" that has largely been dismissed as bogus — just as this video has been labeled a "cleverly staged hoax."
The reaction: "The video does have a certain spontaneity to it," says Dennis Bodzash at Examiner. And the awkward, angled position of the creature "lends credence to the shooter's claim" that it is in fact Bigfoot. Not a chance, says Michael Soze at The Inquisitr. This is a total joke. If Bigfoot was as close as this "so-called video evidence" implies, the "giant bipedal ape would probably be clearly audible," instead of totally silent. And even if the figure is real, it could be anything, says Javier Ortega at Ghost Theory. A hiking prankster, perhaps, or "someone out spying on the group. Deliverance style. Gulp." Check out the video for yourself:The students had a chance to argue their case in front of a national audience. Instead a small group threw it away for the short-term pleasure of starring in a televised protest, writes Q&A executive producer Peter McEvoy.
At the start of more than 200 Q&A programs over the past six years I have taken the stage as executive producer before the live telecast begins to lay down some ground rules.
It is live television after all, a highly planned tightrope act where success is measured by the quality of the debate and the free exchange of ideas.
Those of us who work on the show are quite proud of how well this has been achieved: each week close to a million Australians tune in to watch a political discussion.
The talk I give at the start of each show is about manners and respect. I tell the audience that Q&A is about ideas and even passionate debate, but never about who can shout the loudest.
Each week - as corny as it sounds - I emphasise that listening is just as important as being heard.
Sadly my advice this week was ignored by a group of student activists angry at threatened cuts to education. One of our panellists was the education minister Christopher Pyne and the group wanted to confront him on national TV.
So what did they achieve?
Well we are talking about it, so full marks to them for drawing attention to their cause. But that's about it.
Few in the studio or watching the program at home could actually understand their chanting or read their banner, and it is unlikely members of the community will be persuaded by their disruption of Q&A.
Some of the students had submitted questions for the minister and the panel: tough opinionated questions that highlighted their disagreement with the policy and we chose a couple to get the minister's response and kick off the debate.
Unfortunately rather than listen to his answers or let the panel and audience argue the pros and cons, the students chose to interrupt the minister immediately, first with comments shouted from the floor and then with a round of chanting that stopped the discussion dead.
It was a wasted opportunity. They had the chance to argue their case in front of a national audience. A chance to have the minister's views tested and examined in front of a million viewers. A chance to change people's minds and influence the political process.
Instead a small group threw it away for the short-term pleasure of starring in a televised protest.
It's not the first time we've seen disruption on Q&A. In October 2010 a lone protester threw his Dunlop Volleys at former Prime Minister John Howard in protest over the Iraq War. The throw was gentle and ill-directed and Mr Howard took it with good grace - even signing a copy of his book for me with a mischievous inscription: "Enjoyed the shoe!"
Monday's panel was just as relaxed - and why not? Politicians don't have to answer difficult questions or argue their case while people are chanting.
Both Tony Jones and I respect the rights of anyone to rally against policies they see as wrong and unjust; in fact it is a hallmark of democracy. But so is polite and reasoned debate and the audience members and home viewers who engaged with the program on Monday night were, just for a few moments, robbed of that right.
Q&A is designed to provide space for a civilised but vigorous discussion and I think it's valuable for exactly that reason.
Q&A has given Australians a new opportunity to get involved in politics away from the parliamentary abuse and back room deals that are turning so many citizens off the political process.
It offers engagement to the average person in the street who would normally not enjoy access to the politicians and community leaders who make the decisions that affect their lives. It's a chance to ask a question and get an answer, or at the very least to hear the questions of fellow Australians and see how our leaders respond.
It's a chance that a small group of students worried about changes to Australian universities could have seized if they really wanted to make a difference.
Peter McEvoy is executive producer of Q&A, which airs Mondays, 9:30 pm (AEST) on ABC1. View his full profile here.Pell, who was interviewed in Rome by Australian police last October over a number of allegations, was charged with several counts of sexual abuse on Thursday.
"There are multiple complainants relating to those charges," Victoria State Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton told reporters. The 76-year-old Pell was summoned to appear before a Melbourne court on July 18, Patton said.
Read more: Sexual abuse prevention to be included in priest education
Pell, who is his country's most senior Catholic cleric, strongly denies the allegations, which date back to his time as archbishop of Melbourne and as a priest in the town of Ballarat.
"It is important to note that none of the allegations that have been made against Cardinal Pell have, obviously, been tested in any court yet," said Patton.
At the Vatican, Pell said he would return to Australia to clear his name after a "relentless character assassination" over the past two years of investigations into child abuse within the Catholic Church in his home country.
"I have kept Pope Francis regularly informed throughout this lengthy process, and have spoken to him in recent days about the need to take leave to clear my name," Pell said in a statement. "I am grateful for his support in granting me this leave to return to Australia. I am looking forward finally to having my day in court."
Highest-ranking Vatican official
Pell, the third highest figure in the Catholic Church's hierarcy, is the highest-ranking Vatican official to ever be charged in a sexual abuse scandal that has dogged the Catholic church for years.
The charges against him are a blow to Pope Francis, who has vowed zero tolerance for child abuse. He personally appointed Pell in 2014 to lead a reform of the Vatican's finances and increase transparency.
Police have not yet disclosed exact details of the complaints that prompted charges against the cardinal.
A national inquiry launched in 2012 into responses to child abuse over the decades has revealed damning allegations against the Catholic Church.
Data from the inquiry released in February showed seven percent of priests were accused of child abuse between 1950 and 2010, but none of the allegations were ever investigated. There are 4,444 alleged instances of child abuse carried out by 1,880 priests.
Pell has appeared three times before the national inquiry, once in person and twice over Skype.
During those appearances, Pell admitted that he "mucked up" in dealing with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s. Pell conceded to victims of abuse in Australia that "evil was done."
More recently, Pell himself became the focus of complaints. Police questioning in October followed allegations aired by the Australian broadcaster ABC. At least two men have claimed Pell touched them inappropriately during their youth.
Pell was ordained in Rome in 1966 and returned to Australia in 1971, eventually becoming the top Catholic official in the country before again returning to the Vatican in 2014.
cw, rc/gsw (AFP, AP, Reuters)Like many young adults, Liz Wilson, 25, worries that she won't be able to afford health insurance if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Millions of young adults have turned to their parents' health insurance plans since the Affordable Care Act went into effect. For Liz Wilson, and many others her age, it was the only option.
Wilson, 25, gets health care for a chronic stomach and pancreas problems through a provision in the law that lets young adults stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26.
After graduating from college in 2010, she took a temp job in Cincinnati that doesn't offer benefits. A key piece of the Affordable Care Act went into place the following September, allowing her to get coverage for her mounting medical bills under her parents' plan.
"I have to keep a close eye on things, which requires a lot of doctors' visits and maintenance medicines," Wilson said. "Without health reform, I'd really have to ask myself what I'd do."
That's a question Wilson may have to answer, since the Affordable Care Act is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court and could be struck down. (Read: Justice suggests'sharp disagreement' over tough cases)
The legal dispute is centered around the individual mandate provision, which requires most Americans to buy health insurance or face financial penalty. While the mandate is separate from the provision that protects young adults, the court could strike down the entire legislation.
This could leave millions of young adults uninsured. About 2.5 million 19-to-26-year-olds obtained health coverage as a result of the provision, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated in December. Most have had a hard time getting employer-sponsored coverage in a down economy.
As a new business owner, Meredith Fineman, 25, would have to buy her own plan if the law gets struck down. She started her own public relations firm in Washington, D.C., in October, and stayed on her mom's plan has allowed her to invest her savings into her new venture.
"It would be a huge expense for me as a small business owner, in my first year of business," Fineman said. "It's the final piece of my financial independence puzzle, but it's a big one. I'm lucky that I've been able to have it thus far because I know how much money it will be."
Fineman may be in luck even if the Supreme Court overturns the law.
"Given the popularity of the provision and the relatively low risk and low expenditures associated with it, I believe that many health plans, even if the law is overturned, will continue to allow dependents to stay on the parents' plan," said Dr. Mark Fendrick, director of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.
Some of the nation's largest insurers, including UnitedHealth (UNH, Fortune 500) and Humana (HUM, Fortune 500), have already promised to continue to cover young adults regardless of what the Supreme Court decides.
For insurance companies, it's good business. Insuring young adults brings in a new demographic, said Rachel Garfield, associate director of Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, since most in the age group would forgo coverage altogether if it weren't for the law.
If the provision is struck down, "It's likely [young adults] will go back to them being uninsured," she said, "because buying insurance on their own can be expensive."
The nationwide average premium for individuals in 2010 was $215 per month, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported.
That's too much for many 20-somethings. Maya Orchin, a 24-year-old professional dancer living in New York City, says the cost of buying insurance isn't worth it for her if the court rules that she can't stay on her parents' plan.
"It would be really scary, especially because I depend on my body for my job," she said. "But... I'm relatively healthy and thankfully don't have any injuries that I need to get checked for, so it's not where I'd put my money."
The choice to go without insurance would be a bigger burden for young adults who do need regular medical attention. For Liz Wilson, going without insurance would mean racking up tens of thousands of dollars in bills. Her family hit its annual out of pocket maximum of $9,000 by mid-February of this year, she said.
"I couldn't pay for those bills, but I'd need a very high-risk plan, which would be more expensive than I can afford," she said. "That's why I'm not going back to graduate school, because I need to find a full time job with benefits."
Medical bills are holding many young adults back, forcing them to choose between investing in their health and investing in their future.
A Commonwealth Fund survey found that 31% of young adults with medical debt said they delayed education or career plans because of their bills.
"That's why I'm relying on the provision," Wilson said. "That's why I really hope it doesn't get overturned."Abstract Culture–gene coevolutionary theory posits that cultural values have evolved, are adaptive and influence the social and physical environments under which genetic selection operates. Here, we examined the association between cultural values of individualism–collectivism and allelic frequency of the serotonin transporter functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) as well as the role this culture–gene association may play in explaining global variability in prevalence of pathogens and affective disorders. We found evidence that collectivistic cultures were significantly more likely to comprise individuals carrying the short (S) allele of the 5-HTTLPR across 29 nations. Results further show that historical pathogen prevalence predicts cultural variability in individualism–collectivism owing to genetic selection of the S allele. Additionally, cultural values and frequency of S allele carriers negatively predict global prevalence of anxiety and mood disorder. Finally, mediation analyses further indicate that increased frequency of S allele carriers predicted decreased anxiety and mood disorder prevalence owing to increased collectivistic cultural values. Taken together, our findings suggest culture–gene coevolution between allelic frequency of 5-HTTLPR and cultural values of individualism–collectivism and support the notion that cultural values buffer genetically susceptible populations from increased prevalence of affective disorders. Implications of the current findings for understanding culture–gene coevolution of human brain and behaviour as well as how this coevolutionary process may contribute to global variation in pathogen prevalence and epidemiology of affective disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are discussed. Keywords: culture–gene coevolution, serotonin transporter gene, 5-HTTLPR, mood disorders, individualism–collectivism, cultural neuroscience
2. Material and methods (a) Cross-national sample of allelic frequency of 5-HTTLPR Data on allelic frequency of the 5-HTTLPR from 50 135 individuals living in 29 countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, People's Republic of China, Russia, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA) were compiled from 124 peer-reviewed publications (see table S1 and methods in electronic supplementary material for further detail). (b) Cross-national sample of cultural values Given evidence of strong correlations between independent measures of individualism and collectivism (r ≥ 0.80) (Fincher et al. 2008), we used Hofstede's published regional scores of individualism–collectivism across 29 nations (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, People's Republic of China, Russia, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA). Additionally, we used Hofstede's scores of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity–femininity and long-term orientation across 22 nations (see table S1 and methods in electronic supplementary material). (c) Cross-national sample of economic indices Owing to the possible association between economic indices, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and Gini index, an index of inequality in income distribution, and cultural values of individualism and collectivism, we included data from these two economic indices in analyses for 29 countries (see table S1 and methods in electronic supplementary material). (d) Cross-national sample of pathogen prevalence Owing to the known prior association between pathogen prevalence and the cultural value of individualism–collectivism, we included data of both contemporary and historical pathogen prevalence in multiple regression analyses and mediation analyses (see electronic supplementary |
screen, but if you’ve been working a good while like I have, you have “personals,” too. That’s when I give someone my card, and they call the company and ask for me.
• The competition is pretty tough out there, too. If there’s an order downtown, one of the other drivers might pull up and say they’re the cab that was called and take your fare. That’s why my company sends a text message with the driver’s name and the cab number. Even still, a lot of people steal from us.
• Lifting people’s luggage is part of the job. You gotta stay in shape. I’m ex-military. I start my day with 50 push-ups, and I do 50 more at night. Lifting luggage is good exercise, because if you’re just sitting in the cab all day, you get fat. And the better the customer service, the better the gratuities.
• A good fare is a person who gets in and wants to go from point A to point B and doesn’t want to create any problems. The bad fare wants to smoke cigarettes, bring in open containers, and argue that the meter is going too fast. The meter’s on a timer, by the way—we can’t change it.
• One guy attempted to rob me—but it didn’t work out too good for him.
• I picked up a guy at Amtrak about a month ago and carried him all the way to Bloomington, Illinois, two-and-a-half hours away. I got $450 for that. That included a good tip.
• I like talking to people. I’ve gotten a lot of insight from dealing with people. You do get people angry with their spouses, and they want to take it out on the first person they see. I try to talk about sports to take their minds off of it. I ask people how they’re doing and where they’re going, and then I might say how the Blues and Cardinals are doing. If it’s a guy, you start talking about sports, and if it’s a female, current events. I try to read The New York Times, the Post-Dispatch, and USA Today, and that way I’m full of information when people talk to me.
• People get in my cab and kid me about the show Taxicab Confessions. I don’t know if that’s real or staged. People don’t just start telling their life stories like that.
• People do get in and ask me if this is the Cash Cab, and I say, “Yeah, but I’m gonna be the only one winning!”
• I’ve been observing the people in St. Louis for a while, and it seems like we’re obsessed with cars. People will drive a car and get a DUI rather than call a cab. St. Louis is a great city, but too many people don’t understand that public transportation and taxis are useful. And people tailgate all the time.
• St. Louisans are just like everybody else in any other city, except they’re obsessed with the Cardinals and they need to quit attacking me for being a Yankees fan. I won’t wear a Yankee cap unless I’m off duty.
• If you want to hail a cab, wave your hand. You can whistle, too—the whistle does not offend me. The whistle sounds like business.
• If people are making out in the back of my cab, I tell ’em, “You all might wanna get a room.” I drive a Lincoln Town Car with plush leather seats. I run a clean operation. I’m a Catholic boy, and I don’t think I would allow that to go on.
• Thank God I’ve never had an experience like Collateral, where Tom Cruise was a hit man who got Jamie Foxx to drive him around while he was killing people all night long. I don’t need the excitement.
• I had a lady tell me one time, “You’re nothing but a cab driver,” and I said, “Yeah, but I’m the best one in the city!”A 34-year-old Little Rock man who fatally shot a man in the back and then threw away the gun was cleared of wrongdoing Wednesday by a Pulaski County jury.
Charles Anthony O'Neal testified he opened fire only because he thought Owen Damar Harvey, 29, of Jacksonville was pulling a gun on him during an April 2015 late-night encounter in front of O'Neal's West 24th Street home across from Curran Conway Field.
The seven men and five women on the jury deliberated about an hour and 20 minutes to acquit O'Neal of first-degree murder after a two-day trial before Circuit Judge Barry Sims. The verdict sent Harvey's mother, Beverly Wilson, into a screaming fit outside the second-floor courtroom.
In closing arguments, defense attorney Ron Davis told jurors that Arkansas law gives special protections to people to use deadly force to protect themselves when they are at home.
[HOMICIDE MAP: Interactive map of Little Rock’s 2015 killings]
"Is it better to be judged by 12 fair-minded people or carried by six of your friends?" Davis said. "In this country, you can use a firearm to defend yourself, and if you're in your home, you don't have to run away."
Harvey had involved himself in a feud about child support between his girlfriend and O'Neal, Davis said.
The woman, Abigail Ransom, had children with both men. O'Neal had already faced Ransom and Harvey down in his front yard in a separate encounter a week before the shooting.
O'Neal showed them he was armed in that earlier encounter when he felt threatened by Ransom. Jurors got to see some and hear all of that incident on a cellphone video Davis provided that had been recorded by a friend of O'Neal's.
The day of the slaying, Easter 2015, Ransom first turned up alone at O'Neal's home, calling him a "deadbeat" for not doing enough to financially support their son. Police ran her off, but she returned three hours later with Harvey, Davis said.
O'Neal was asleep when the couple showed up so Ransom could resume haranguing him for money to care for their 4-month-old son, the attorney told jurors.
"Charles O'Neal was at home minding his own business," Davis said in his closing arguments. "He [Harvey] went to another man's house... raising all kinds of Cain for a child that wasn't his."
With the ballistic evidence showing only one gun was fired -- the same weapon that killed Harvey -- prosecutors contended that the younger man was unarmed.
Whether Harvey had a gun did not matter, Davis told jurors. For them to consider O'Neal's actions to be justified under the law, jurors had only to believe that O'Neal genuinely thought his life was in danger and responded to that threat with the appropriate amount of force, he said.
O'Neal did not have to risk being shot before he could legally act to protect himself, the attorney told jurors.
"You don't have to wait to get shot," Davis said.
O'Neal told jurors that he started shooting when Harvey appeared to pull something from behind his back then started walking toward him with his right arm outstretched. He said he never saw the man with a gun.
"He was reaching behind his back... to me, that's like you have a weapon," he said, shaping his fingers into a pistol. "He's got his hand like he's got a gun. For me to wait and see, there's time for me to get shot."
O'Neal could not explain how Harvey ended up shot in the back, saying he guessed the man had spun around just as he started shooting him.
"There's a possibility he turned around and started to run. That's what I would do," O'Neal told jurors. "I pulled the trigger until his arm went down."
O'Neal left the home but returned shortly after police arrived. He told jurors he'd driven away in adrenalin-induced "panic mode" but calmed down during the drive. He said he'd thrown the gun out of his car into some nearby woods before returning because he didn't want to drive up on police with a weapon on him.
"When you're in a situation like that, you've got to get away," he told jurors. "I was forced into a bad situation, and that gun would've made it worse."
The weapon was never found, and O'Neal said police never asked him where he threw it.
One bullet went through Harvey's right buttock and exited his groin, while the second went through his right arm, shattering his upper arm bone.
The killing shot went into his back just below his left shoulder blade and traveled up through his body to lodge in his neck, puncturing a lung, breaking ribs and ripping his jugular vein, filling his chest with blood.
Prosecutors Kelly Ward and Jill Kamps argued that the steep trajectory through Harvey's body proved the man was not just facing away from O'Neal, but also crouched over, likely because of the pain of his other wounds.
In closing arguments, Kamps acknowledged that Ransom, who testified for the prosecution, might have come off as abrasive, abusive and vulgar during the trial. But she asked jurors not to be swayed by any distaste they might have for Ransom and focus on the way O'Neal shot and killed Harvey.
"You may not like Abigail Ransom. You may not like how she acted... the things that she said. But you don't have to," Kamps told jurors. "Whether you like how Abigail handled this situation has nothing to do with Charles O'Neal shooting Owen Harvey three times in the back."
Metro on 11/02/2017MANILA, Philippines — Opponents of the revival of death penalty questioned on Tuesday its ability to deter crimes as they branded the measure an "inhumane and cruel" punishment.
Individuals and groups against the reimposition of death penalty tried to frame their arguments in terms of its effectiveness in deterring the commission of crimes in the Philippines.
They highlighted the need for the Philippines to institute restorative rather than punitive justice as they cautioned those pushing for its revival over the weakness of the justice system that resulted in errors in more than seven in 10 cases.
Resource persons from human rights groups and some government agencies in the Senate committee on justice and human rights hearing tackled the measures intended to bring back death penalty.
Opponents cited the international obligations of the Philippines to abolish death penalty and labeled it as a "cruel" punishment.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) emphasized that it was not against serving justice to victims. However, according to CHR Commissioner Karen Dumpit, death penalty is far from the solution that the country is looking for.
It said that that there is no correlation between death penalty and the increase or decrease in crime rates, a point with which the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) agreed.
The CHR said that death penalty is against the "poor, uneducated, vulnerable and powerless." It also cited data that showed the danger of wrong convictions. It disclosed data that demonstrated that there was 71.77 percent judicial error rate in the country which meant that there was a high possibility that an innocent individual would be executed once death penalty was revived.
The CHR debunked arguments that that the justice system had many processes to ensure error in justice dispensation would not happen. It said that even if there were many processes the courts were still prone to mistakes because it's run by people.
Amnesty International (AI), an international human rights watchdog, also registered its opposition to the planned reinstitution of death penalty which was abolished during the time of former President Gloria Arroyo in 2006.
Branding death penalty as a degrading and inhumane punishment, AI Philippines Vice Chairperson Romeo Cabarde said it is not an effective deterrence to crime and a violation of the right to life.
Cabarde added that the Philippines could not revive death penalty because it was under international obligations which don't have an opt-out option to abolish it both in law and in practice.
The Philippines is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which is a key international human rights treaty guaranteeing the protection and the preservation of basic human rights such as the right to life and human dignity.
AI also said that what the Philippines is doing is against what other countries are doing as Cabarde noted that 141 countries had already abolished the punishment. This made the actions of the Philippines inconsistent with the country's international position on the matter, according to Cabarde.
The issue on the revival of the death penalty has revealed divisions in the position of government agencies. Aside from the CHR, two government agencies that went against President Rodrigo Duterte on the issue of death penalty were the DSWD and the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW).
In expressing its opposition to death penalty, the DSWD said it is "cruel, degrading and inhuman" and that there is no evidence that would prove that it is a deterrence to crime
Undersecretary Maria Lourdes Jarabe of the DSWD said the rights of criminals should not be disregarded as she noted that capital punishment is anti-poor because of the country's delayed and expensive justice system.
She said moneyed offenders could hire lawyers who could work on their cases full time unlike the poor who constitute the majority of those who were on death penalty row.
The PCW opposed the measure largely on the same grounds. According to PCW Planning Officer Maria Janica Brigola, their agency opposes the bills restoring death penalty because its effectiveness in combating crimes is questionable.
Brigola also said that death penalty was inconsistent with human rights and against the concept of restorative justice which her commission espouses.
According to her, it would be a big injustice if the country sentenced to death an innocent person. She characterized capital punishment as "irreversible."
The PCW also belied claims by supporters that it is needed because of the surging number of crimes in the Philippines. Brigola said the Philippine National Police (PNP) itself reported a plunging crime rate.
She also expressed concern that the country would have difficulties negotiating with countries where Filipinos are on death row.
Ramon Casiple, the executive director of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reforms, said that the effectiveness of death penalty is doubtful. He said that the commission of heinous crimes would not be prevented by death penalty.
He also noted a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations that said that even if most Filipinos supported the war against illegal drugs the same number of citizens were also against the killings.
Casiple also feared that the Philippines would lose the moral ground if would reimpose death penalty especially in appealing cases of Filipinos on death row abroad.TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron isn't fixating on the shot at a historic three-peat, BCS-or-bust expectations or the anointment by pollsters as the team to beat.
"I feel like if you don't think that way, you're kind of irrelevant a little to the team," McCarron said. "Everybody needs to have the same mindset. We can't worry about what everybody thinks, what everybody's predicting. Just go out and play the game and take one play at a time, one game at a time and we'll be all right."
In short, it's all about Saturday's game against Virginia Tech. In short, ignore what coach Nick Saban puts under the "external factors" umbrella.
But hard as the coaches and players try to ignore it, the Tide are aiming to make history. Major college football has had repeat national champs 10 times since the first AP poll in 1936. None, however, has made it three in a row and none has gone wire-to-wire at No. 1 since USC in 2004.
Alabama has the expectations born of winning 49 games and three national titles the last four seasons. The exception was a 2010 team that opened at No. 1 and lost three times that season.
"It's an example, but we've been preaching that for years now," McCarron said. "We can't worry about it. That was a different team then and it's a different team now. Got different players and different mindsets among the team as individuals. We've got to focus on our goal this year, our purpose to be out there. You don't really win the game on Saturday. You win it every day before that."
Once again, Alabama, which went 13-1 in 2012, has a chance to make a statement early. The Tide have played a ranked team from a BCS conference other than the SEC in the first or second game each of the past five seasons and won all of them, including a 41-14 rout of No. 8 Michigan last year in Arlington, Texas.
The Hokies aren't ranked, but Saban calls them a "good all-around team."
This time the Tide have back-to-back potential statement games, counting the Sept. 14 visit to No. 7 Texas A&M after an open date. Last season's 29-24 loss to the Aggies marked Alabama's only blemish.
"There's no external factors that matter at all to any player on our team," Saban said. "It's all about how they perform in this game. It's not what they did last year, it's not about the girlfriend, it's not about anything but playing this game. None of it means anything unless you make it mean something."
Virginia Tech will be looking for a bounce-back year after its nation-best streak of eight 10-win seasons was snapped in 2012. The Hokies needed to win their last two games just to qualify for the postseason and did, then went on to defeat Rutgers 13-10 in the Russell Athletic Bowl.Abbey Road Studios (formerly known as EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England.[3] It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, which owned it until Universal Music took control of part of EMI in 2013.
Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s' venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, as well as others. One of its earliest world-famous-artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded there in December 1931 and went on to record many of his best-known songs there.
Towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers. However, the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, thereby preserving the building from any major alterations.[4]
History [ edit ]
Originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the most well-known resident was Maundy Gregory.
In 1929, the Gramophone Company acquired the premises and converted it into studios. The property benefited from a large garden behind the townhouse, which permitted a much larger building to be constructed to the rear; thus, the Georgian façade belies the true dimension of the building. Pathé filmed the opening of the studios in November 1931 when Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music.[5][6] In 1934, the inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Thomas Beecham at the studios.[7]
The neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was extensively used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, whose house was just around the corner from the studio building.[8]
The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) in 1931, and the studios later became known as EMI Recording Studios.[9] In 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites No. 1 & 2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados and cellists alike.[10]
In 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later Cliff Richard and the Shadows) recorded "Move It" there,[11] and later pop music material.
The graffiti-covered wall outside Abbey Road
Abbey Road Studios is closely associated with the Beatles, who recorded almost all of their albums and hits there between 1962 and 1970 using the four-track REDD mixing console designed by Peter K. Burkowitz.[12] The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located.
The studio was renamed Abbey Road Studios in 1970 after the Beatles album had made it famous.[13][14][15] Iain Macmillan took the album's cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans. It has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the building even though it is painted over every three months.[16] December 2010, the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status.[17]
Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, returning only in 1988 for mixing and overdubbing subsequent albums.
Notable producers and sound engineers who have worked at Abbey Road include George Martin, Geoff Emerick, Norman "Hurricane" Smith, Ken Scott, Mike Stone, Alan Parsons, Peter Vince, Malcolm Addey, Peter Brown, Richard Langham, Phil McDonald, John Kurlander, Richard Lush and Ken Townsend, who invented the groundbreaking studio effect known as automatic double tracking (ADT). The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris "Vinyl" Blair, who started his career as a tape deck operator.
In 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britain's first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios.[18][19]
From 18 July to 11 September 1983, the public had a rare opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where the Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the studio was used to host a video presentation called The Beatles at Abbey Road. The soundtrack to the video had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later.[20]
The Red Hot Chili Peppers used a photograph of the band walking across the zebra crossing naked (except for strategically placed socks) on the front of The Abbey Road E.P., which was released in 1988.
In June 2011, South Korean boy band Shinee performed at the studio as part of its Japanese debut showcase in partnership with EMI and the group's local record label SM Entertainment, becoming the first-ever Asian artist to perform in the studio.[21] In November 2011, Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue recorded some of her most famous songs with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. The album called The Abbey Road Sessions was released October 2012.
In September 2012, with the takeover of EMI, the studio became the property of Universal Music. It was not one of the entities that were sold to Warner Music as part of Parlophone.
Abbey Road has become a London tourist attraction.
In January 2017, Strawberry Studios opened exhibition in Stockport Museum.[22]
In February 2017, a rare BTR-3 tape recorder, previously used at Abbey Road, was found by members of Surge Radio, the student-run radio station at the University of Southampton. The BTR-3 was donated to Abbey Road in April 2017.[23]
Recording and mixing consoles [ edit ]
Film scores [ edit ]
Abbey Road Studios got its start in the film scoring business in 1980 when Anvil Post Production formed a partnership with the studio, called Anvil-Abbey Road Screen Sound. The partnership started when Anvil was left without a scoring stage when Korda Studios were demolished. It ended in 1984 when EMI merged with Thorn Electrical Industries to become Thorn EMI.
Abbey Road's success in the scoring business continued after the partnership ended.
John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra used the studios to record the scores of four films from the Star Wars franchise from Return of the Jedi in 1983 until Revenge of the Sith in 2005.[24]
All three film scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King), composed by Howard Shore and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, were mixed at Abbey Road Studios. The recordings themselves were done by CTS-Lansdowne Studios at their permanent studios in the old Watford Town Hall with engineer John Kurlander. All technical support by CTS engineers. All recordings up to 96 tracks were in the digital domain.
James Horner had also frequently used Abbey Road Studios as his recording base when recording scores in the UK. Abbey Road sound engineer Simon Rhodes had for over a decade served as his scoring mixer, both when recording in Britain and in the U.S.
Apple's iMovie 11's soundtracks of its trailers were recorded at the studio in early 2010.
Controversy over sale [ edit ]
On 17 February 2010, it was reported that EMI had put the studios up for sale because of increasing debts. There was reported interest by property developers in redeveloping the site into luxury flats.[25] It had also been reported there was a possibility the studios could be purchased by the National Trust[26] to preserve what was in effect a historical building. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was reported to have bid £30 million to purchase the studios but was turned down by EMI.[27] A Save Abbey Road Studios campaign attempted to ensure the premises remained a working studio.[28]
On 21 February 2010, EMI stated it planned to keep the studio and was looking for an investor to help finance a "revitalization" project.[29][30] Meanwhile, the British government declared Abbey Road Studios a Grade II listed building which protected it from major alteration.[30][31] The following December, the pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road was listed on the National Heritage List.[32]
Paul McCartney, speaking to BBC Newsnight on 16 February 2010, said there had been efforts to save Abbey Road by "a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time," although he did not name them or include himself among them. "I have so many memories there with the Beatles," McCartney said, "It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely for someone to get a thing together to save it."[33]
Interior [ edit ]
Pianos used by many recording artists over the years in Studio Two of Abbey Road Studios.
The interior of Abbey Road contains many different works of art; in 2011 a piece of art, by Birmingham-based artist Annemarie Wright, was added which featured a handwritten list of all the artists that had recorded at the historic venue.[34] Google has created an interactive virtual tour web app of the Abbey Road Studios.[35]
Abbey Road Institute [ edit ]
In March 2015, Abbey Road Institute was founded as a school for music production and audio engineering.[36] In addition to the London location, Abbey Road Institute offers education globally with schools in Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris and Melbourne.[37] Students can study an Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering which has been developed in collaboration with industry leaders and the team at Abbey Road Studios.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Discography in Sir Malcolm Sargent: a tribute (1967). London: Daily Mirror Newspapers.
All You Need Is Ears, by George Martin (with Jeremy Hornsby)
, by George Martin (with Jeremy Hornsby) The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, by Mark Lewisohn
, by Mark Lewisohn Abbey Road, by Brian Southall, Peter Vince and Allan Rouse
Notes [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Lawrence, Alistair (2012). Abbey Road: The Best Studio in the World. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-60819-999-0.
Coordinates:WALTHAM, Mass. - The wealth gap between white and African-American families increased more than four times between 1984-2007, and middle-income white households now own far more wealth than high-income African Americans, according to an analysis released on Monday by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University.
IASP, in a research brief, also reported that many African Americans hold more debt than assets and at least 25 percent of African-American families had no assets to turn to in times of economic hardship. The fourfold increase in the wealth gap, it said, reflects public policies, such as tax cuts on investment income and inheritances, which benefit the wealthiest and persistent discrimination in housing, credit and labor markets.
"Our study shows a broken chain of achievement. Even when African Americans do everything right -- get an education and work hard at well-paying jobs -- they cannot achieve the wealth of their white peers in the workforce, and that translates into very different life chances," said Thomas Shapiro, IASP director and co-author of the research brief.
"A U-turn is needed. Public policies have and continue to play a major role in creating and sustaining the racial wealth gap, and they must play a role in closing it," said Shapiro, author of The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality and the co-author of Black Wealth/White Wealth.
Wealth, what you own minus what you owe, allows people to start a business, buy a home, send children to college and ensure an economically secure retirement. Using economic data from the same nationally representative set of families from 1984 to 2007, the IASP analysis found that the real wealth gains and losses over the time demonstrate an escalating racial gap.
Over those 23 years, it said, the racial wealth gap increased by $75,000 - from $20,000 to $95,000. Financial assets, excluding home equity, among white families grew from a median value of $22,000 to $100,000 during that period while African Americans saw very little increase in assets in real dollars and had a median wealth of $5,000 in 2007.
Summing up all assets and debt, one in 10 African Americans owed at least $3,600 in 2007, nearly doubling their debt burden in real terms since 1984, IASP said.
The growth of the racial wealth gap significantly affects the economic future of American families, it said. The current gap is so large that it would pay tuition at a four-year public university for two children, purchase or make a solid down payment on a house, or provide a nest egg to draw upon in times of job loss or crisis.
"The gap is opportunity denied and assures racial economic inequality for the next generation," said Tatjana Meschede, a co-author of the policy brief.
Notably, IASP's analysis found that by 2007, the average middle-income white household had accumulated $74,000 in wealth, an increase of $55,000 over the 23-year period, while the average high-income African-American family owned $18,000, a drop of $7,000. That resulted in a wealth gap of $56,000 for an African-American family that earned more than $50,000 in 1984 compared to a white family earning about $30,000 that same year.
Those figures, IASP said, make it clear that higher income alone will not lead to increased wealth, security and economic mobility for African Americans. Consumers of color face a gauntlet of barriers -- in credit, housing and taxes -- that dramatically reduce the chances of economic mobility, it said.
Indeed, the data indicate that the general trend in lending, in which consumers of color pay more for accessing credit, increases their debt and blocks opportunities to move forward, putting them at a severe economic disadvantage. These are concerns that must be addressed through the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, now being debated in Congress, and other policy changes, IASP said.
"The data suggests we need renewed attention to public policies that provide real opportunities for advancement by reducing barriers to mobility inherent in our tax system and increasing transparency, regulation and access in our housing and credit markets," said Laura Sullivan, another co-author.
Several factors help explain why improving targeted public policies would reduce the racial wealth gap and lessen the increased reliance on debt. One factor is that over the period studied there was an increasing dependence on credit markets to make ends meet. Among those with no financial assets, credit is often an emergency resource to help cover a job loss or medical emergency.
A second factor is that deregulation of the lending market brought a proliferation of high-cost credit, including securitized subprime and predatory loans, payday lending and check-cashing stores. Consumers of color were targeted in this market and resorted more frequently to credit cards and other forms of high-cost debt in the absence of assets or extended family resources to draw upon.
"The data make a critical contribution to the debate today about how to ensure greater economic security and opportunity for all our citizens. A racial wealth gap affects all of us because it means that a large portion of the population cannot contribute to building the wealth and strength of our nation, and that is a drain on us all," said Meizhu Lui, director of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development's "Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative."
###David Moyes promised to reprimand Ashley Young after admitting that his player had tried to con the referee to give Manchester United a penalty in an incident that will further worsen the reputation of one of football's serial divers.
Young was shown a yellow card during the first half of United's 2-0 home win against Crystal Palace, featuring goals from Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney, who wore a specially designed headband to protect the gashed forehead that kept him out of England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine.
Television replays clearly showed Young jutting out his leg to make sure there was contact with the Palace midfielder Kagisho Dikgacoi before throwing himself to the ground. The England international has been lectured, at least once before, by Sir Alex Ferguson because of his repeat offending and Moyes said he would make it clear he did not want to see him do it again.
"I've always said I don't like diving," Moyes said. "Ash has put his leg into the lad's leg. The boy definitely puts his leg out and, rightly so, he deserved to get booked. I don't want my players diving. I don't want anybody doing it. I'll definitely say to Ash it's not what I want."
Young was also involved in the game's other controversy after another challenge from Dikgacoi led to the penalty from which Van Persie opened the scoring, with Dikgacoi sent off in the process. Ian Holloway, the Crystal Palace manager, is serving a two-match touchline ban for criticising referees and was reluctant to talk himself into trouble again. "Emotionally I'm in the right place now. I'd like to keep my money in the bank," he said.
Asked about Young's dive, he said: "I don't like to talk about other people's players. But if you want to come with me to the pub later I will tell you what I really think."
The first contact for Dikgacoi's red card was outside the penalty area and Moyes sympathised with Palace. "When I first saw it I thought it was just outside the box but in real time it was a very difficult decision."
The United manager added: "I don't like the rule that every time someone is the last man they are sent off. If I was Ollie I'd be disappointed. Unfortunately, they are the rules and he was the last man."Irish-language feature film An Bronntanas is to represent Ireland in the race for best foreign language film at the 87th annual Academy Awards.
The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) announced today that An Bronntanas, which was shot in Connemara and stars Dara Devaney, John Finn and Michelle Beamish, could be heading to Hollywood in February for the 2015 Oscars.
IFTA chief executive Áine Moriarty said the decision to submit the film to the Academy Awards would be a great opportunity to have “Ireland’s native tongue reach a wider international audience”.
Countries outside the US may submit one film for the foreign language category, with an average of 74 countries taking part in the competition.
In 2008, Ireland submitted the Irish-language film Kings, also directed by Tom Collins, and in 2012 Juanita Wilson’s As if I am not there was submitted for the same category.
An Bronntanas, which was shot mainly through Irish, is a contemporary thriller which tells the story of local independent lifeboat crew who become caught up in the violent world of narcotics.
The crew are faced with a moral dilemma when, following a distress call one stormy night, they discover the body of a woman alongside a haul of drugs worth a million euro on board a fishing boat.
The crew must choose whether to bring the body ashore and hand the drugs over to the gardaí, or abandon the body, sell the drugs and use the money to save their struggling village on the west coast of Ireland.
Tom Collins, the IFTA award-winning director of An Bronntanas, said he was “delighted” to see the film getting recognition outside Ireland.
“As we strive to build an indigenous film and TV industry, it’s crucial to show the breadth of talent we have here to the outside world,” he said.
The Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Science (AMPAS) will announce the five finalists for best foreign language film on 12th January 2015, before the big event at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on February 22nd.by
Having just spent a couple of hours setting up my new Wii U, I thought it might be useful to create a tutorial, as the official instructions missed a couple of simple explanations that caused me to make some mistakes. For this transfer to work you’ll need both consoles to be able to connect to the internet and for both to be able to be seen on your TV. For the sensor bar I just kept swapping the plug between the two consoles as I needed to, using separate power and AV connections for the two consoles.
The transfer process:
1. Have an SD card with at least 512 MB free
2. On the NEW (Wii U) Console: go to the shopping channel and download the Wii Transfer Tool to your system memory
3. On the NEW Console: after downloading successfully, go to the main Wii Menu and select the transfer tool. Follow the instructions and the required data will be downloaded to the SD card you will have inserted (the slot is just under the CD slot on the front of the console – just flip down the black lid and you |
uprising. Peter Rosset is a professor on rural social movements and agro-ecology at ECOSUR Center for Research and Graduate Studies in San Cristóbal, also works with the global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina. Still with us, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen; their report, ”NAFTA at 20.” We’ll link to it at our website.
Peter Rosset, talk about the celebrations this week on the 20th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising, the same day NAFTA went into effect.
PETER ROSSET: Well, good morning. The Zapatistas control about a third of the territory of the state of Chiapas, which they organized into five autonomous regions. And each one of those regions has a capital, a capital town or seat of administrative government called a caracol, which means “snail” in Spanish. So, in each of the five caracoles on New Year’s Eve, they had a 20 anniversary celebration with thousands of people from Zapatista communities, often wearing ski masks or bandannas covering their faces, dancing all night to live music, with thousands of people who came from all over Mexico and all over the world, in fact—from Europe, from Africa, from the Middle East, from Asia, from the United States—to participate in this celebration, a celebration on one hand of 20 years since the Zapatistas said “Basta” to NAFTA and neoliberal economic policies, but also to celebrate all the things that the Zapatistas have achieved in those 20 years in terms of constructing an alternative form of autonomous self-government in the territory that they control.
AMY GOODMAN: I want—
PETER ROSSET: It was very festive, and there’s a huge amount of energy here in Chiapas right now.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from the documentary Zapatista, when Subcomandante Marcos explains why the indigenous people of Chiapas rose up. After him, we hear from Comandante Zebedeo.
SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS: [translated] The indigenous of Mexico were considered worse than animals, as if they were objects, as if they were rocks, plants, something that can or cannot be. So what the indigenous must do is fight to regain a space within society and to plant again the concept of dignity, which is not something that is understood in the head. It is something by which you live and die, something that is felt within the chest, within the essence of the human being.
COMANDANTE ZEBEDEO: [translated] We have never had these rights—freedom of expression, the right to organize, the freedom to set prices of our produce. When we produce something, it is the buyer who sets the price of our product, and that is where the exploitation begins. They pay us as little as one peso for our products, but don’t consider the work and sacrifice which we make in the bulk and the weight of our work. And this costs us work. It costs us hunger. It costs us the little money we have invested there. And when it doesn’t produce, when it does not bear fruit, we don’t benefit. Others benefit, and the true workers remain the same, with their arms crossed and their land exploited.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Comandante Zebedeo; before that, Subcomandante Marcos, from the film Zapatista, produced by Big Noise Films. Peter Rosset, if you can talk about—elaborate on what they were both saying.
PETER ROSSET: Well, what they’re saying is that indigenous people in Mexico, since the Spanish conquest 500 years ago, as they said, have been treated almost like animals in a very racist society—the poorest of the poor, the most excluded, most indigenous communities without running water, without electricity, without effective education or healthcare. And that’s one of the reasons why the Zapatistas rose up. They also rose up because they knew that that was going to go from bad to worse with NAFTA and with free trade.
I think the most important thing now, 20 years later, is that in one small area, the southeast of Mexico, where they control territory, they’ve managed to create a different system—a small vision of what an alternative society would look like with collective and rotating self-government, with their own autonomous education system, autonomous healthcare system, production cooperatives and societies, the recovery of the local economy, their own system of administration of justice—in other words, their own legal system, which is much fairer than the federal Mexican legal system—tremendous promotion of young people and of women into positions of importance in the self-government process. So, it’s really exciting to see what is possible to achieve if you control your own territory and if you have a different vision of how society could be organized.
AMY GOODMAN: After the Zapatista uprising, I went down to Chiapas, and I was able to attend the first news conference that Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas held, and they only allowed in Mexico radio journalists. I mean, I was not from Mexico, but I did get in. They weren’t allowing in television, and that was because, Marcos said, of the way television and, overall, the media covered the Zapatista uprising. Peter Rosset, can you talk about the role of the media in Mexico and internationally in how they give voice to the grassroots or not?
PETER ROSSET: Well, I think we face in Mexico and in the world—in the United States, as well, and in many countries—what Subcomandante Marcos has called “media terrorism,” and that the mainstream media, what it does is it frightens people with unexplained images of threats and violence, making people support right-wing governments and repressive measures, and never really reports on what’s going on in the grassroots on what are the real causes of problems, what are real solutions, what do local alternatives look like when they’re actually functioning. We never hear anything like that. And I think the Zapatistas, amongst many other social movements, are fed up with that. And so, for example, in the New Year’s Eve celebration, they said it was open to everybody in the world except the news media, because they’re tired of the distorted and bad coverage. Of course, the media was there, and some of the alternative media, like Democracy Now! and like many other sources of alternative media, do have much more balanced and accurate coverage, but we don’t see that accurate coverage in the mainstream media, neither in Mexico nor anywhere else.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, when I was at that news conference, I got to ask a question, and I asked about the role of women in the leadership. You know, this was the first time that the Zapatistas were out in public, when they walked into the Cathedral of Peace in San Cristóbal de las Casas—of course, their faces were covered—that they were in the leadership. And some of the mainstream media afterwards, when I came out, came over to me and said, “What did you ask?” I said, “I asked about the women.” They said, “You had one question, and you asked about the women?” Well, it’s interesting. I want to play some footage from a recent gathering in Chiapas marking the 20th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising. This is Zapatista Commander Hortensia.
COMANDANTE HORTENSIA: [translated] Now is the time to strengthen and globalize the resistance and the rebellion, because we know that these lying thieves and criminals who call themselves the government will never stop attacking us. They will never stop persecuting us. They will never stop incarcerating us and trying to put an end to us and erase us from history. But they will not be able to, because our struggle has its just cause: democracy, liberty and justice. From Caracol II in Oventic, Resistance and Rebellion for Humanity, the high zone of Chiapas, January 1st, 2014.
AMY GOODMAN: Special thanks to Andalusia Knoll for this directly from Chiapas. Peter Rosset, the revolutionary role of women in this uprising over this last 20 years?
PETER ROSSET: Well, right from the beginning, before the Zapatistas even really came public, they already had a revolutionary law of women. And what they say is that their goal is that women should have 50 percent of all positions of authority in the self-governing process. We know that women are 50 percent of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Council, which is the maximum authority in the Zapatista movement. And things that one can see just in Zapatista territory is a whole generation of young indigenous women who have graduated from the Zapatista autonomous school system who are now, from 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old and who are in positions of authority, who are participating in what they call the Good Government Councils, the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, who are articulate.
And something—it’s a small anecdote, but that really moved me the other day, a Zapatista agro-ecology promoter was in my office, and he was talking about how the young women, indigenous women now in the indigenous communities in Zapatista territory are different from indigenous women before, because, he said, they no longer look at the floor when you talk to them. They look you directly in the eye. And I think that’s a small thing, but it really sums up how Zapatistas—the Zapatismo is changing the role of women in indigenous society here in Chiapas.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we just have 30 seconds, Peter Rosset, but the role of the current obstacles faced by Zapatistas today?
PETER ROSSET: Well, I think that the obstacles faced by the Zapatistas today, specifically, for them, are the counterinsurgency campaign the Mexican government carries out against them, which includes a negative media campaign, but also the problems that all of us in Mexico face. There have been tremendous reforms pushed through by the right-wing president, Enrique Peña Nieto, which are basically rolling back the remaining positive things left over from the Mexican revolution. So we’re facing very difficult times here in Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Rosset, I want to thank you for being with us, professor on rural social movements and agro-ecology at the ECOSUR Center for Research and Graduate Studies in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, also works with the global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina. And thanks so much to Lori Wallach of Public Citizen. We’ll link to that report, ”NAFTA at 20,” at democracynow.org.CNBC India has revealed that the Indian government committee has ruled in favor of regulating Bitcoin.
On April 14, Cointelegraph reported that the Inter-Disciplinary Committee within India’s Ministry of Finance was actively investigating the legal status of Bitcoin and considering the possibility of regulating the market.
Efforts of Indian Bitcoin exchanges
Over the past three years, the big three Indian Bitcoin exchanges including Zebpay, Coinsecure and Unocoin operated with self-regulated trading platforms with strict Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering systems in place, despite the lack of regulations in the digital currency industry and market.
The efforts of the Bitcoin exchanges in India to self-regulate the market allowed the Indian government to reconsider the Bitcoin and digital currency sectors, regardless of the criticisms by several politicians that significantly lack knowledge in cryptocurrency.
On March 24, Cointelegraph reported that Kirit Somaiya, a member of parliament of the ruling BJP in India, was harshly criticized for his description of Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme.
In a letter to the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India, Somaiya explained that Bitcoin is a pyramid Ponzi-type scheme. However, Somaiya was criticized for his inability to understand the structural and fundamental difference between a Ponzi scheme and Bitcoin.
The legalization of Bitcoin in India
In spite of the negative attitude of certain politicians, the Indian government has come to a decision to regulate the market and provide an even playing field for Bitcoin exchanges that have allocated a significant amount of resources to standardize the market and industry.
Back in April, Mohit Kalra, CEO of Coinsecure, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in India, told Cointelegraph in an interview that the Indian government has finally started to take Bitcoin seriously and are considering the possibility of regulating the market.
Kalra said:
“Finally, something positive for the industry. Authorities are now taking this technology seriously. We have been trying to get their attention for years now. I am glad it's all happening at the right time. At Coinsecure, we are seeing a massive increase in the number of users and volumes. We are positive with what will happen in these coming three months.”
On June 20, CNBC India announced that the Indian government committee has ruled in favor of regulating Bitcoin and is currently establishing a task force to create various regulatory frameworks with the aim of fully legalizing Bitcoin in the short-term.
Prior to the announcement of the Indian government, Chris Burniske, ARK Invest’s crypto lead, noted that the trading volumes in India have been on the rise. Burniske previously revealed that the Indian Bitcoin exchange market is responsible for processing around 11 percent of Bitcoin-to-USD trades.
The legalization of Bitcoin in India is expected to further increase trading volumes and Bitcoin activities in India by significant margins.A favorite book of both of my children (they’re 11 years apart) is It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr, a colorful text that gently teaches tolerance. From the mundane (“It’s okay to wear glasses”) to the profound (“It’s okay to have different moms”) to the silly (“It’s okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub”), Parr’s book gives those who are chubby or tall or disabled or nearsighted love in a world that constantly “others” them.
But white folks have taken that beautiful sentiment and distorted it to suit their infinite need to center themselves.
All around the country, in a coordinated effort by emboldened white supremacists without a shred of creativity or decency, there have been “It’s Okay to Be White” flyers plastered all over college campuses and on city streets over the last few days.
The impetus of this profoundly stupid idea is apparently a 4chan chat room comment suggesting that the posters (and reactions to the posters) would bring the average white American over to the darkest side of overt white supremacy. The Washington Post explains:
White Americans derisively referred to as “normies” in the white nationalist ecosphere will discover that American journalists and “lefties” hate white people. In the process, normies will stop regarding news outlets as credible. That would deal a damaging blow in the culture war, the post said, inevitably converting more “normies” to the white nationalist, alt-right side. It could be that easy to seed social disruption, the post implied.
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Since Tuesday, the Post reports, the five-word posters have been spotted in Rocky River, Ohio; at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.; at Tulane University in New Orleans; at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md.; around college campuses in Cambridge, Mass. (including Harvard Yard); and at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Although most times the anonymous posters and signs have been taken down, the message continues to proliferate on social media through hashtags and videos.
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Honestly, one thing that white nationalists have gotten right or tapped into is the growing feeling of many white Americans (from millennials on up) that they are increasingly facing discrimination and that they are consistently “victimized” (by whom, only they know).
But the facts don’t bear this out. As the Post notes, “on average, [white Americans] continue to enjoy better income, personal wealth reserves, health, health care, housing, schools than any other group.”
Like, has anyone ever said it’s NOT OK to be white? It’s not OK to be racist, sure. It’s not OK to be a white supremacist snowflake who can’t see past your own made-up oppression to the real suffering of others, yeah. It’s not OK to make obvious and documented police-brutality protests about the sanctity of a flag. But white?
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How about this? It’s never OK to be white and wrong. Right, Todd?
Read more at the Washington Post.I didn’t even know I had a fear of heights until I made a goal earlier this summer to walk on this tall structure at the Original Muscle Beach (“OMB”). It took me about a month to accomplish this goal. When I first stood on it, I felt paralyzed and couldn’t take a step but now I’m COMFY. I will expand on how I got to that point but first, here’s a quick, 30-second video capturing the feel for what I’m talking about:
The progression I followed was simple…
I started by walking on top of the lowest parallel bars (on a single bar) and moved to sequentially taller ones. This progression took only one session for me and was relatively easy, probably because I can walk on a slackline already. But I still walked on the parallel bars to act as a mental warm up on the following sessions.
I shared this progression with a friend who was visiting the beach for the first time and they got there expecting us to do deadlifts and squats, and didn’t realize OMB was an adult playground. He left telling me he was blown away by the whole place, and it made him start to think so differently about his environment and how you can take common structures around you and make them enticing challenges.
When I first got on the tall structure, I actually couldn’t even stand. I had to sit on it for a few minutes to get comfortable with the height. Then when I stood up, I was deathly afraid just from standing there. I felt SO high up and I was too afraid to take a step. It actually took me 3 days of ONLY-STANDING before I could take a single step! I stood and allowed my breath to take over and allow it to be chaotic in such a way to allow my fear signal to subside, which I will explain next:
How did you use the breath to calm down?
This was something I learned from another regular at the beach who taught me how to use my breath to reset my fear signals. I told him something like, “I make sure to not hold my breath, and when I would go highlining, I would make sure I was breathing deeply the whole time, but my heart would still be racing and I still felt like I was deathly afraid and not calming down whatsoever. What do?” And he gave me some sage advice:
He said that you basically need to allow the breath to be chaotic and natural (don’t overtly try to control it) but when you exhale, exhale fully, bringing belly button toward the spine. That helps reset the fear signal (in your amygdala) and maintain calm.
Before this, I was making sure I wasn’t holding my breath which is generally a good thing, but I was overly trying to control the rate (doing it slow) so I had to relearn to allow the breath to be chaotic (sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes in the nose, sometimes out the mouth, sometimes a yawn, etc). The point is to let the bodies innate intelligence dictate the process while I’m affirming that I’m physically fine. And basically every few breaths or every other breath (not every single breath, because I don’t want to overly control it), I will make sure I exhale fully and bring the belly to spine, to engage the diaphragm and this may recondition the brain to reset the anxiety and fear.
It also helped me to repeat a mantra that reaffirmed reality
I had to constantly remind myself that the damn metal structure was rigid and not unstable like a slackline which required more deconditioning than I even realized. It’s funny but after slacklining for so long, you come to get used to walking on unstable things and using your arms like a tail. So it was really strange to have to train myself to NOT overreact cause there was almost no movement in the structure to react to!
The mantra I repeated internally to help remind me was “It’s rigid, this is rigid. It’s rigid. This is solid. It’s solid. Rigid. This is rigid.” I just kept saying that repeatedly to remind myself that it was in fact, just a solid piece of metal and if I could walk straight, there was no reason for me to fall.
What about falling? What if I fall?
I also had to fall on purpose to realize it doesn’t hurt to fall onto the sand from that height of about 9 feet. I also learned that if I was about to fall, I could EASILY anticipate it and simply bend my knees to grab the bar below me and just hang and then come down. Then it’s only like a two foot drop and literally nothing.
When I took my first steps, I realized…
Despite how scary the height felt, it was actually physically, far easier than the parallel bars I was walking on because the bars were thicker so I actually had a lot more footing.
How did it affect my slacklining skills?
Well, it’s very interesting because while the metal structure doesn’t move like a slackline, it vibrates in such a way that mimics an extremely tight slackline. (Specifically, it feels like a 2″ trickline that’s tightened up really hard, or the very end of a 1″ longline near the anchors where the lateral movement is minimal but the oscillation is much higher.) It’s also helped me not be as afraid when walking on a slackline that’s above 8 feet tall. And the last time I went highlining, I felt significantly calmer from the fact that there’s no bottom (ground) for a couple hundred feet!
In conclusion, all of this opened up a whole new world, conquering fears I didn’t even know I had, creating new experiences with specific people who would join me up there for the sunset (well, actually, more like, me joining them, since they were doing it before), making for some special experiences, with amazing views of the sunset to boot. Also, the view of the ocean is incredible from up there. Life is indeed, pretty GREAT at the Original Muscle Beach 💪 in Santa Monica and I hope it serves as a model for more adult playgrounds that should exist throughout the world. Because adults need to play too, you know! Why should kids get to have all the fun? I’ll leave you with this relevant XKCD article:Beirut – Syrian opposition is setting the final touches on the documents it received from Russia during the Astana talks. Meanwhile, the opposition factions are yet to determine whether they will participate in the fourth round of talks during the next month in Kazakhstan. The participation will be determined based on development especially after US became involved in the Syrian crisis.
At the times sources at the opposition are speaking of a meeting in Turkey with the presence of Russia and some factions in preparation of the Astana talks, leadership sources denied the meeting.
Leadership sources stressed that currently they are dealing with the cases of detainees and landmines after the military opposition had rejected both documents of the constitution committee. The factions are convinced that the political issue should be discussed during the Geneva talks and that entitled “managing cease fire areas” which brings back the suggestions of “restoring order.”
Asharq Al-Awsat obtained a copy of the opposition’s notes on the documents, while informed sources at the factions said it refuses the participation of the regime and Iran. They added that it is crucial to handle this case as per the humanitarian laws and international resolutions.
The sources believe that it is hard to boycott Astana talks after Russia became a key player in the Syrian crisis and a solution can’t be reached without it. In addition, terrorism and cease fire had been referred from Geneva talks to the Kazakhstan talks which made it more legitimate and guarantee its continuity. The sources confirmed that if Moscow remained on its policy, then they will demand that both files be returned to Geneva.
Sources at the national coalition told Asharq Al-Awsat that the factions are in disagreement whether to participate in Astana talks or not. Some parties believe Russia doesn’t honor its promises and isn’t doing its duties especially concerning the cease fire, while other parties think that any boycott of the efforts or political negotiations can reflect negatively on the opposition.
An informed resource at the “Free Army” said there is no disagreement and all parties are unified. He confirmed that the negotiations are continuing and the decision will be taken depending on the developments before the convention is due next month.
Legal advisor at the coalition Hisham Mrowwe believes that the decision to participate in Astana is linked to several factors, mainly the involvement of US in the Syrian crisis.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Mrowwe wondered whether it would be beneficial to head to the negotiation sponsored by Russia which supports the regime. He didn’t rule out the possibility that the factions could take the decision to boycott the Astana talks especially that the opposition can now pressure Russia into executing its previous promises of comprehensive cease fire, release of detainees, and sending humanitarian aids to besieged areas.
Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that his country is determined to participate in the Astana talks. He considers that both Russia and Turkey are capable of solving the problems of the region.
“Ankara seeks to strengthen cooperation with Moscow in the fight against terrorism,” Cavusoglu said, adding that the Russian and Turkish experts started holding meeting on a more frequent basis.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and his British counterpart Boris Johnson stated there are new efforts and ongoing talks with US to confirm a real and comprehensive ceasefire.
Head of Syrian opposition delegation, Naser al-Hariri said on Sunday that fighting terrorism can’t be done without eliminating Bashar al-Assad.Let me preface this by saying that the "history" part of this ended up being way more complicated than we have space to cover in this story, I'll try to keep it brief.
Back in the day, I remember the "PC DOS Tech Ref" manual (yes, I was there in 1981 to read this one. And yes, I still have my copy) - one of the many useful things in that manual was the by-now-very-familiar ASCII table, listing characters 1-127, which had been extended to include the next 128 characters, for an even 1-255 (1-FF in hex). I think this extension might have been for PC-DOS actually. I spent a lot of time using this, as it was handy in transcoding hex and binary data streams to characters (remember, this was before we had sniffers on PC DOS platforms).
At the time, the main competition for ASCII was EBCDIC, the character encoding used by IBM System/36, System /38 and mainframe architectures. IBM AIX and all the other Unix (this was pre-Linux) vendors used 8 bit ASCII along with everyone else. But at least we had decent packet sniffers on mainframes both mainframes, S/3x and Unix platforms!
Enter "the rest of the world" which needed to read and write in characters that exceeded the limited A-Z ASCII character set. Unicode 1.0 was established back in 1987 (yes, really, it was that long ago!) and has seen regular updates since then. The current version is 6.2 (released just last month, in September 2012), which supports 110,000 different characters, 100 scripts, including rendering, collation, bidirectional order (to handle right to left scripts). All of a sudden simple text got a lot less simple!
How does this relate to security? Because many of today's defence technologies still live in the 1981, 8 bit ASCII world.
Consider a directory traversal attack. Say you have a website at http://somesite.domain.com/somepage
A directory traversal attack will "traverse" the directory structure to steal files outside of the web page. For instance, http://somesite.domain.com/../../../etc/passwd to steal the "passwd" file from a unix or Linux system that might host that site.
So, how do we protect from that? The web server should prevent you from using that pesky "../../.." string, or any variant that looks like it. But how about in straight up ASCII, where the "./" character is character can be encoded in Hexadecimal - as 2E 2F. So now we need to protect against "%2E%2F", and any other variation on that.
Simple so far, but now consider Unicode, where the "." and "/" can now be represented as (again in hexadecimal) 002E 002F. So we also need to protect against "%002E%002F". But now factor in that there are hundreds of other alphabets and character sets, each with their own Unicode table, so we now have more than a few different hexadecimal representations for the "." and "/" characters! For instance the "/" character, which we now know as %2F or %002F, can also be represented as %C0AF (this one was missed in an early version of IIS). Or we can mis-code it intentionally, and %ca%9v also works!
Oh, remember that if you're on a Windows machine, where the subdirectory delimeter is backwards, using the "\" character (hex 5C)? That means we need to take everything above and double the number of checks!
Now add every other web attack method (directory traversal is just of the most simple ones), and you can see how character encoding can complicate matters tremendously in defending web (and other) applications!
One of the character encoding attacks that we're all expecting to see more common is the use of Unicode in spear-phishing attacks. We covered this a while back in a diary: http://isc.sans.edu/diary/non-latin+TLD+to+be+issued/8755
Consider if you're google searches - it's now easy to redirect you to a site where the "o" characters were actually a different character entirely, in another code page. It's unlikely that most people would detect an attack like this, and most of our technical controls for things like this are not prepared for non-latin domain names either.
What got me started on this you ask? We received a note from one of our readers (thanks again Larry) - he had captured a cross site scripting attack against his web application (an unsuccessful attack, thankfully). The neat thing for me was the character encoding used to obfuscate the attacking script - the attack as captured is shown (partially) here:
> GET
> /js/i%20=%200;%20i%20%3C%20parts.length;%20i++)%20%7B%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%20%20%20if%20(parts[i].substr(0,%201)%20==%20'q')%20%7B%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20return%20unescape(part
> s[i].split('=')[1].replace(//+/g,%20'%20'));%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%7D%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%
> 20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%
> 20%20return%20'';%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%
> 20goog
> le.load('search',%20'1',%20%7B%20language:%20'en',%20style:%20google.l
> oader.themes.GREENSKY%20%7D);%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20google.setOnLoadCallback(function()%20%
> 7B%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20var%20customSearchControl%20=%20new%20google.search.CustomSearchCo
> ntrol('004498978135172075721:ll4byhgudkg');%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20
> %20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20customSearchC
> ontrol.setResultSetSize(google.search.Search.FILTERED_CSE_RESULTSET);%
> 20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20customSearchControl.draw('cse');%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%
> 20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20customSearc
> hControl.execute(getQuery());%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D,%20true);%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3C/script%3E%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%2
> 0%20%20%2 0%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Clink%20rel= HTTP/1.1
This looks complicated, but it's essentially an obfuscation attack based on simple 8 bit ASCII.
%20 is ASCII 32 (decimal), which is a space character.
%7D is }
%7B is {
%3C is <
%3E is >
After you undo all the encoding and "pretty it up" by putting in appropriate carriage returns and indents, the code looks like:
i = 0;
i < parts.length;
i++) {
if (parts[i].substr(0, 1) == 'q') {
returnunescape(parts[i].split('=')[1].replace( //+/g,''));}}}
return '';
}
google.load('search', '1', {
language: 'en',
style: google.loader.themes.GREENSKY
}); google.setOnLoadCallback(function () {
varcustomSearchControl = newgoogle.search.CustomSearchControl('004498978135172075721:ll4byhgudkg');
customSearchControl.setResultSetSize(google.search.Search.FILTERED_CSE_RESULTSET);
customSearchControl.draw('cse');
customSearchControl.execute(getQuery());
}, true); < /script>
This looks fairly straightforward, but that weird string in the middle '004498978135172075721:ll4byhgudkg' had me stumped. Bojan Zdrnja (another Handler here at the ISC) clued me in - it's a stored search string on Google. So what this attack script does, once successful, is pull the "real" attack down from a stored site, indexed and called indirectly courtesy of Google. This real attack might often be a command and control channel back to a botnet or other controller host, but it could be just about anything really.
Anyway, back to character encoding - you see that the majority of this attack was encoded / obfuscated in 8 bit ASCII - it's not unicode or anything complex at all. The IPS in front of the website had no trouble dealing with this, it was blocked and sent to our reader as an alert, and he passed it on to us.
But remember what I mentioned about many of our defences still living in the 1980's world of 8-bit ASCII? While the attack *looks* complicated to the human eye, it's 10-years-ago complicated, ie - it looks complex but if you've got any defences at all attacks of this nature are likely to be blocked handily. Throwing in unicode, especially from one |
-sustaining entities.
Park ’N Go grossed roughly $1.5 million in 2013, and the 8 percent access fee amounted to about $118,000. Samuels said Park ’N Go passes the access fee on to its customers.
Samuels proposed a resolution opposing HB 1889 and any other state attempts to limit local airport fees. The council adopted the resolution.
Samuels said the principle goes beyond airport fees. “Funding to local government, 599 funding, eminent domain issues, local exemptions for real-estate taxes to surviving spouses of those killed in action — we pay attention to a large number of papers in the General Assembly,” he said.
After all the discussion about HB 1889, Agelasto raised a question about another bill.
“I wish that we had followed a similar process when it comes to HB 2253,” he said. That bill sought to create a commission to determine which Richmond schools should be renovated or replaced. The bill was sponsored by Del. Delores McQuinn of Richmond, a former member of Richmond City Council and the Richmond School Board.
Agelasto said that the School Board already has the authority to evaluate school facilities and that the bill was unnecessary.
“The legislation at the General Assembly was preempting action of the School Board and this task force,” Agelasto said. “It was a concern of council members – not all, but some – and of the School Board that this bill was poor timing.”
McQuinn’s bill subsequently died in the House Education Committee.
Agelasto said the council intervenes in General Assembly affairs primarily when the issue affects the city budget.
“What money do we have to complete what work, and where?” Agelasto said. “The only consideration the council needs to make is, what money do we have?”
City Council has passed several resolutions like the one addressing access fees at the Richmond airport.
Agelasto said these resolutions do have some impact on legislators.
“If the General Assembly representatives are unaware of public support, they can look at these resolutions and understand where the city’s public support is coming from,” Agelasto said. “For example, if Del. Betsy Carr is trying to convince a colleague to pass a piece of legislation, she could share a copy of our resolution explaining our position.”
Agelasto said council members go on a retreat every fall to discuss what they would like to ask of the General Assembly. “The council goes through a long agenda, and we whittle it down to a handful, called the short list,” Agelasto said.
The council’s short list is created before bills in the General Assembly are introduced. “We don’t know what bills will be introduced,” Agelasto said. “General Assembly members will get the sense of our position prior to their deadline.”Rebels in Aleppo are laying plans to withstand a siege by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the likelihood the regime cuts a final main supply line running west of the city. They vow a siege will not be over quickly. But their plans are not being helped by squabbles breaking out among insurgent commanders.
As forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad tighten the noose on the rebels in northern Syria, rebel commanders and opposition politicians are scrambling to plan for a prolonged siege of the insurgent-held districts of the city of Aleppo. And they are coming up with contingencies for food, medical supplies as well as ammunition and arms.
They believe the portion of Aleppo they control now can emulate the old city of Homs, which withstood an Assad siege for nearly three years.
The rebel-held area of Aleppo will be a much bigger challenge for the regime to starve or bomb into submission, says Mazen Gharibah of the Local Administration Councils Unit, part of the Western-backed rebel Syrian Interim Government.
Aleppo's needs immense
“The difference is huge between Homs and Aleppo,” says Gharibah. “First of all in Homs, the area that was besieged was very small in comparison to Aleppo. In Homs we had 5,000 civilians besieged in a very small restricted area. In Aleppo we have more than 250,000 in a very vast area, Aleppo is one of the largest cities in Syria,” he says.
He points out that the insurgent areas of Aleppo have a strong infrastructure of NGOs and pro-opposition local governance. There are more than 120 NGOs working in the city and in recent months opposition civilian authorities and the armed militias have been working well together, he says.
Rebel commanders and opposition activists are planning to use tunnels to re-supply the city’s insurgent areas. And they say that even if the regime manages, which most expect it will in the coming days, to cut the small supply corridor remaining west of Aleppo, there are still smaller roads they can use to get some food and medical supplies and arms into the city.
This week, the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) instructed international relief agencies it partners with to reposition as best they can food stores closer to the city and to move what they can inside. OHCA is updating plans it started drafting a year ago for an Aleppo siege, say European diplomats.
International aid crucial
U.N. and U.S. officials have warned of a potential “humanitarian disaster” in the event Aleppo is besieged by Russian-backed Assad regime forces. And in U.S.-led international coalition talks in Munich Thursday a humanitarian corridor for a besieged Aleppo will be at the top of the agenda, say U.S. officials.
“There have been several meetings between local NGOs and local councils and international NGOs as well both in Gaziantep and inside of Aleppo in order to have an emergency plan, a response plan for Aleppo,” says Gharibah.
Included in the plan is the setting up of a trust fund for Aleppo, which opposition politicians hope foreign governments and ordinary people around will contribute to as the siege unfolds.
But the planning — especially when it comes to grain and food-stocks — is being made harder by the intensity of the fighting and bombing, the sheer force of the Russian-backed offensive and the risk of plunder and looting by militias, including the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG.
Regime not the only enemy
Earlier this week, the YPG stole 460 out of 500 tons of wheat from a rebel store at a village north of Aleppo.
“We are doing now a whole strategy, and one of the strategies is to move some wheat inside Aleppo, at least 1,000 tons,” says Moayyad Yousef of the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU), which was established in 2012 by the main political opposition group, the Syrian Coalition, to distribute aid.
But that only will be enough wheat for just one month.
The ACU is also moving wheat and food around northern Syria to try to keep the stores safe.
“We are trying to find somewhere close to the border of Turkey but still we can’t find anywhere until now. You can’t figure out where it is going to be safe, you can’t, it is hard,” Yousef told VOA.
Opposition politicians say they are harboring hopes that Saudi Arabia will send medical supplies. In 2014, the Saudis sent $17 billion of medical supplies. “That was fantastic and we need them to do that again. We need everything. We need food,” says ACU’s Yousef.
Siege expected with or without cease-fire
According to Osama Taljo, one of 25 members of the city council for the rebel-held area of Aleppo, it would take at least a year for the siege to force a surrender. “We are trying to provide what will be needed to ensure the city can withstand a siege for at least a year,” he says. “And I hope longer,” he added.
Unlike Homs and Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus that was under siege for two years, Aleppo has had time to prepare. He insists the morale of civilians in the rebel-held portion of the city is high — and so too their determination.
“They have been used to all kinds of killing and all kinds of weapons and they have remained steady,” he says. He dismissed Russian offers of a cease-fire — made in Munich Wednesday. “Whatever happens in Munich, Aleppo will be besieged,” he said.
Rebel commanders argue that the prospects for holding out for years are good. They point out that any siege imposed on Aleppo by the regime will have gaps in it and won’t be uniform — because some areas around the city will be controlled by the Islamic State and the YPG.
“Daesh will still want to trade oil,” says a rebel commander, using the Arab acronym for the Islamic State.
Lack of cooperation a worry
But General Salem Idris, former FSA chief of staff, is worried. He still advises some of the militias on military tactics and says there is not enough coordination going on.
“I am sorry to tell you that until now that is a problem,” he told VOA. “There is no central command for Aleppo even now. There are many attempts now to have what is called a military operations center for the northern suburbs of Aleppo. I don’t know if they understand what will happen in the coming days. In a meeting to have a tactical plan there were differences between them about who will control the border crossing at Bab al-Salameh, if they succeed.”
Idris fumes: “They may lose everything and they still think about personal interests.”Yesterday on Hardball, Chris Matthews argued that a public option would be impossible to pass the Senate:
CHARLES BLOW: The public, by far, wants a public option. The president has said it‘s a good idea to have a public option. MATTHEWS: How come—I don‘t want to argue with you all night. Only 30 senators support that position. You talk it up. Ed Schultz talks it up every night. Fair enough. It‘s a good position. It‘s a progressive decision. I just saw as recently as a couple days ago, only 30 Democrat, Melinda—only 30 Democrats of the 60 Democrats in Senate support it. Why do we keep talking about something that half the Democrats don‘t support? Do you think Evan Bayh is for it? Do you think Blanche Lincoln is for it? Ken Conrad? Max Baucus? No, they‘re not.
First of all, notice how Matthews cleverly claims that only 30 Democrats in the Senate support a public option. He’s referring to a letter signed by 30 Democrats demanding that Harry Reid include a public option in any bill that comes to the Senate floor. Harry Reid didn’t sign it because, um, it was ADDRESSED to him. But he’s on the record supporting it. The rest of the Senate leadership didn’t sign the letter either. But Chuck Schumer supports it, as does Dick Durbin. Schumer even challenged Reid to put the public option in the final Senate bill, which is the exact message of the letter.
In fact, public whip counts show at least 51 votes from the Democratic caucus in support.
In addition, this is the wrong question. The proper question is whether any Democrat would vote to join a Republican filibuster on a bill with a public option. And though Holy Joe Lieberman has flirted with that, no member of the Democratic caucus has publicly stated they would. That’s the key question, but expecting Matthews to understand that is like expecting a giraffe to do long division.Photo by Stew Milne/USA Today Sports
By DAN KARELL
Based on his past season, it should come as no surprise that Wil Trapp earned his first call-up to the U.S. Men’s National Team.
The up-and-coming Columbus Crew SC star was included in Jurgen Klinsmann’s 28-man squad for the USMNT’s annual January camp, which will see the side head to Chile for a friendly with their national team on Jan. 28 before heading home to take on fellow CONCACAF nation Panama on Feb. 8 in Carson, Calif.
In his first full season with the Crew, Trapp fit in seamlessly to head coach Gregg Berhalter’s attacking-minded system. The 21-year-old became the connector between the defensive line and the attack, with Trapp regularly dropping back to start the build up in attack, as well as providing the first line of defense when opponents break forward.
It’s a role that Trapp hopes to fill with the USMNT over the course of the next month.
“If you look at the way the national team’s been playing, you look at a guy like Kyle Beckerman, playing that defensive midfield role, sometimes (dropping) between the centerbacks, and (being) the metronome for the team,” Trapp told reporters in a conference call. “That’s a similar role to what I’ve been playing with Columbus Crew SC and I think hopefully if I do well, that’s where I’d find myself playing.”
Trapp’s successful season came to an end with not only a goal and four assists in 28 games, all starts, but he also drew praise from opponents around the league. Following his stellar performance in a 3-1 road win for the Crew at the New York Red Bulls, Thierry Henry heaped praise on the Gahanna, Ohio native.
As he looks to improve on last season, Trapp said that he can use this coming camp as a “measuring stick” to see how far he’s come so far in his career, and how far he has to go. Each day in training, he’ll be going up against the likes of Jermaine Jones and Michael Bradley, established players who have played in Europe and were on the U.S. squad at the 2014 World Cup.
“I think it’s a good measuring stick for where I’m at in my career,” Trapp said. “Seeing guys like Michael Bradley, Jermaine Jones, Chris Wondolowski, Matt Besler, guys that played in the World Cup, those are guys that I look up to and I think you have to strive to be like them. Being able to be there every day in training and learn from them as well as compete against them will hopefully do wonders for me.”
In spite of his age, Trapp has always shown a propensity to lead. A former captain for the U.S. Under-20 National Team and the current vice-captain for the Crew, Trapp has embraced his leadership qualities.
It’s just another role that he expects to slide into when he joins the USMNT.
“I think I play my best when I’m trying to lead and help guys around me,” Trapp said, noting that he’s played with a number of the players in the current USMNT squad either at Akron University or with the U.S. U-20s. “I’m going to just keep doing what I’m doing, trying to lead to my best way and tailor it to the guys around me, read their needs, and hopefully it works out.”
Last January, Klinsmann commented on how impressed he was with the national team’s fitness when they arrived in Carson, Calif. Luckily for Trapp, a number of Crew players have remained in Columbus through the winter, allowing there to be a large group training regularly with the club’s fitness coaches so that they can hit the ground running for the 2015 MLS season.
“We’ve been very fortunate this offseason to have almost 12-15 guys working here in Columbus with our strength and conditioning coaches for the past six weeks,” Trapp said. “I’ve been hard at work for a while now and I’ve been feeling pretty good and fit, and ready to go.”
Prior to leaving for camp, Trapp spoke with both USMNT defender Michael Parkhurst and former USMNT player Berhalter on what to anticipate and how best to prepare for life under Klinsmann.
In addition, Berhalter assured Trapp not to worry about Crew preseason while he’s with the USMNT. The camp will overlap with the start of the Crew’s 20th season in MLS, as they open preseason around Jan. 24.
“Greg wants me to be fully focused on the national team for this training camp,” said Trapp, who expects to play in both upcoming USMNT friendlies. “I think he knows once I get in with the Crew back in for preseason, we can go from there. Right now I’m fully focused on this call-up and working with the national team.”Walter Naumann from Leipzig was sent to the front in 1914 with the 105 King Wilhelm II infantry regiment of the Royal Saxony Army.
He was an amateur photographer and had worked in hotels in London, Paris, Grenoble and Atlantic City before the war, bringing his camera with him everywhere.
His father owned a restaurant in Bad Düben, north of Leipzig.
CLICK HERE to see Naumann's photos
Naumann’s pictures show all of life from ruins and graves to a soldier’s workout and relaxing on the French front.
After the war he returned to Leipzig and went on to work in restaurants across Germany, before dying in 1952.
The hundreds of photos stayed in a trunk with his family, but have now been published thanks to an EU-funded online project called Europeana which is gathering archive photos and documents about World War One from across the globe.
CLICK HERE to see Naumann's photosCorrection: An earlier version of this story misspelled Chad Barnhill’s name. The story has been corrected.
Long lines marked opening night at the Horseshoe Casino last summer in Baltimore. The casino has not lived up to expectations, which some analysts say were overly optimistic. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
There were great expectations for Horseshoe Casino when it opened in Baltimore last August. Crowds surged, music blasted, festivity reigned. Big-dollar optimism was in full force as well, as casino industry consultants hired by the state predicted monthly gambling revenue in the $28 million range for Maryland’s fifth gambling destination.
A year later, industry watchers are dialing down the enthusiasm.
Horseshoe is trying to find its footing in one of the most concentrated casino markets in the country. It hasn’t been easy — and there will be even more competition when MGM National Harbor opens its much-anticipated $1.3 billion casino and resort on the banks of the Potomac River next year.
Horseshoe is a smaller gambling palace. Monthly revenue is averaging just over $23 million at the $442 million casino. If it maintains its monthly average rate, Horseshoe will pull in about $60 million less than projected in its first year of operation. And for Maryland, that means about $20.4 million less in tax revenue for the state’s Education Trust Fund.
So, what’s going on?
Aerialist Kasumi Kato pours champagne while suspended from a chandelier as another performer dances on the wall during festivities for opening night at the Horseshoe Casino last August. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Industry experts say that the projections for Horseshoe were overly optimistic and didn’t fully take into account how saturated Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic had become with gambling options.
[Gamblers brave lines for the first glimpse of Horseshoe Baltimore]
It didn’t help that one of Horseshoe’s primary owners, Caesars Entertainment, was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy of its casino operations, which it did in January. And when riots broke out in Baltimore in mid-April, the ensuing curfew curtailed operations at the 24-hour facility for a week and ate into revenue and momentum.
For their part, Horseshoe executives reject the notion that the casino is underperforming, saying that the early projections by others were not in keeping with their own. They point to the 5 million customers who have walked through the door since its opening and the hiring of 1,900 employees, 60 percent of whom are Baltimore residents, as signs of a vibrant first year.
“Our revenues are strong for a market of this size, and they continue trending in a positive direction following the unrest that we experienced in the spring,” says Chad Barnhill, Horseshoe’s senior vice president and general manager. “There’s no question that our performance is improving in the wake of the city’s challenges, and I expect that to continue to do so.”
Not everyone agrees. And some critics say that Horseshoe’s location not far from the Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium gets in the way of a better performance.
“The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that city casinos do not do as well as people think, especially when there are choices outside the city,” says Alan Woinski, president of Gaming USA and the author of syndicated newsletters on the gambling industry. “Casinos in New Orleans, Cincinnati, Cleveland all have underperformed.... It is not a coincidence that no city casinos have met projections.”
More than 350 poker players converged on the Horseshoe Casino in February for a World Series of Poker-sponsored tournament. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
[With Horseshoe, Baltimore adds to the urban gambling jackpot]
Horseshoe has to go up against Maryland Live, the three-year-old casino next to the Arundel Mills Mall just 12 miles south of Baltimore. The state’s largest casino, Maryland Live did better than analysts expected in meeting the challenge from Horseshoe and even exceeding revenue expectations. It has been averaging more than $50 million a month this year, or double the gross gaming revenue of its neighbor up the road.
“When [Horseshoe] Baltimore opened up, everyone thought that Maryland Live, given that it was no longer the shiny penny, would lose a little bit of that luster, and we really haven’t seen it,” says Chad Beynon, a gaming industry analyst with Macquarie Securities. (A separate part of Macquarie Securities has helped Caesars secure financing while in bankruptcy.) “The old adage or thinking is that people who live in the suburbs like to stay in the suburbs. And they traditionally don’t go into the city because it’s a dark, scary place.”
Horseshoe’s Barnhill acknowledges that the riots had an impact but points out that in July the casino experienced its second-best revenue month — $24.4 million — since opening and its best month since March.
[Rioting rocks Baltimore: Hogan declares emergency, activates Guard]
“The disturbance that happened earlier this year, I hope that is not something that keeps people from coming downtown to this great city and all that this great city has to offer,” Barnhill says. “I’m sure it’s in the back of some people’s minds, but Baltimore is on a great track in terms of making sure that we’re doing everything we can as a city and obviously as a property to get people comfortable in coming back downtown.”
Horseshoe can’t afford to look back. Looming on the horizon for Horseshoe and Maryland Live: the scheduled opening of MGM, which is expected to draw gamblers from Maryland and Northern Virginia as well as nationally.
Maryland Live is clearly gearing up for the challenge. On Tuesday, it announced plans for an 18-story hotel and convention center. Barnhill says that Horseshoe also has plans for growth and development that “we continue to take a good, hard look at.”
“There’s a wide variety of options,” he says. “And fortunately for us, there’s a wide variety of land parcels around us that we can discuss with the city as well.”
In the expectations game, Horseshoe will really begin feeling the pressure in its second year as the initial monthly gambling revenue projections by the consultants to Maryland’s State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency jump to $35 million a month. Analysts, too, expect to see a better showing.
“We’d like to see that $20 to $25 million gross gaming number get above 30,” says Beynon of Macquarie Securities. “Once you’re above those levels, given the numbers of employees you have to employ and the overall tax structure and operating expense environment, I think that’s enough to keep the property afloat and operate at a pretty healthy state. But once you’re in the 20s, from a gross gaming standpoint with a tax rate that high, that’s where it becomes a little more difficult for the operator to make a profit.”
[Maryland casinos resist bid to raise taxes]
Whether Horseshoe can get there is an open question, but Barnhill is optimistic.
“Whether we start off in January at $35 million, or we’re able to get there later on throughout the course of the year,” he says, “I feel very positive about our continued growth in that direction.”
Maryland is an interested party in Horseshoe’s progress as 34 percent on average of gross gambling revenue at the state’s casinos goes to the Education Trust Fund. But Horseshoe’s performance so far is not yet a cause for great concern, says Del. Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery).
“We know that projections are always going to be a little bit off, and in our budget process, we account for some variability,” says Luedtke, the House chairman of the Joint Committee on Gaming Oversight. “From the state’s perspective, we’re less concerned about how one casino is doing than on how the entire casino and lottery program is doing together. From that perspective, the state’s doing pretty well.”
Still, there is concern from industry watchers about Horseshoe. And for now, all eyes are on Baltimore to see if the young casino can shake off its sluggish first-year showing.Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose stood during question period one afternoon last month and alleged that the prime minister was refusing to "tell Canadians how much his carbon tax will cost."
"In fact, this is now becoming widely known as the carbon tax coverup," she said, rather hopefully.
In this case, "becoming widely known as" might be understood to mean "being portrayed by Conservative MPs as." Originating with Pierre Poilievre, the phrase is now being pushed as a hashtag, though one that seems mostly popular with members of the Conservative caucus.
More seriously, the Conservatives put their concern to the House of Commons with a motion that calls on the government to release internal projections around the impacts of pricing carbon.
That motion, with Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois voting against, was defeated Tuesday (the motion also referred to pricing carbon as "regressive"), which no doubt gives the Conservatives new reason to cry foul.
But beneath the posturing and trouble-making, there are at least two serious questions of public policy: one involving government transparency, the other about the cost of combating climate change.
A tale of 2 memos
At issue here are two internal government memos, written by officials in the Finance Department, that Poilievre received through Access to Information requests. One of them deals with the impact of a price on carbon, the other looks at several options for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
But both documents were heavily redacted by officials before being released. And no specific cost analysis is included in the public versions.
Emissions from Dofasco in Hamilton in 2013. It may be difficult to assess the cost of the Liberal carbon pricing policy without knowing exactly how each province will implement a price. (Lynda Lukasik/Environment Hamilton)
Some of the information is excluded under provisions of the Access to Information Act that allow the government to withhold details of the advice that civil servants provide to ministers. In theory, such rules exist so that officials can communicate candidly, without fear that their analysis will later be made public.
As noted in a 2015 report, however, each of the last four information commissioners has raised this particular exemption as a point of concern. Unfortunately, successive governments, including the previous Conservative government, have left the relevant rules unchanged.
All of which could be fodder for the next review of the Access to Information system.
How much will it cost?
The public sphere would surely only benefit from seeing the analysis of the finest minds at the Finance Department. But it's not entirely clear how well those memos would reflect the government's policy.
Both memos actually predate the current Liberal government. The first was distributed on Sept. 11, 2015, the second on Oct. 20, 2015. The Liberals weren't sworn in until Nov. 4 of that year and didn't announce their policy on pricing carbon until October 2016.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, left, meet in December 2016. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
According to economists familiar with the issue, it would also be difficult to assess the cost of the Liberal pricing policy without knowing exactly how each province will implement a price.
Though the Liberals have set a schedule that provinces must match (starting at $10 per tonne of emissions in 2018 and rising to $50 per tonne in 2022) and have vowed to impose a pricing mechanism on provinces that refuse to comply, it will otherwise be for provincial officials to decide how the price is applied and whether the resulting revenue is used to provide rebates or reduce other taxes.
Ballpark $1,100 per household
That said, potentially relevant estimates already exist.
Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary, looked at the impact of a $50 per tonne price on carbon last fall and came up with a "ballpark" estimate of $1,100 in annual direct and indirect costs to households, before any rebates or offsets.
In a separate analysis, Tombe and Nicholas Rivers, an economist at the University of Ottawa, estimated that the first year of carbon pricing in Ontario ($18 per tonne) and Alberta ($20 per tonne) would cost the average household between $230 and $300.
In its most recent budget, the British Columbia government estimated that a two-income family of four earning $90,000 will pay $236 in direct carbon costs related to the province's $30 per tonne price.
At a higher level, the federal government has provided estimates that suggest carbon pricing could slow the average annual rate of GDP growth by 0.02 to 0.08 per cent.
Cost of not acting?
But for the sake of a decent discussion, those numbers also need context.
Specifically, any consideration of the costs of pricing carbon would have to include both the cost of not acting and the cost of acting in some other way.
The federal government currently estimates that the social cost of carbon — that is, the estimated cost of each tonne of emissions on agricultural production, human health, flood risk and ecosystems — is $40.70 per tonne.
To use a different measure, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy estimated six years ago that the impact of unmitigated climate change could cost the Canadian economy as much as $29 billion per year by 2075.
Of course, significantly mitigating climate change will require global action. But as an argument against acting that raises questions too. Would Canadians be better off waiting? Or is there a moral or economic case for acting now?
Regulation cost
Last, but not least, the benefits and costs of pricing carbon would have to be compared to the benefits and costs of an alternative policy.
Strict regulations, for instance, carry a cost as industries and companies are compelled to change their practices. Those costs are just less obviously advertised.
Conservative leadership candidate Erin O'Toole released a plan last week that relies on giving tax breaks to companies that cut emissions, but there isn't yet any agreement among the critics of pricing carbon on a counter-proposal. Presumably the next leader of the Conservative Party will have to offer some kind of position.
All of the above would make for a truly robust debate — one that would only benefit from more and more analysis.One of the greatest aspects of Retroware TV is the nostalgic catharsis of looking backwards — in addition to fond memories, we also experience the game anew because of new perspectives gained over time. But even with our favorites, the ones we play in sickness and in health, it’s hard not to apply some of the more critical thought processes we gain as we grow. In my most recent playthrough of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, I questioned something that I had never considered as a child playing this game: how sexist is Mario RPG? Could some of the moments in this game have passed censors in this day and age? In light of these musings, I’d like to start discussion with an article critiquing Mario RPG from a feminist perspective: in short, the portrayal of female characters in this game is ahead of the game compared to other Mario iterations, but ultimately still leaving a little to be desired.
Compared to other Super Mario games, the game is years ahead of its time in some relevant elements, most notably the fact that Princess Toadstool’s primary purpose is not to sit there, kidnapped and waiting for Mario to save her again (granted, this happens, but it’s not quite the endgame as much as it is a callback joke and catalyst for the plot). This happens in virtually every other Mario game — and the only other exception to this trope of the Mario universe, Super Princess Peach, is laughably just as insulting if not more, given Toadstool’s entire arsenal involves using tears, rage, or other emotions as her source for powerups. Additionally, the game is stupidly simple compared to other platformers, bombarding the player with hints along the way just in case the game was still too difficult. Despite the intention behind the role reversal, they shot themselves in the foot by making the game marketed to girls so offensive; in just one game, the developers managed to imply girl gamers were bad at platformers, and comically emotional to a fault.
In Mario RPG, however, the Princess battles on the front lines alongside Mario. Upon initial observation, she most obviously plays the role of the healer — a problematic stereotype perpetuating the implication that the woman must play a supporting role. Though the game does try to mitigate this implication slightly; Mallow and Geno both can provide supporting roles through healing or stat-boosting, and Toadstool does offer offensive potential as well, dealing as much damage with her final weapon as Bowser or Geno. Admittedly, this weapon is a Frying Pan, so the developers can only really take so much credit in calling this progressive. Not only that, but her penultimate weapons include the Slap Glove, the War Fan, and the Parasol, which also kind of feed preconceived gender roles and stereotypes. And despite being so powerful, she still gets kidnapped twice in the game, waiting for Mario to save her each time rather than taking any action of her own. Her real potential as a fighting partner, ally, or even remotely intelligent human being doesn’t really show until after the second rescue.
As a character within the party, Toadstool is a bit more of a go-getter than her usual kidnapped self. When the Chancellor tells her that Mario’s quest is too dangerous for her, she pretends to comply and then sneaks out a the first available opportunity — a complete “Take that” to the Chancellor (one that makes you wonder why she didn’t do that with Booster or Bowser). She’s also known to have moments for lecturing Mario/the player for irrationally stupid or inconsiderate actions, like running off to Star Hill instead of immediately reporting to the Chancellor once her initial rescue is completed.
The game also gets points for making stereotypically female characterizations noticeable in the male characters as well — a subtle yet crucial distinction between “Ha, females do this,” and “Ha, people do this.” Bowser and Mallow, both adult male characters and eventual allies to the team, cry and become emotional just as much if not more than Toadstool — and as mentioned before, Geno and Mallow both play supporting roles in battle as well as offensive roles. Not only that, but other characters besides Toadstool become kidnapping fodder throughout the game, including the King and Queen of Nimbus Land and a few members of Bowser’s Koopa Troop.
But to really analyze this game, we need to look at characters besides Toadstool. Anyone looking for a quick Bechdel Test affirmation of this game will immediately look to Valentina as the other prominent female character — an antagonist taking over Mallow’s hometown using a fake fiance named Dodo as a face for her political agenda. Valentina gets points for being an independent driving force in spite of the male dominated world, but loses points in aesthetics; the powerful high positioned woman is quickly overshadowed by just how much her breasts jiggle (and considering jiggle physics with more recent games, I can’t imagine how much effort the programmers must have put into this SNES game to make this remotely possible).
Queen Nimbus comes to mind as another semi-memorable named female character, if only for the fact that her recurring gag is being the obvious brains of the operation between the royal couple. The stereotype “Behind every great man is a greater woman rolling her eyes” is perpetuated in this game with interactions between King and Queen Nimbus, Valentina and Dodo, Booster and Toadstool, and to a certain extent Bowser and Toadstool. Stupid males kind of run amok in this game, actually, with exception to Geno.
With other feminist game bloggers, the positive attributes are credited to Square, who typically has a better track record with strong female protagonists. Final Fantasy VI, for example, has several strong female characters in the main party, none of which are noticeably defined by their relationships with men in the party or elsewhere. Parasite Eve, a game based on the Japanese novel and film, was another game by Square which featured multiple female characters, none of which defined by stereotypes or relations to men. Each Eve had unique personalities and powers, which were the driving force of the game. Compared to Nintendo games, Square was a bit ahead of the game, which adds some credibility to claims that Nintendo’s track record leaves a bit to be desired even with the positive gender portrayals of Mario RPG.
So in general, the game has its moments both ways. Valentina is an obvious sexual object, and Toadstool retains a few negative stereotypes, but the game also features many female characters with more active, independent attributes and male characters with passive, less macho aspects. Not only that, but the game gives off the vibe that the females of the Mario universe are obviously more intelligent than the males. As it is, the game had a few minor tweaks in later Virtual Console versions, and as much as I love this game for its ahead-of-its-time gameplay, I wouldn’t mind a few minor changes to make the game less offensive in future iterations. It’s hard to ask a classic to change its ways, but even works like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory even had to take the pygmies out of the book at some point — despite how purists can be up in arms about change, eventually the changes are forgotten (seriously, who remembers the Oompa Loompas as pygmies?). And updating a timeless game to make it less gender biased would only make it that much more timeless, throwing away dated sexism for a modern audience.The leader The leader
Mr. Byte has 32 cats on his roof. He has been rescuing cats with some kind of disability for some years now. He takes cats which have been attacked or run over to a veterinarian |
Hashtaging #Ferguson and #Gaza, he tweeted that if “Jesus were among us today he wouldn’t spare a second to fight the arrogants&support the oppressed.” He also shot off a few tweets hashtaging #BlackLivesMatter. Four days later, he commemorated the Wounded Knee massacre by asking on Twitter if killing millions of Native Americans and enslaving Africans constitute “American values”?
Coming in the midst of Iran’s negotiations with the US and the P5+1 (the Permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), President Barack Obama ending decades of enmity with Cuba, as well as peculiar “non-coordination” between the US and Iran against Islamic State fighters in Iraq, Khamenei’s tweets raises the question: What does Iran really want with America?
After Havana, does Tehran want to be next? Does it seek to end the enmity with America, or just lower its intensity? Or do the leaders in Iran fear not having America as an enemy?
Many in Washington have argued that Iran is addicted to its enmity with the US. “It’s a pillar of the revolution,” one often hears. Coming to terms with America would be the end of the Islamic Revolution. Yet, many of those voices also categorically rejected the idea that Iran would engage the US in bilateral negotiations, have its foreign minister become email pals with Secretary John Kerry, or have its President tweet Happy Rosh Hashanah greetings to Jews worldwide.
A simplistic, one-dimensional (mis)understanding of the Iranian leadership generated crude and ultimately erroneous predictions of Iranian behavior. The surprising flexibility of the Iranian decision-makers could not be captured since Washington’s read of Tehran was surprisingly inflexible.
Rather than categorical rejection of ties with the US or open desire for such a relationship, the truth may simply be that Tehran itself did not know until recently what path to pursue in regards to Washington.
About three years ago, a debate emerged within Iran’s security establishment on redefining Tehran’s relations with the Great Powers, particularly the US. A realization had occurred that due to geopolitical changes in the region, some form of a relationship with Washington was necessary – the question was the parameters of that relationship and the manner it would come about.
It was an intense debate; perhaps the most important and difficult one the leaders of the Islamic Republic have experienced since the Iraq-Iran war. With the fast changing situation in the region, the debate never reached a finale. There are some indications, however, that Tehran has come closer to a conclusion in the past few weeks. On December 17, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, told the Financial Times that even if a nuclear deal is reached, the US and Iran can still not cooperate in the region. But, Shamkhani explained, the two “can behave in a way that they do not use their energy against each other.”
This is a critical statement that sheds light on where the debate in Tehran is tilting. Rather than partnership, Tehran is offering a truce.
A top Iranian official explained it to me a year ago: Iran’s relationship with the United States would at best be a cordial rivalry, not an alliance or partnership. But the operative term is cordial, not rivalry. Just as Shamkhani hinted, contrary to their past behavior, the US and Iran would not be challenging or undermining each other. There can even be tactical and strategic collaboration between the two, although Tehran likely will prefer to keep that behind-the-scenes. Or as in Shamkhani’s interview, flat out deny that collaboration is in the cards.
But why can’t Tehran shred its past objections and opt for a less conflicted approach to America? This is where the value of rivalry comes in. Iran does not aspire to be just a normal power. Both the current regime, as well as the regime of the Shah, seeks a strong regional leadership role. While the Shah used Persian nationalism internally, and an alliance with the US and Israel externally to become the undisputed power of the region, the Khomeini regime’s instruments have been political Islam and rejection of America’s presence in the region.
If Tehran joined the American camp, it would become a normal power whose influence would be determined solely by its economic and military prowess. This wouldn’t take Iran very far, Tehran fears. It would at best be a second tier state, below the United States.
By keeping its rivalry with the US alive and challenging America’s vision for the region, Iran would catapult itself into a higher level of regional influence, Tehran believes. By positioning itself as a rival, Iran would approach the US as an equal, rather than compete with Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia for the role of America’s most valuable proxy in the region.
Keep this in mind next time Ayatollah Khamenei takes to twitter to challenge the US or point out America’s double standards. In an era where the US and Iran may secretly collude against Sunni Jihadists, where trade between the two may flow once again, and where quiet collaboration between the two may become commonplace to stabilize regional hotspots, the optics of rivalry must desperately be kept alive where it matters the most. On twitter that is.
This article was originally published in Middle East Eye.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved Monday to end the debate on the immigration bill, filing a motion to set up final filibuster votes for Wednesday.
As he opened the session Monday afternoon, Mr. Reid made the parliamentary move to schedule the cloture vote — moving to keep to his schedule of trying to have the immigration bill done before he sends the chamber home for a July 4 vacation.
Some Republicans have already objected, saying that Mr. Reid is shutting off the debate too early.
As of Monday morning senators had introduced 372 amendments to the bill, but only a dozen of those amendments have seen votes, and there is little prospect that Mr. Reid will allow many more votes now that he’s moved ahead with the filibuster showdown.
“This is deeply, deeply disturbing. It is effectively shutting down the American people’s ability to be heard on this issue through their elected representatives,” the 13 senators said in a letter to Mr. Reid on Monday.
But Mr. Reid’s office said there’s been enough debate, and said the 13 senators who signed the letter are only trying to obstruct the legislation, not to improve it.
Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson also pointed to the committee action that preceded this month’s floor debate, and said in many cases it is Republicans who are blocking votes on amendments.
“This is the third week of floor consideration, and Senator Reid has been clear throughout that he wants to consider as many amendments as possible,” Mr. Jentleson said.
Senators will vote Monday night on whether to filibuster a new 1,200-page amendment to the immigration bill, which 11 Republicans and a handful of Democrats wrote and delivered to colleagues last Friday.
Opponents say they’ve had little time to go through the changes in the amendment.
But backers, including the Republicans who wrote it, say it only changes 119 pages of the 1,100-page bill.
“I’ve seen reports of a ‘1,200 page bill’ no one has read or had time to read. To be clear, the tough border and interior enforcement provisions that Sen. [John] Hoeven and I offered on Friday make up 119 pages added to the 1,100 pages that have been public since May,” said Sen. Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Plenty of creative types held down jobs outside of their interests before they made it big; Bob Pollard of Guided By Voices was a high school teacher, Eddie Murphy sold women’s shoes, and the late Phil Hartman was a graphic designer.
Granted, design is at least more in the creative realm than say waiting tables or working a desk job, but it is interesting to note especially because Hartman didn’t gain fame in comedy until his 40s. The man who would eventually become famous for portraying sleazy lawyers from both Springfield and the ice age got a degree in graphic arts at Cal State Northridge in 1974. According to Fast Code Design (which may be wrong), Hartman went on to create record covers for Steely Dan, Poco, and America among others. Arguably, Hartman’s biggest contribution to rock ’n’ roll art is the ubiquitous Celtic-style Crosby, Stills, & Nash logo that the band still uses. Well before helping Paul Reubens create the character of Pee-wee Herman, Hartman’s artwork was lining record store shelves.
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Hopefully Hartman’s design beginnings will be touched on in the upcoming Phil Hartman biopic, Nice Guy Phil, directed by Jason Priestley.European Diplomats Poised to Directly Blame Russia for Aleppo Siege
Overcoming a wave of reluctance to antagonize Moscow, European Union foreign ministers are planning to formally and explicitly admonish Russia for supporting the Syrian government’s deadly assault on Aleppo, an attack that “may amount to war crimes,” diplomats tell Foreign Policy.
The European ministers, who will meet meet on Monday in Luxembourg, are also expected to support the imposition of sanctions on as many as 20 Syrian government officials who have had a role in the bombardment.
An earlier draft of the EU statement did not include a direct reference to Russia, but has been added at the insistence of the French, British and German governments. The move comes as Secretary of State John Kerry mounts a new diplomatic push to pursue a ceasefire for the besieged city at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday that includes representatives of Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“Since the beginning of the offensive by the regime and its allies, notably Russia, the intensity and scale of the aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo is clearly disproportionate,” reads a draft joint statement obtained by FP. “The escalating violence in Aleppo is causing untold and unacceptable suffering for thousands of its inhabitants.”
Several EU countries with political or business ties to Russia opposed efforts to explicitly call out Moscow, including Greece, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Cyprus. But proponents of the more pointed language prevailed, just as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to “clean” the divided city of Aleppo, prompting fears of more bloody atrocities.
Assad’s military, with aerial support by Russian warplanes, have killed more than 150 people in rebel-held eastern Aleppo this week, according to rescue workers.
“Given Russia’s brutal onslaught against Syrian civilians, abetted by Assad and Hezbollah, it is hardly surprising that the EU would, as a first step, respond so strongly,” one European diplomat told FP.
The bloc of Central and Southern European countries did succeed in slowing down an effort to sanction up to 13 Russian officials for the Aleppo siege, a move that Britain, France and Germany were considering, according to a Financial Times report on Wednesday. The governments are not expected to impose punitive economic measures on Russia during the Monday summit.
When asked about potential U.S. sanctions, a senior State Department official told FP: “We’ve long held that sanctions are best utilized when they are coordinated with our partners in Europe and beyond” that enable coordination of harsher or looser sanctions as conditions require. “But no decisions have been made,” the official added.
The current text of the joint statement came out of a meeting Friday in Brussels of the EU’s Political and Security Committee, and remains subject to changes ahead of the Monday meeting of ministers. The plans to sanction up to 20 Syrian officials was first reported by Reuters. The ministers are not expected to reach an agreement on a list of names of Syrian officials, leaving that decision for technocrats to resolve on a later date.
The mention of “war crimes” by EU ministers echoes a remark by Kerry that Assad and Russia should face a war crimes investigation. Former U.S. officials said it was important that Washington and Brussels remain united in their messaging on Syria.
“As the U.S. appears to be reviewing its options, it’s important to send a message that Russia could face costs for its actions,” said Jeff Rathke, a former State Department official who focuses on Europe at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So the more clear Europe is about a hardening line, the better.”
The move also comes as President Barack Obama weighed a decision to use military force against Damascus at a meeting of the National Security Council on Friday. U.S. officials have repeatedly said that there is no military solution to the war in Syria.
A Western official on Friday said that U.S. and European militaries have little room to maneuver in a way that would help end the conflict in Syria. Russian forces there, and especially Russian-made air defense systems, have made it much riskier for the United States to intervene, even if it wished.
“Now that the Russians are there, our options are quite limited,” the diplomat said. “What the Middle East is seeing right now is that the regime won’t fall, that the Russians and Iranians are ready to go to any length in order to support the regime.”
FP’s chief national security reporter Dan De Luce contributed to this report.This article originally appeared in VICE Australia
For decades now, Twin Peaks has been an entry level hipster commodity. You know those people who self-identify as "weird" and "awkward" and "alternative" but actually have great social skills and a million friends and also happen to be super hot? Twin Peaks is their favourite show. Which doesn't mean it isn't good or fun to watch.
Something that I do truly appreciate about Twin Peaks, although it pains me to watch the reboot because I think 90s nostalgia is at best boring and at worst deeply dangerous, is Kyle MacLachlan. He is the guy who plays mystery-solving Dale "Damn Fine Cup of Coffee" Cooper in the original show, and several twisted versions of that former self in the reboot.
Where do I begin, with Kyle? The man is a treasure. He has smashed every one of his acting roles out of the park, especially that of Charlotte's erection-challenged husband on Sex and the City. He's also the mayor of Portland on Portlandia, which is such a gloriously self-aware career move that you can't help but applaud it. He has his own winery, which takes its name from a line in Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. And he once made a YouTube series, Mookie and Sam, starring his two pet dogs Mookie and Sam. He and his wife Desiree Gruber voice the dogs.
This one:
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Yes. I hear the latest episode of Twin Peaks was super ground-breakingly strange, really head-scratching, really out there. Well, I raise you this. I raise you this series YouTube clips in which a well-known television actor painstakingly stitches together a series of oblique narratives starring two small canines on Windows Movie Maker.
The greatest tragedy, the philosophical centrepiece of the series, is that neither Mookie nor Sam realises that he or she is a dog. Both believe themselves to be humans. And really, don't we all?
I feel the same way about David Lynch as I do Wes Anderson. Their films look fantastic, and their scores and soundtracks are mesmerising, too. It's just the other stuff that bores me. You know—the characters, the dialogue, the narrative. You know what isn't boring? You know what's truly deserving of some analysis? These two dogs on a holiday to the Hamptons. A jack russell and, from what I can tell, some kind of Scottish terrier, driving a Bentley to the seaside
Is this a comment? On celebrity, on decadence, on modern love? On dog ownership? It's difficult to know. MacLachlan, like many indie directors before him, is opaque in his meaning.
Yeah, Japanese dubs. Japanese dubs! Take that, David. If you want to watch something truly Lynchian—something actually weird and challenging, something that subverts everything that mainstream entertainment espouses, something that could only have been made by someone with absolutely no concern for marketability or commercial success or their "brand" something completely averse to hot takes, then Mookie and Sam is the YouTube series to start with. All the videos are here. There's also a bunch of stuff on the same channel about Project Runway.
Play some Angelo Badalamenti in the background to really hammer the point home that you're an intellectual and you wouldn't be caught dead watching HBO.
Follow Kat on TwitterDevelopment will proceed on a long-planned wind farm in Kansas, thanks to a power purchase agreement announced by Infinity Windpower and Sunflower Electric Power. The Shooting Star Wind Project, located between Greensburg and Dodge City, was hatched in 2001 by Clipper Windpower, but then languished. Clipper recently sold the development rights to Infinity, however, and the new 20-year power purchase agreement is expected to put the 104-megawatt (MW) project on track to be built and operational by the end of 2012.
The companies said the contract was made possible through the efforts of the National Renewables Cooperative Organization (NRCO), an organization of 24 member-owner electric cooperatives in 19 states. NRCO facilitates the procurement of renewable resources to assist its members in meeting their states’ renewable portfolio standards, diversifying their energy resource portfolios and gaining operational experience with renewable technologies.
The new wind power capacity will increase Sunflower’s renewable energy capacity to 29 percent of its retail peak demand – exceeding the state’s renewable portfolio standard of 15 percent by 2016. The project is expected to generate more than $10 million in royalty revenues for landowners over the life of the contract. Its construction will also require approximately 250,000 hours of labor.The upcoming NATO summit in Poland is likely to enter the history books as the event where cyberspace was officially declared an operational warzone, according to the military official in charge of building Germany’s cyber command.
All 28 NATO member states are likely to agree to the proposal during the Warsaw summit, to be held in the Polish capital on July 8-9, Major General Ludwig Leinhos announced at the Berlin Air Show this week, Reuters reports.
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Leinhos, a former director at NATO Headquarters Consultation, Command and Control Staff, is known at home for heading the German military's efforts to establish a cyber command of its own, similar to the one created in the United States.
Also in Berlin, Evert Dudok, a senior official at Airbus Group SE, one of Europe's largest aerospace corporations, called for the introduction of global or trans-European standards for cyberspace.
The US acknowledged the notion of cyberspace being a new war dimension years ago, enacting the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) on June 23, 2009, to fulfill tasks related to cyber combat.
In 2011 Washington announced it regards cyberspace as an operational domain of war, equating digital attacks to those in the real world, and preparing to respond to them as it does to other threats to national security and wellbeing.
In April this year, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to establish a national military cyber force, merging the Bundeswehr’s own IT capabilities with cyber units of other branches under a newly-created cyber and information space (CIR) branch. The CIR will gather together an estimated 13,500 professionals.
READ MORE: Pentagon drafting thousands of ‘cyber forces’ in prep for cyber emergency
In addition, a cyber/IT (CIT) department is to be set up within the German Defense Ministry by October 2016. The new cyber structure is expected to be fully completed by 2021.TV ads during the Super Bowl cost big bucks: $4 million for 30 seconds of media — and that’s before paying for things like production costs, agency fees and celebrity endorsements. They do, however, allow advertisers to reach more than 100 million viewers at a single time — and be part of the cultural zeitgeist.
But there are plenty of other ways to spend $4 million that don’t include TV advertising at all. Here are some other things $4 million could buy your brand:
14 billion Facebook ads
Facebook’s right-rail “marketplace” ads cost on average $0.27 per thousand in 2013, according to data from social ad tech vendor Kenshoo. That means $4 million could buy you 14 billion impressions, or a Facebook marketplace ad every second of every hour of every day for more than 469 years.
160 million sponsored content views.
Consumer sites typically charge around $25 to distribute sponsored content to 1,000 of their readers, according to ad buyers and native ad tech companies. At that rate, $4 million would buy your content 160 million impressions, not that many publishers could ever actually deliver them.
A movie.
“I’d make a film,” said digital marketer and director Jason Zada. “Many great films are made for under $3 million. Now, this doesn’t mean you should turn it into an ad, just sponsor a great piece of content. Get a good writer/director, who in turn can attract a good cast. Great cast gets eyeballs. Use the extra million-plus you have left over for a YouTube homepage takeover and to buy the keyword on Twitter. Put the movie up for free on iTunes. Sell it if it’s great. Go win an Emmy versus have a bunch of drunk armchair critics debate how your ad should have had at least one more kick to the groin.”
3 billion banners ads.
Average display ad eCPMs hovered around $1.28 last year globally, according to data from DMP vendor Turn. Assuming those eCPMs are approximately the same in the U.S., $4 million would buy a total of 3 billion display ads.
A publisher’s entire website for the day.
“It’s enormous what you could do online with $4 million,” said one exec at a major media buying agency. “I’ve always had this idea it would be cool to one day turn off a whole site. If you were advertising a cleaning product, the site might be ‘down for cleaning,’ for example, sort of like the the opposite of ‘this site is brought to you by.’ I think $4 million could buy you something like that.”
10.8 million paid search clicks.
The average cost-per-click for search ads was somewhere around $0.37 in 2013, which means $4 million would buy around 10.8 million clicks. You’d only reach an audience up to 10 percent the size of the Super Bowl’s, but you could rest assured that people were at least searching for your brand or product, not crammed in a sports bar smothered in Buffalo wing sauce and beer.
Your brand on 400 people.
“You could give 400 college students $10,000 each to tattoo your brand name on their forearms,” said Mediassociates executive Ben Kunz.
A 400-day roadblock on the New York Times’ sports section.
A takeover of NYTimes.com’s sports section costs around $10,000 per day, according to one media buyer. That means $4 million would buy it for 400 consecutive days, if the publisher didn’t allow only two advertisers to buy 100 percent share-of-voice a month.
A lot of video content.
“For $4 million, we will create 100 videos about beauty, health & wellness topics and release those over the course of the year,” said Maker Studios sales head Jason Krebs. “We will also give you ownership of three scripted dramas/comedies targeted toward teens/young adults. These will be in native language to the country of origin of your choice. These will all be co-produced by you, giving you IP rights in perpetuity. In total, we would reach roughly 100 million women worldwide.”
10 days of YouTube masthead ads.
Ads on YouTube’s homepage currently go for around $400,000 a day. At that rate, $4 million would get your ad in that slot for 10 whole days.
200 pieces of sponsored content on BuzzFeed.
Agencies say BuzzFeed typically charges around $20,000 for a single piece of sponsored content. Based on that figure, $4 million would buy 200 articles and save on some production costs in the process.Radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday said that actor Robin Williams' alleged suicide was caused by his "political leftist" state of mind.
"What is the left's world view in general?" Limbaugh asked his audience the day after Williams' death was announced. "If you had to attach, not a philosophy, but an attitude to a leftist world view. It's one of pessimism, and darkness, sadness. They're never happy, are they?"
"They're animated in large part by the false promises of America because the promises of America are not for everyone," he continued, pointing to a Fox News report that suggested Williams had struggled with financial issues, and survivor's guilt after the deaths of entertainers like Christopher Reeve, Andy Kaufman and John Belushi.
"Robin Williams felt guilty that he was still alive while his three friends had died young, and much earlier than he had." the conservative talker explained. "He could never get over the guilt that they died and he didn't."
"Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country."
(h/t: Media Matters)President Barack Obama’s November 2011 announcement of the rebalancing of the United States to the Asia-Pacific made clear his intention that America would sustain its leading role in the region. However, what is less clear is how America’s allies and partners in the region see their own security interests changing and, given this, how they see the United States fitting into this new security framework. It is vital that both the demand for security (from Asia) and its supply (by the United States) are better understood in order to achieve a new status quo that meets the needs of all the players.
This report considers six US allies or partners in Asia (Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea) and asks how they perceive their security interests and emerging threats – and, consequently, how they are addressing them through domestic capabilities and regional or plurilateral groups, and what role this suggests for the United States.
Some of the principal findings include:
As elsewhere, America’s role in Asia is changing. Despite the rebalancing, cuts in US defence spending and greater political attention to domestic priorities are likely to lead to a less militarily assertive role in the region and perhaps, in time, a smaller permanent military presence there. The United States will, however, remain an Asia-Pacific power, and its continued focus should not be underestimated.
Over the next 15 years, non-traditional threats, whether natural or man-made, are likely to become more significant. Traditional state-driven conflicts are likely to play out initially in non-traditional ways, such as by constraining an adversary’s economy or its access to natural resources, and through attacks in cyberspace or against military or communications satellites. Only as conflicts escalate will more traditional means be engaged (such as ground forces). Non-state actors, such as terrorists or insurgent groups, are also likely to employ such non-traditional levers where their capabilities allow.
The severity of the impacts of natural, rather than man-made disasters is also likely to increase. Demand for oil, gas, water and food is rising exponentially across the region and expanding consumption is, in many cases, creating a new vicious cycle of resource stress. Military force is unlikely to play a leading role in alleviating these tensions.
With rising defence expenditure, the six countries examined in this study are enhancing their traditional military capabilities. However, this alone will not be sufficient to protect them against the complex array of future threats. Other assets will be needed, including greater diplomatic resources to manage inter-locking relations with regional allies and partners, and the diversification of economic and trading links to minimize each country’s vulnerability to the actions of any other single actor, principally China.
The Asia-Pacific states are already building up their informal alliances and partnerships with one another and with other states. The number and the depth of these informal relationships are likely to endure, and they will play an important role in maintaining stability in the region.
As natural threats become more prominent, given their less sensitive (and less zero-sum) nature, regional groupings might find a new more active role in addressing these challenges. Building cooperation and collaboration in these forums, could, in time, create a framework for resolving more traditional areas of conflict.
Over the long-term, America will continue to play a central role in the region, but not indefinitely as the lead actor. It will be looking in Asia, as elsewhere, to share the burdens of leadership. In the next 15 years, Asians may well have to get used to a situation with which Europeans are only just coming to terms – a United States that is a very important regional actor, but not always the first or principal port of call for ensuring security.
VideoLatest technological advancements have been used to prepare better versions of robots and gadgets. From a physical keypad we have now moved to touchscreens and are looking forward to virtual reality controlling mechanism for tomorrow.
The robots being developed have also significantly changed owing to the design and functionality parameters. And these techniques are also being used to prepare drones, which are actually being called the gadgets of the day. Recently many drones have been launched and major tech- companies are pursuing projects manufacturing drones like Google with its Project Wing. Soon many of the tasks will be accomplished using these drones like spraying fields, delivering urgent medical aids and of course for supervision. A new name has been added in this category, The Ghost Drone, which is a quad copter that can be manipulated using your very own smartphone.
Mostly drones come with a bulky set of remote controller with complex operations which are very hard to understand at first. The developers of Ehang Company saw the opportunity in this error and sought to build a ghost drone which will be very easy to operate and will be controlled using any type of smartphone you own. This feature of ghost drone also eliminates the requirements of a co- pilot as the various setting and commands can be executed with just one tap. Although the communication between the ghost drone and smartphone is not direct, the company provides a G- box that interfaces both the devices.
It is a perfect tool for aerial photography and will be very handy to have a glimpse of far to reach places. The auto- follow mode of ghost drone holds the camera focus on you and the 2-D gimbal fits a GoPro camera that enable the ghost drone to keep the shot still. It is available in four basic colors: white, black, red and blue to suit your taste. While taking a shot you don’t need to focus on handling the ghost drone any more, you can easily shift to auto mode and click your shot perfectly.
It also has a navigational feature where you just need to direct it to the position and the ghost drone will fly by itself to the designated point. The app has special bars that will allow you to adjust the height and orientation of your drone. Vertical bar is provided to control the height and horizontal bar adjusts the rotational angle of the drone to snap a picture of perfect fit. The app also has additional features that lets you handle the camera independently. You can tilt the camera upwards and downwards, as well as left and right.
Sometimes it becomes very difficult to move your drone for slight distances to reach the perfect spot. The developers of ghost drone have overcome this bug by installing micro control feature that lets you make more precise adjustments to the position of the drone. Ghost drone has also excelled all the parameters of robustness. The ghost drone not only water proof but it is also wind resistance. It also has the ability to return automatically to the original position if the connection between the smartphone and the drone terminates.How do you put a price on life? How would you know where to start? In the case of the independent NHS watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), there is a points system, which calculates QALYs, or quality-adjusted life years. If a new drug costs more than £30,000 per QALY, then it's deemed too expensive for use by the NHS. So it's a bit rich for Roche, developers of the new breast cancer drug Kadcyla, to be acting all shocked that Nice says it's too expensive for use by the NHS. At the moment, treatment with Kadcyla costs more than £180,000 per QALY. Which is clearly quite steep.
Still, as usual, Nice is being portrayed as the villain. Negative decisions by Nice are typically greeted with a response from the media that invites people to imagine how they would feel if they needed a life-saving drug and bureaucrats denied to them. This one has been no different.
A woman called Kim Mawby, who thinks (but isn't certain) that she was treated with Kadcyla after she joined a drug trial in 2011, was interviewed by the Guardian this week. After her cancer spread to her lymph nodes, chest wall and lung, the mother of two faced the prospect of having six months to live. Now, more than two years on, there is no trace of cancer on her lung or chest wall and she's still going strong. It's a wonderful story, and Mawby is understandably positive about her treatment.
Reading that story, I couldn't help thinking back to the awful day I learned that my breast cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, and the even more awful day when I was tested to see if it had spread to my chest wall and lungs. The relief that it hadn't was indescribable. However, eternally grateful as I am for my NHS treatment, I know that, had money been no object, less invasive treatments with fewer side-effects would have done the trick, possibly rather better. But, ghastly as the treatment I had was, I'd rather have been in a large room with other people also getting that treatment than in a small room, otherwise empty, because all the money was being spent on me. That's what Nice has to think about – the number of people that can be helped, not the absolutely best way of helping one individual.
Had I been in Mawby's shoes, though, of course I'd have wanted the treatment that could save me. I'd have agreed with Mawby, who told the Guardian: "It has given me back my normal life. You just can't put a price on it." So, nasty old Nice, who do put a price on such treatment, and a bargain-basement price at that.
Except that Nice hasn't put this chunky price on Kadcyla, has it? Roche has. Roche explains that developing new drugs is incredibly expensive, and they have to recoup their costs. Those costs have not been revealed, for commercial reasons. But Roche seems pretty good at recouping them. It made a profit of 11.4bn Swiss francs (£7.7bn) last year. As its chairman, Franz B Humer, said in his 2013 letter to shareholders: "In a challenging, increasingly cost-sensitive environment, our focus on targeted medicines and diagnostic tests has allowed us to expand our strong market position and to significantly improve net income. In light of our strong performance, the board of directors is proposing – for the 27th consecutive year – an increase in dividend." It's worth bearing in mind, reading this, that a 2012 report called The Research and Development Cost of a New Medicine reckoned that, on average, only about 10% of the overall cost of developing a new drug is taken up by research and development. Much more is spent on attracting and servicing investors. Quite a bit is spent on PR.
Kadcyla is described as "a Herceptin-like drug" – Herceptin being another groundbreaking breast-cancer drug developed by Roche. Thus far, in the British media, it's also had a Herceptin-like reception. In his book Bad Pharma, Ben Goldacre describes how, from 2005, "access to this drug became a spontanteous cause celebre for the British press". Such was the deluge of positive articles about the drug, with Nice again painted as the cruel and unfeeling master of the purse strings, that a group of academics analysed 361 newspaper stories on the subject to try to understand what was going on. It found that "half of the stories were about the problems in getting a licence for Herceptin's use in early-stage breast cancer, but they almost never mentioned that the manufacturer, Roche, needed to apply for that licence itself, and hadn't even done so yet." PR companies employed by Roche had a hand in placing many of the stories, as did charities with links to the company.
Goldacre suggests that the PR effort behind Herceptin was a response to forthcoming legislation that would allow "pharmacists to ignore brand names and substitute an identical generic copy of the drug". (Herceptin will be facing generic competition come 2016.) You could say that whenever a branded drug becomes a cause celebre, it's sending a message to potential patients and their relatives that is similar to the classic one for the blended whisky: "Don't be vague. Ask for Haig." Don't be a bad Nice-la. Ask for Kadcyla. This is all good publicity for Roche and bad publicity for Nice (and by extension the NHS).
The current case isn't quite so egregious. Nice has indeed said that Kadcyla is too expensive for NHS use. But do we really want the NHS to start using new drugs without even questioning the idea that the initial price offered by a hugely profitable multinational might not represent best value? Neither Nice nor the NHS is trying to make a profit here. Roche certainly is. And even in writing this piece, I've helped them out, by referring to Kadcyla, Roche's brand name, rather than its rather less catchy generic name, trastuzumab emtansine.
It's notable, too, that many reports about Nice's rejection of Kadcyla say that treatment using the drug is already being paid for in Britain using the dedicated Cancer Drugs Fund, introduced in 2010 to pay for treatment not universally available on the NHS. They also mention that the fund will "cease to exist at the end of March 2016". The new body that is being set up to replace it is described as "nebulous" and "ill-defined". It strikes me that this is a much more important story, as far as access to expensive treatment in Britain is concerned, than this week's story, which basically rallies the |
time."
Finally, the old man, who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection: The prisoner, who was Chinese, had been deliberately ~ infected with the plague, as part of a research project, the full horror of which is only now emerging, to develop plague bombs for use in World War II. After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man's inside.
"That research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II: a vast project to develop weapons of biological warfare, including plague, anthrax, cholera and a dozen other pathogens. unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army conducted research by experimenting on humans and by "field testing" plague bombs by dropping them on Chinese cities to see whether they could start plague outbreaks. They could.
A trickle ofinformation about the germ warfare program has turned into a stream and now a torrent. Half a century after the end of the war, a rush of books, documentaries and exhibitions are unlocking the past and helping arouse interest in Japan in the atrocities committed by some of Japan's most distinguished doctors.
Scholars and former members of the unit say that at least 3000 people and by some accounts several times that number were killed in the medical experiments; none survived. No one knows how many died in the "field testing"
It is becoming evident that the Japanese officers in charge of the program hoped to use their weapons against the United States. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague infected fleas on San Diego.
The research was kept secret after the end of World War II in part because the U.S. Army granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the doctors in exchange for their research data. Japanese and U.S. documents show that the United States helped cover up the human experimentation and instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, it gave them stipends.
The accounts now emerging are wrenching to read even after so much time has passed: a Russian mother and daughter reportedly left in a gas chamber, for example, as doctors peer through the thick glass and time their convulsions, watching as the woman sprawls over her child in a futile effort to save her from the gas.
The Japanese army, which was then occupying a large chunk of China, evicted the residents of eight villages near the city of Harbin in Manchuria to make way for the headquarters of Unit 731. One advantage of China, from the Japanese point of view, was the availability of research subjects on whom germs could be tested. The subjects were called marutas. or logs, and most were Communist sympathizers or ordinary criminals. The majority were Chinese, but there were also many Russian expatriates living in China.
Takeo Wane, 71, a former medical worker in Unit 731 who now lives in the northern Japanese city of Morioka, said he once saw a 6-foot high glass jar in which 3 Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically, and Wane guesses that he was a Russian because there were many Russians then living in the area
The Unit 731 headquarters contained many other such jars with specimens. They contained feet, heads, internal organs, all neatly labeled.
"I saw samples with labels saying 'American,' 'English' and 'Frenchman,' but most were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians" said a Unit 731 veteran who insisted on anonymity.
Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various ailments would spread. The doctors locked others inside a pressure chamber to see how much the body can withstand before the eyes pop from their sockets.
Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes in a pattern and then bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infested fleas to see how many people and at what distance from the center would die.
The Japanese army regularly conducted field tests to see whether biological warfare would work outside the laboratory. Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China and plague outbreaks were later reported.
Japanese troops also dropped cholera and typhoid cultures in wells and ponds, but the results were often counterproductive. In 1942, germ warfare specialists distributed dysentery, cholera and typhoid in Zhejiang Province in China. but Japanese soldiers themselves became ill and 1,700 died of the diseases, scholars say.
Sheldon Harris, a historian at California State University, in Northridge, estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Hams -author ofa book on Unit 731, "Factories of Death" also says that plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 through 1948.
The leading scholar of Unit 731 in Japan, Keiichi Tsuneishi, is skeptical of such numbers. Tsuneishi, who has led the efforts in Japan to uncover atrocities by Unit 731, says that the attack on Ningbo killed about 100 people and that there is no evidence for huge outbreaks of disease set off by field trials.
Knowledge gained at the cost of human lives
There are scores of categories that describe research about which nothing is known. It is unclear what the prisoners had to endure for entries like "studies of burn scar" and "study of bullets lodged in the brains."
Scholars say that the research was not contrived by mad scientists and that it was intelligently designed and' carried out. The medical findings saved many Japanese lives.
For example, Unit 731 proved that the best treatment for frostbite was not rubbing the Limb, which had been the traditional method but immersion in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees, but never mom than 122 degrees.
The cost of this scientific breakthrough was borne by those seized for medical experiments. They were taken outside and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water, until a guard decided that frostbite had set in. Testimony From a Japanese officer said this was determined after the "frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck."
A booklet just published in Japan after a major exhibition about Unit 731 shows how doctors even experimented on a three-day-old baby, measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger.
"Usually a hand of a three-day-old infant is clenched into a fist", the booklet says, "but by sticking the needle in, the middle finger could be kept straight to make the experiment easier".
The Scope of Human experimentation
In addition, the recollections of Dr. Ken Yuasa, 78, who still practices in a clinic in Tokyo, suggest that human experimentation may have been routine even outside Unit 731. Dr. Yuasa was an army medic in China, but he says he was never in Unit 731 and never had contact with it.
Nevertheless. Dr. Yuasa says that when he was still in medical school In Japan, the students heard that ordinary doctors who went to China were allowed to vivisect patients. And sure enough, when Dr. Yuasa arrived in Shanxi Province in northcentral China in 1942, he was soon asked to attend a "practice surgery."
Two Chinese men were brought in, stripped naked and given general anesthetic. Then Dr. Yuasa and the others began practicing various kinds of surgery: first an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. After 90 minutes, they were finished, so they killed the patient with an injection.
When Dr. Yuasa was put in charge of a clinic, he said, he periodically asked the police for a Communist to dissect, and they sent one over. The vivisection was all for practice rather than for research, and Dr. Yuasa says they were routine among Japanese doctors working in China in the war.
In addition, Dr. Yuasa - who is now deeply apologetic about what he did - said he cultivated typhoid germs in test tubes and passed them on, as he had been instructed to do, to another army unit. Someone from that unit, which also had no connection with Unit 731, later told him that the troops would use the test tubes to infect the wells of villages in Communist-held territory.
Plans to take the germ war to the US homeland
Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax In the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattleplague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops.
There was a fierce debate in Tokyo, and a document discovered recently suggests that at a crucial meeting in late July 1944 it was Hideki Tojo - whom the United States later hanged for war crimes - who rejected the proposal to use germ warfare against the United States.
At the time of the meeting, Tojo had just been ousted as Prime Minister and chief of the General Staff, but he retained enough authority to veto the proposal. He knew by then that Japan was likely to lose the war, and he feared that biological assaults on the United States would invite retaliation with germ or chemical weapons being developed by America.
Yet the Japanese Army was apparently willing to use biological weapons against the Allies in some circumstances. When the United States prepared to attack the Pacific island of Saipan in the late spring of 1944, a submarine was sent from Japan to carry biological weapons it is unclear what kind - to the defenders.
The submarine was sunk, Professor Tsuneishi says, and the Japanese troops had to rely on conventional weapons alone.
As the end of the war approached In 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.
Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly -in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945.
Ishio Obata, 73, who now lives in Ehime prefecture, acknowledged that he had been a chief of the Cherry Blossoms at Night attack force against San Diego, but he declined to discuss details. "It is such a terrible memory that I don't want to recall it," he said.
Tadao Ishimaru, also 73, said he had learned only after returning to Japan that he had been a candidate for the strike force against San Diego. "I don't want to think about Unit 731," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Fifty years have passed since the war. Please let me remain silent."
It Is unclear whether Cherry Blossoms at Night ever had a chance of being carried out. Japan did indeed have at least five submarines that carried two or three planes each, their wings folded against the fuselage like a bird.
But a Japanese Navy specialist said the navy would have never allowed Its finest equipment to be used for an army plan like Cherry Blossoms at Night, partly because the highest priority in the summer of 1945 was to defend the main Japanese islands, not to launch attacks on the United States mainland.
If the Cherry Blossoms at Night plan was ever serious, it became irrelevant as Japan prepared to sur-render in early August 1945. In the last days of the war, beginning on Aug. 9, Unit 731 used dynamite to try to destroy all evidence of its germ warfare program, scholars say.
No Punishment, Little Remorse
By conventional standards, few people were more cruel than the farmer who as a Unit 731 member carved up a Chinese prisoner without anesthetic, and who also acknowledged that he had helped poison rivers and wells. Yet his main intention in agreeing to an interview seemed to be to explain that Unit 731 was not really so brutal after all.
Asked why he had not anesthetized the prisoner before dissecting him, the farmer explained: "Vivisection should be done under normal circumstances. If we'd used anesthesia, that might have affected the body organs and blood vessels that we were examining. So we couldn't have used anesthetic."
When the topic of children came up, the farmer offered another justification: "Of course there were experiments on children. But probably their fathers were spies." "There's a possibility this could happen again," the old man said, smiling genially. "Because in a war, you have to win."
[Back]The Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night announced measures designed to prevent a new credit crunch that would push Britain's economy deeper into recession. The move was a clear sign that the Governor and the Treasury are alarmed by the prospects for the economy in the face of potential financial shocks from the eurozone.
Speaking at the annual Mansion House dinner in the City of London, the Governor, Sir Mervyn King, and George Osborne said the Bank and the Treasury were working on a liquidity operation – a "funding for lending" scheme – which would provide private banks with cheap funding in exchange for a commitment from lenders to provide cheap loans to ordinary businesses and households.
Sir Mervyn said he expected the scheme to be up and running "within a few weeks". Last night, the Treasury said it hoped the measures would increase annual lending flows to the economy by about 5 per cent, or £80bn.
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The scheme would permit private British banks to pledge their existing, illiquid loans as collateral at the Bank of England in exchange for highly liquid UK government bonds, which they could then sell on. In return for this cheap financing, banks would be required to commit to using the proceeds to increase the volume of loans to businesses and households, and to make that lending cheaper than it otherwise would have been.
Sir Mervyn said the eurozone crisis had created a "black cloud" over the financial sector and instilled "extreme uncertainty", which was pushing up banks' funding costs and crushing lending to the real economy.
The operation would be similar to the £200bn Special Liquidity Scheme, established in April 2008 during the financial crisis, in which the Bank of England (BofE) allowed lenders to swap mortgage-backed securities for UK sovereign bonds in order to ease the flow of lending to households.
The SLS was wound down this year, but the International Monetary Fund advised the BofE last month to re-establish something similar in order to boost the economy.
Sir Mervyn and Mr Osborne said another scheme intended to ease funding pressures on banks – the Extended Collateral Term Repo Facility – would activate shortly. Sir Mervyn said the BofE would start auctioning six-month sterling loans to help UK banks to weather any shocks emanating from Europe.
The Chancellor said the new measures showed the Government and the BofE were not standing idly by waiting for the eurozone crisis to hit Britain. "We are not powerless in the face of the eurozone debt storm," he told financiers and dignitaries at the Mansion House. "Together we can deploy new firepower to defend our economy from the crisis on our doorstep... We are rolling up our sleeves and doing everything possible to protect British families and firms."
Mr Osborne confirmed that the new Financial Policy Committee – the "super-regulator" based at the BofE – would be given a mandate to support growth as well as ensuring financial stability. Some City figures have complained that new capital requirements being imposed on banks by the Government and regulators are choking off lending to the real economy.
The Chancellor said he supported a eurozone banking union, but reiterated his pledge that Britain would not allow the UK to be bound by it.
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 nowWe may be doing our best to deny that Downton Abbey is coming to an end in mere weeks, but the period drama’s cast certainly isn’t helping—with their Twitter countdowns and talk-show appearances touting the series’s farewell. On Thursday, Hugh Bonneville proved to be the worst perpetrator of the Downton bunch, telling ABC’s Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan that he wasn’t particularly disappointed to be ending the show—a little salt in the wound. But the British actor did gamely share which two props he stole—nay, “liberated”—from his character’s Yorkshire estate.
We had guessed that, of anything, the actor who plays Lord Grantham would have lifted something from his character’s beloved bar, perhaps some glassware or a nice prop scotch. Maybe a souvenir reminding him of Lord Grantham’s beloved dog, Isis, like a collar. Or possibly a reminder of his character’s lovably bumbling but ineffective management, like the estate ledger, undoubtedly filled with stickers and scribbles. Alas, Bonneville stole something less expected. Let him explain.
“I did liberate a letter from a character [played by Matthew Goode] called Henry Talbot, who really emerges quite clearly in Season 6, inviting [the Crawleys] to race a car or something,” Bonneville told the Live! with Kelly and Michael hosts. We admit, this admission made us wonder whether Barrow pillaged the entire mansion by the time Bonneville made it to the set on the last day. Why else would you want some note from a character who didn’t even come into play until the last season? But letters seem to be what Bonneville is into.
The actor revealed that he also helped himself to “the telegram from Season 1 announcing that we were going to war with Germany.”
“On Downton, not only is each letter beautifully handwritten or typed if appropriate, but it’s also germane to the scene that you’re doing,” he explained. “It’s really beautiful, that level of detail, because it puts you in the moment, in that era that you are trying to evoke.”
And where did Bonneville place such props? The actor revealed, “Inside the downstairs loo. Framed.”
Now, please, no one tell the Dowager.
Get Vanity Fair’s HWD Newsletter Sign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood. E-mail Address SubscribeThere is a highlight film of Pedro Santos with more than 11,000 views on YouTube. The three-minute-long video opens with a shot of the midfielder burying a free kick into the back of the net while playing for SC Braga in Portugal.
Sunday afternoon at Mapfre Stadium, the latest Crew SC designated player sent in a powerful corner kick that was headed home by Ola Kamara for a goal in a 1-1 tie against Sporting Kansas City.
Both are examples of how the midseason acquisition gives coach Gregg Berhalter a dangerous specialist.
“It’s important in the game because if we do well in the set pieces, we can score many goals,” Santos said. “We train every week (for them). It’s important for us to score goals on set pieces because when we have difficult games we can (still) score goals on set pieces.”
That was the case Sunday afternoon against the stingiest defense in the league. Although the Crew generated a handful of offensive chances, its highlight of the day was the service and finish on its goal.
Kamara said Santos' talent was evident as soon as he began training with the team.
“He has a nice quality with how he hits it with his left foot, the curl on it, the spin on the ball, how hard it is,” Kamara said. “I could see right away that it was quality.”
Since joining the Crew in 2012, designated player Federico Higuain has led the team in corner kicks each season, and he has taken more than any other player in team history.
The addition of Santos doesn’t likely mean an end to Higuain standing over the ball in dead-ball situations. Saturday, Santos took three corners and Higuain took two, one game after Higuain’s curving free kick led to Jonathan Mensah scoring the winning goal on a diving header against FC Dallas.
It does mean that Berhalter has options — both serve a different type of ball. For players trying to get on the end of their service, such as Kamara, it comes down to timing.
“The ball that (Higuain) did against Dallas, it’s a different ball because it’s higher and it dips, and it’s harder for the goalie to come out to,” Kamara said. “Pedro, he hits it differently, a little bit harder, sometimes a little bit lower so then maybe you have to watch it in training where it ends up and what kind of speed you have to come up to (in order) to reach your spot.”
Santos said the players had been working on their movements for moments like Saturday’s corner kick, which gave him his second assist in four games for the Crew. Monday, Kamara said he got away from his marker and “gambled” to get into that space, where he headed it home for his 100th career goal.
“We need to know where I can put the ball,” Santos said. “I think everybody knows where the ball will go, because we scored a goal.”
ajardy@dispatch.com
@AdamJardyBrandon Schollenberger writes:
As you’re aware, Stephan Lewandowsky has written several papers claiming to have found certain traits amongst global warming skeptics. I believe his methodology is fundamentally flawed. I believe a flaw present in his methodology is also present in the work of many others.
To test my belief, I’m seeking participants for a short survey (13 questions). The questions are designed specifically to test a key aspect of Lewandowsky’s methodology. The results won’t be published in any scientific journal, but I’ll do a writeup on them once the survey is closed and share it online.
The Poll follows.
Please feel free to participate and/or share the survey with anyone you’d like:
http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=jblyccj8lluam18284546
Note: the poll is just one page, and after submitting you’ll get a “make your own survey” ad page.
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PilotOnline.comIt’s the password-protected iPhone saga time again, as a man accused of child abuse has been jailed for 180 days after refusing to give the police the correct passcode to unlock his smartphone.
41-year-old Christopher Wheeler claims he has already provided the police with the passcode to his iPhone, but investigators claim it’s not correct and repeated attempts to unlock the device could lead to the complete removal of the data beyond the point where it can be recovered.
No details regarding the iPhone model or the iOS version that the device was running were provided.
Investigators believe that the iPhone might store incriminatory evidence of the alleged injuries that the man caused to his daughter, but without the passcode, it’s impossible to break into the phone and access the photo gallery. The police have already obtained a search warrant for the iPhone, but the owner needs to provide the passcode himself.
The password-protected iPhone dilemma
Whether iPhone owners should disclose their passwords or not is the subject of several legal disputes in the United States, with some courts ruling that phone passcodes are protected by the 5th Amendment, while others forced suspects to unlock their devices.
A Virginia District Court, for example, ruled in 2014 that the 5th Amendment also covers phone passwords, while a Florida court decided otherwise. A ruling from the Supreme Court is still pending, so in Florida police can ask owners to disclose their device passwords when a warrant is issued.
iPhone maker Apple itself was involved in a legal dispute regarding the passcode of one of its devices, after the FBI required the company to break into the smartphone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists in late 2015.
Apple refused to break into the device, with the FBI eventually turning to an unnamed group of hackers who managed to extract the data from the phone. The software used for brute-forcing the device was then said to allow the FBI to unlock more passcode-protected iPhones, but information in this regard remains very contradictory, as neither the bureau nor Apple confirmed or denied it.Sidney Jones is set to give the Philadelphia Eagles some extra help in the secondary.
Jones has been on the Physically Unable to Perform list for the first six weeks after missing the entire training camp and preseason with an Achilles injury. The Eagles second-round draft pick hinted at his return to the practice field with this tweet.
7?????? — Sidney Jones IV (@SidneyJonesIV) October 2, 2017
The regular season is here Eagles fans! Make sure to stay in the loop for all Eagles news this year -- take five seconds to sign up for our FREE Eagles newsletter now!
In case you're wondering what "7" Jones is referring to, it's Week 7...the first week Jones is eligible to practice with the team and come off the PUP list.
Based on Jones' status, he seems to be on schedule with his rehab and ready to begin practicing.
If Jones is not ready to practice by Week 7, the Eagles have another six-week window for him to begin practicing. If Jones isn't ready to practice by Week 12, he remains on the PUP list for the rest of the season.
If Jones does practice in Week 7, the Eagles have 21 days to activate him, release him, or keep him on the PUP list for the rest of the season. With that 21-day timetable, the latest Jones could play would be Week 10 (the Eagles bye week). His return would then be Week 11 against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, November 19.
To follow Eagles reporter Jeff Kerr on Twitter: @JeffKerr247(FILES) This September 25, 2015 file photo shows cars parked at the logistics park of German auto giant Volkswagen in Villers-Cotterets. The German transport authorities plan to order auto giant Volkswagen to recall 2.4 million diesel vehicles in Germany that are equipped with pollution-cheating software, a spokesman told AFP on October 15, 2015. AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS NASCIMBENIFRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP/Getty Images ORG XMIT: 452 ORIG FILE ID: 545365254 (Photo11: FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI, AFP/Getty Images)
Volkswagen Group is offering gift cards and dealership credits to U.S. owners of cars equipped with software that cheats emissions regulations in an early move to start rehabilitating its battered image.
The German automaker will offer a $500 Visa debit card, which can be spent on anything, and a $500 dealership credit to owners of 482,000 diesel cars embroiled in the emissions scandal. The company will also offer three years of free roadside assistance.
Owners of the Audi cars affected by the scandal will get the same offer.
By accepting the offer, vehicle owners will not be required to relinquish their right to participate in a class-action lawsuit, take legal actions on their own or give up any potential future compensation, Volkswagen spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan confirmed in an email.
"There are no stipulations," she said.
The offer is designed to reverse the tide of negative sentiment that has deluged the automaker after it admitted to purposely fitting up to 11 million vehicles worldwide with software that tricks regulators into believing the cars were compliant with emissions standards.
"We are working tirelessly to develop an approved remedy for affected vehicles," Volkswagen U.S. CEO Michael Horn said in a statement. “In the meantime, we are providing this goodwill package as a first step towards regaining our customers' trust."
To be sure, the offer is also designed to give a boost to Volkswagen dealers, who are not allowed to sell pre-owned vehicles or new vehicles fitted with the software until the company delivers a fix.
Volkswagen spent an average of $4,750 per vehicle in incentives in October, about 50% more than the industry average of $3,158, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Although Volkswagen brand sales were flat in October, the heavy incentive spending and strong overall industry performance indicates that VW dealers are facing a tougher time selling cars.
The offer to VW owners requires them to visit VWDieselInfo.com, then enter their Vehicle Identification Number, name, address and mileage. Afterward, owners will receive their "goodwill package" in four weeks.
Owners must then take that package to the dealer to get their Visa debit card and VW gift card.
The vehicles included in the offer are the four-cylinder diesel versions of the 2009 to 2015 Jetta TDI, 2009 to 2014 VW Jetta SportWagen TDI, 2010 to 2015 VW Golf TDI, 2015 VW Golf SportWagen TDI, 2012 to 2015 VW Beetle TDI and VW Beetle Convertible TDI and the 2012 to 2015 VW Passat TDI. Owners of the 2009-15 diesel Audi A3 will receive also receive the offer.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1iO3NNSThis Sept. 24, 2009 photo shows U.N. soldiers watching the border between Israel and Syria, on the Golan Heights, near the Qunitra crossing border between the two countries. (Photo11: Atef Safadi, epa)
SUVA, Fiji (AP) — Fiji's military confirmed Friday that 43 of its soldiers, working as U.N. peacekeepers, have been captured by a militant group on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Fijian Commander Brig. Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga said the soldiers were alive and unharmed. He said talks between the U.N. and the unidentified rebel group had begun and negotiations would be pursued further at daybreak.
Tikoitoga said three vehicles filled with about 150 armed rebels had converged on the soldiers' post at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday.
He said the rebels demanded the soldiers leave within 10 minutes and insisted they board the rebel vehicles. The Fijians were then taken by the rebels to an unknown location. He said he's been told they were later transported back to their original post.
"We are all doing our best to ensure the safety of the 43 that are currently being held captive," Tikoitoga said.
He said Fiji would not be pressured into withdrawing from its peacekeeping efforts in the Golan Heights, an area that is divided between Israel and Syria.
"We will not shy away from that responsibility under these circumstances," he said. "We will continue to work very hard for the release of our men and at the same time we will put all our men on alert to ensure that no further incidents of this sort happen to them."
He said the names of the captured soldiers are being withheld and that their families will be informed in due course.
The United Nations said Friday that as well as the 43 detained Fijian soldiers, another 81 Philippine peacekeepers had been effectively trapped after being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah.
The developments have come during a period of increased fighting between armed elements and the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, the office of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
The statement did not specify which armed group is holding the peacekeepers. Various Syrian rebel groups, including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, have been fighting the Syrian military near the Golan Heights.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1tQP3iyThe university and city also worked on ways to attract more faculty and staff to the city — about 4.5 percent of university employees live in College Park — with a homeownership program that provides loans to cover a city home’s down payment and closing cost.
Eric Olson, executive director of the College Park City-Partnership, said the program is “on the right track.” By the end of this year, the homeownership program will have helped five university faculty and staff members close on homes throughout College Park, Olson said.
“You cannot be fully integrated if your faculty and staff are employees that come in the morning and leave in the afternoon, because then they are not part of the community; then there is no symbiotic relationship,” Blaik said. “By having more faculty and staff live in the community, you basically totally blur the line between us versus them.”
This university and the city worked together to establish a charter school, the College Park Academy, in 2013 with the goal of making the city — located in a county known for poor education — more attractive for families.
To bring more families, faculty and staff, the city is also focusing on creating more market-rate housing for professionals, said Miriam Bader, the city’s senior planner. Ongoing construction for market-rate apartments and townhomes include The Boulevard at 9091, Alta at Berwyn House and Monument Village.
“We are trying to encourage faculty and staff to live here rather than commuting because we are hoping to reduce the traffic on Route 1, so we are trying to encourage a walkable community,” Bader said.
New leadership has catalyzed a greater commitment toward collaboration between the city and the university. |
" > caitlin@grunwald-communications.com" <caitlin@grunwald-communications.com>, > Shannon Currie <scurrie@bsgco.com>, Ellen Esterhay < > ellen.esterhay@gmmb.com>, Corey Ciorciari <cciorciari@hillaryclinton.com>, > Approval <approval@hillaryclinton.com>, Speech Drafts < > speechdrafts@hillaryclinton.com> > Subject: RE: Biden Statement > > Really good. > > > > *From:* Dan Schwerin [mailto:dschwerin@hillaryclinton.com > <dschwerin@hillaryclinton.com>] > *Sent:* Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:13 PM > *To:* Kate Offerdahl; Robby Mook; Huma Abedin; Jennifer Palmieri; > Christina Reynolds; Kristina Schake; Heather Stone; Dennis Cheng; Marlon > Marshall; Teddy Goff; Mandy Grunwald; Joel Benenson; Jim Margolis; Jake > Sullivan; Sawsan Bay; Varun Anand; Anthony Mercurio; Elizabeth Renda; > Graeme Crews; caitlin@grunwald-communications.com; Shannon Currie; > Esterhay, Ellen; Corey Ciorciari; Approval; Speech Drafts > *Subject:* Biden Statement > > > > HRC has signed off on this statement: > > > > STATEMENT ON JOE BIDEN > > > > Joe Biden is a good man and a great Vice President. Serving alongside him > in the Senate and then the administration, I saw first-hand his passion for > our country and our people. Like millions of others, I admire his devotion > to family, his grace in grief, his grit and determination on behalf of the > middle class, and his unyielding faith in America’s promise. As Vice > President, Joe has been by President Obama’s side for every pivotal > decision. He helped save the auto industry and pull our economy back from > the brink of depression. He continues to fight for higher wages, safer > communities, and a more peaceful world. It’s a record to be proud of, > defend, and build on. And I am confident that history isn’t finished with > Joe Biden. As he said today, there is more work to do. And if I know Joe, > he will always be on the front-lines, always fighting for all of us. > > > > > > > This email is intended only for the named addressee. It may contain > information that is confidential/private, legally privileged, or > copyright-protected, and you should handle it accordingly. If you are not > the intended recipient, you do not have legal rights to retain, copy, or > distribute this email or its contents, and should promptly delete the email > and all electronic copies in your system; do not retain copies in any > media. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender > promptly. Thank you. >i try not to get involved in drama but this fandom is so exhausting sometimes
‘if you like adam then you support abusers!!1!’
we know the difference between reality and fiction. just because we like a villain does not mean we condone their actions. alternate universes are a thing too. most of us adam fans enjoy our own portrayals of adam rather than canon adam. we don’t go around spreading hate over fictional characters, and most of my fellow adam fans are actually some of the nicest people i’ve met in the fandom.
secondly, don’t go around and say we support abusers for liking adam, and then turn around and worship cinder like she’s some kind of goddess and act like she has done nothing wrong. cinder is an abuser too. just because she is a woman, does not excuse the abuse she has put emerald and to an extent mercury through. it is fine to like her as a character, as we do with adam. but don’t ignore that she is abusive and manipulative as well, as we recognise with adam.
they are both villains, they are both abusive, but their fans are just trying to enjoy a fictional character from a fictional show. liking a villain does not equal condoning their actions, and certainly does not mean that we support real life abuse.In just two weeks, the gates of the Golden City of Menaphos will open, and our devs are hard at work putting the finishing touches to the update.
This week, we've brought you patches and fixes from the Ninja Team. See the patch notes for full details.
Next week, there’s no update, so settle in, get those last few requirements and recommendations, and get ready for history in the making.
Have a great week, 'Scapers, and we'll see in Menaphos on 5th June!
The RuneScape Team
Live Streams & Competitions
Each week we stream Q&As, in-game events and more. Watch our streams and find a full streaming schedule over on our Twitch channel.
Check our YouTube channel, too, for all of our previous streams, including last week's Road to Menaphos Slayer Q&A.
Sunday May 19th | 18:00 Game Time | PvM with Mod Lee!
Get your weekly dose of PvM goodness with Mod Lee – don't miss it!
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It’s time to get those creative juices flowing. Take part in our Skybox competition to win yourself a shiny new graphics card!A reader in the Midwest makes a related point:
Is it too much to ask for just one person to have the balls to do this? And if it is too much, what does this say about our country?
I have waited for months for one prominent Republican with real “skin in the game” to step up and say something and take a stand. Something along this line: “You know that I am a Republican, but I am an American first. And as an American, I cannot and will not support the nominee of our party. He is not qualified to be President of this country. If this costs me my position, so be it. Some things are more important!”
I have followed with great interest the chronicling of the Trump campaign for the historical record. My question to you is this: Is there any integrity left in the Republican party?
***
A reader who has worked in Republican politics defends John McCain, who has condemned Trump’s statements but so far not Trump himself:
That said you know that life is a balancing act and McCain is trying to win a GOP primary is a state with a hard-right GOP electorate. Have to give him a little latitude. Also suspect that’s why he included this line, “...which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment...”— he knows it’s an acid test he's failing and will have to answer for, and it’s weighing on him.
My own opinion is doing anything you can to defeat Trump and hold his enablers accountable is one’s a moral imperative as an American, an acid test of one’s character.
This reader goes on to say that the Republicans who should be judged most harshly are those who are not up for re-election themselves this year (unlike McCain) but are still riding the Trump Train.
***
From a lawyer on the West Coast:
One thing that strikes me how many conservatives in 1940 France felt that “well, better Hitler than Blum.” Leon Blum being France’s first Jewish prime minister, who served at the head of a left-wing government in the period 1936-1938. It just sounds a lot like the praise many conservatives of like Trump and Farange have for Putin and disdain for Obama …
I thought your term “Vichy Republican” was quite apt. I say this because I was recently watching the Ophuls documentary about France under the Nazi Occupation The Sorrow and the Pity. It does a masterful job of drawing out people on why they decided to resist or collaborate.
***
A brief note on a potential silver lining:
Wouldn’t it be great if the Khans, Muslim-Americans, became the moral conscience of the nation during this election, with their dignity and eloquence and compassion?
***
And, finally for now, a much longer and more downbeat assessment:
It is becoming blatantly clear to me that the GOP is failing in one of its principal roles as a major political party: To filter out those elements which, at their root, would destroy those organic mechanisms which keep our democracy functioning.
Given how blatant and ever-increasingly obvious is the nature of Trump, why is it so hard for the country to realize what he represents? Why did not our national immune system immediately recognize him for who/what he is and spit him out? The answer is that Ryan and McConnell and the Vichy Republicans, are validating Trump’s legitimacy, and have reneged on their fundamental duty leading a major political party.
And the GOP’s decay in performing this duty has been advancing for the last 20 years. In today’s NY Times, Lindsay Graham was quoted as saying in reference to Trump’s comments about the Khans,
“This is going to a place where we’ve never gone before, to push back against the families of the fallen. There used to be some things that were sacred in American politics — that you don’t do — like criticizing the parents of a fallen soldier, even if they criticize you,” Graham said.
At last! A Republican willing to say “YOU JUST CAN'T SAY SUCH THINGS!!” And here's the thing: It might have started sooner, perhaps Nixon, perhaps Goldwater; but in my mind it started with Newt Gingrich and the ‘94 Republicans who took power and dismantled the structural protections in Congress which fostered comity and collegiality among adversaries. Since that time, establishment Republicans started saying and doing things that political norms dictated that YOU JUST DON’T DO!
Before that time, no matter how awful the opponent’s policies, the opponent was, nevertheless, a worthy adversary, chosen by worthy citizens who, despite your fervent disagreement with them, were your countrymen. And starting in ‘94, establishment Republicans started disrespecting the elected representatives of the opposing party. And at that point, they moved from governing to open warfare. And each new incremental move into previously forbidden territory brought new standards of indecency and disrespect; to the point where the honor and patriotism of a proven, decorated war hero (John Kerry), the citizenship and faith of an elected president (Obama), the honor and patriotism of a former POW (McCain), and the fundamental integrity and worth of Congressional institutions (filibuster etc.), were all barriers which it is now acceptable to disregard. Things you just didn’t do, they did.
In a quick Google session I was unable to determine who first said it, but I’ve heard it attributed to Jung, that civilization is a thin veneer. We take for granted that the glue holding this democracy together is only as strong as the willingness of the participants to honor the glue. It’s remarkable how few people it would take to disregard the white lane markings of our highways and turn traffic into a snarl. We function because of our consensus that there are just some things that YOU DO NOT SAY, and there are just some things that YOU DO NOT DO. And since 1994, at least, the GOP, with very little assistance from the Democrats, has been saying and doing non-normative things; and this has empowered a large number of people to say and do non-normative things as a result.
The country depends on its political parties to scrub out the infectious elements; to make sure that, whatever candidates are put forward, at the root they will put the institutions and the norms that provide the glue for our democracy ahead of their ideological and power questing goals. I wonder how graciously GW Bush/Cheney would have responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000 had it gone the other way. And in the subsequent Congress, I wonder how graciously the Republicans would have allowed a President Gore to function had the result gone the other way. I wonder how normative the Republican response would have been had 9/11 happened on the watch of a Democratic president. Oh. Wait. BENGHAZI!!!!!
The GOP no longer puts the country, its institutions and its norms, ahead of party. And McConnell and Ryan and the Vichy Republicans are glaring truth of the long road down which they've come. Thank you, and Mr. and Mrs. Khan, for directly calling them out. We need the GOP. We need a functioning, filtering, democracy glue-enhancing GOP. We haven’t had one since it started decaying during the first Clinton administration.
And what will happen when, the next time they nominate a candidate, they manage to hide the things that makes Trump so obvious? THAT’s what scares me most...Advice
Bodies of Kimberly Lannette Hamilton, 45, of Los Olivos and Gregg Todd Hamilton, 50, of Santa Ynez found inside Alamo Pintado Avenue residence
A man and a woman were found dead Thursday inside a Los Olivos home in what Santa Barbara County sheriff’s investigators believe was a murder-suicide.
The victims discovered inside the residence in the 2200 block of Alamo Pintado Avenue were identified Thursday evening as Kimberly Lannette Hamilton, 45, of Los Olivos and Gregg Todd Hamilton, 50, of Santa Ynez, said Kelly Hoover, a sheriff's spokeswoman..
"The case is still under investigation but at this point all indications are that this was a murder-suicide," Hoover said. "Kimberly Hamilton suffered an apparent gunshot wound and Gregg Hamilton suffered an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Sheriff's dispatchers received a 9-1-1 call shortly before 8 a.m. from a man who said that a violent crime had occurred at his location, Hoover said, adding that his cell phone was tracked to the Alamo Pintado Avenue home.
Emergency personnel converged on the residence, and streets in the vicinity of Alamo Pintado Avenue and Jonata Street were blocked off.
Nearby Los Olivos School, St. Marks Preschool and Dunn School were placed on lockdown for a time, Hoover said.
Law enforcement officers staged in a nearby church parking lot as they attempted to contact anyone inside the residence.
The sheriff's Special Enforcement Team and its armored Bear vehicle were called in, along with canine units and a county helicopter, Hoover said.
When the Special Enforcement Team eventually gained entrance to the home, they discovered the bodies of Hamiltons, Hoover said, adding that investigators believe the deaths stem from a domestic dispute.
They also recovered a firearm, she said, declining to elaborate on what kind.
A neighbor reported hearing two gunshots at about 8 a.m., according to emergency radio traffic.
District Attorney Joyce Dudley said her office was not aware of any previous calls for service or criminal records associated with the address on Alamo Pintado Avenue.
A structure fire also occurred Thursday morning in the typically quiet Santa Ynez Valley town, but Hoover said the two incidents do not appear to be related.
A previously planned concert Thursday night at nearby St. Mark's-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church, 2901 Nojoqui Ave., will serve as a benefit for the fire victims, the Palmer family, and the Hamilton's children, the Rev. Dr. Randall Day, St. Mark's pastor, announced Thursday afternoon following the traumatic events.
Admission will be free, with donations to be accepted for the two families involved in the tragedies.
"In addition to assisting those impacted by the day's events, the experience of beautiful music in the concert will help to calm and inspire us for the support and strength we will be able to offer in caring for our community in the days ahead," Day added.
The unique classical music concert entitled “An Evening of Spanish Music for Cello & Piano” performed by accomplished cellist Andrew Smith and pianist Alfredo Oyaguez Montero will feature works by Spanish composers including Manuel de Falla, Gaspar Cassado, Joaquín Turina and Enrique Granados.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 7 p.m. Thursday. After the concert, there will be a complimentary reception to meet the artists.
This concert is part of St. Mark’s non-religious, non-sectarian community arts program.
Check back with Noozhawk for updates to this story.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.Two Oklahoma men Friday fought over one of mankind’s oldest questions: which is better, iPhone or Android?
Roommates Jiaro Mendez and Elias Acevedo got into an argument Friday that led to a beer bottle broken over a skull and multiple stab wounds, The Smoking Gun reports.
The two men were outside their apartment around 1 a.m. Friday morning when they began arguing about whether the Android or the iPhone is better, according to a Tulsa police report.
Driven by their passion for technological dominance, the altercation turned physical, and Acevedo allegedly hit Mendez in the head with a beer bottle.
Both men, who police said were “highly intoxicated,” were treated at the hospital for cuts and bruises.
They were both released but Acevedo, who was covered in blood, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
A third man was reportedly on the scene but left before police arrived.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Fresh off the impressive news of his miniseries' 18 Emmy nominations, Fargo creator Noah Hawley is now probably feeling a bit of heat for that follow-up.
Though the showrunner, who adapted the Coen Brothers' 1996 film to much applause, has not officially gotten a green light for second installment, its Emmy clout and his overall deal with FX Productions make it something of a given.
PHOTOS Complete 2014 Emmy Nominees
"In success, no one ever really does a mic drop and walks away," Hawley told The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday morning. "If I told FX that it was my best work, they would be thrilled with the success of it right now. But I feel like I'm close on a new idea for another Fargo 10-hour idea that we'll talk about in the coming weeks."
The shape of Fargo 2.0, however, is less certain. Hawley was naturally guarded about what he's considering and couldn't speak to any possible returns for his heavily-nominated cast, but he did imply that he'd like to linger in a world adjacent to his original source material.
STORY The Complete List of Emmy Nominees
"What's really interesting about this exercise of emulating a movie, as a storyteller, is having available to me a whole body of work," he says. "The Coen brothers are so varied — from Raising Arizona to A Serious Man, there's so much."
One thing that can be said for whatever Hawley and FX do next is that it won't stray far from the detective drama at the heart of this first time at bat. "What is the inspiration this season? It's always going to be rooted in true crime," he adds. "There will always be grisly murder with good versus evil."With a built-in exercise bike and a sweet slingshot controller, this conceptual arcade cabinet from Kotaku reader Cobra would be the ultimate way to play Rockstar's school days sandbox game Bully.
Perhaps if arcades were more successful than they are today we'd see something like this sexy Bully cabinet sitting in the corner of our local electronic amusement park, at least until some wiseacre decided to use real rocks in that slingshot.
Cobra explains the inspiration behind the render.
"I've been following Kotaku for years, yet have never contributed in any way. I love checking out all the crafty things your readers share so I thought I would share some images of an arcade cabinet concept I've been working on modeling. I recently replayed Bully: Scholarship Edition and was inspired to create this."
Cobra's also got a sweet concept for a Call of Duty arcade cabinet. Makes one wonder what other popular console titles would look like given the arcade treatment, doesn't it?'I want to be clear: NHTSA did not shrug,' said the agency’s top official, David Friedman. Congress blasts auto safety regulator
Congress delivered a stinging rebuke to the nation’s auto safety regulator on Tuesday, saying the agency failed for years to spot the defects in General Motors’ cars that killed at least 19 people and injured hundreds.
House Republicans laid out their indictment of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a 44-page report by the majority staff on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) accused the agency of being “more interested in singing ‘Kumbaya’ with the manufacturers than being a cop on the beat” as she blasted NHTSA for failing to take responsibility for its shortcomings.
Story Continued Below
But the agency remained defiant, insisting it had dealt with automakers aggressively, and it placed the blame for the recall delays squarely on GM’s shoulders.
( Also on POLITICO: McConnell, Cruz differ on lame-duck activity)
“I want to be clear: NHTSA did not shrug,” said the agency’s top official, David Friedman, rebutting criticism during the McCaskill-led hearing of a Senate Commerce subcommittee that the agency failed to act on known safety problems. “NHTSA aggressively pursues these issues.”
Neither Democrats nor Republicans were satisfied with Friedman’s answers.
“I simply do not have the confidence that NHTSA will take more aggressive action in the future,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said at the hearing. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the agency has “neither bark nor bite” and accused it of “nodding off on safety.” McCaskill said she wanted an admission that NHTSA had fallen down on the job and said Friedman was “digging himself a hole.”
Friedman, NHTSA’s deputy administrator, eventually conceded that “there are things that we need to improve.”
( Also on POLITICO: Reid, McConnell agree on CR, Syria)
Despite the criticism, there was no clear sign that Congress had any answers that would have prevented the recall scandal at the nation’s largest automaker, and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton gave no indication any legislative proposals were imminent.
“It is tragic that the evidence was staring NHTSA in the face, and the agency didn’t identify the warnings,” Upton said. “NHTSA exists not just to process what the company finds but to dig deeper. They failed.”
Upton’s report sought to zero in on NHTSA’s failure to investigate the link between the defective ignition lock and airbag nondeployment that was first noted by a Wisconsin state trooper in 2007. And the report asserts that the regulator shared some of the blame with the automaker — an idea agency officials have repeatedly dismissed by noting that GM hid information from the regulator.
“NHTSA was actively trying to find the ball,” Friedman said at the Senate hearing. “General Motors was actively trying to hide the ball.”
( Also on POLITICO: House Republicans say yes to Obama)
The report said the agency had a “NHTSA shrug” that is no different from the infamous “GM salute,” in which it identified a problem but failed to do anything about it, and it accused NHTSA of having “operational tunnel vision” and failing to share information among units. It also said NHTSA employees failed to understand how the advanced airbags that failed in many GM cars actually worked.
Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Diana DeGette of Colorado criticized the GOP-backed report for “almost completely [ignoring] the role played by GM.” Waxman is the committee’s top Democrat, and DeGette is the ranking member of its investigations subcommittee. The duo asked to pass legislation levying a $3 fee on every car sold in the U.S. to pay for NHTSA’s safety operations and increasing the fines the agency can impose.He did, and endured several terrifying trips to the emergency room when asthma attacks raged out of control and forced him to resume steroids temporarily to stay alive.
Nothing else he tried seemed to work. “After having a really poor couple of years with significantly reduced quality of life and performance at work,” he told me, “I was ready to give up my eyesight and go back on steroids just so I could breathe better.”
Treatment From the ’50s
Then, last spring, someone told him about the Buteyko method, a shallow-breathing technique developed in 1952 by a Russian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko. Mr. Wiebe watched a video demonstration on YouTube and mimicked the instructions shown.
“I could actually feel my airways relax and open,” he recalled. “This was impressive. Two of the participants on the video were basically incapacitated by their asthma and on disability leave from their jobs. They each admitted that keeping up with the exercises was difficult but said they had been able to cut back on their medications by about 75 percent and their quality of life was gradually returning.”
A further search uncovered the Buteyko Center USA in his hometown, newly established as the official North American representative of the Buteyko Clinic in Moscow.
“When I came to the center, I was without hope,” Mr. Wiebe said. “I was using my rescue inhaler 20 or more times in a 24-hour period. If I was exposed to any kind of irritant or allergen, I could easily get a reaction that jeopardized my existence and forced me to go back on steroids to save my life. I was a mess.”
Photo
But three months later, after a series of lessons and refresher sessions in shallow breathing, he said, “I am using less than one puff of the inhaler each day — no drugs, just breathing exercises.”
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Mr. Wiebe doesn’t claim to be cured, though he believes this could eventually happen if he remains diligent about the exercises. But he said: “My quality of life has improved beyond my expectations. It’s very exciting and amazing. More people should know about this.”
Ordinarily, during an asthma attack, people panic and breathe quickly and as deeply as they can, blowing off more and more carbon dioxide. Breathing rate is controlled not by the amount of oxygen in the blood but by the amount of carbon dioxide, the gas that regulates the acid-base level of the blood.
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Dr. Buteyko concluded that hyperventilation — breathing too fast and too deeply — could be the underlying cause of asthma, making it worse by lowering the level of carbon dioxide in the blood so much that the airways constrict to conserve it.
This technique may seem counterintuitive: when short of breath or overly stressed, instead of taking a deep breath, the Buteyko method instructs people to breathe shallowly and slowly through the nose, breaking the vicious cycle of rapid, gasping breaths, airway constriction and increased wheezing.
The shallow breathing aspect intrigued me because I had discovered its benefits during my daily lap swims. I noticed that swimmers who had to stop to catch their breath after a few lengths of the pool were taking deep breaths every other stroke, whereas I take in small puffs of air after several strokes and can go indefinitely without becoming winded.
The Buteyko practitioners in Woodstock, Sasha and Thomas Yakovlev-Fredricksen, were trained in Moscow by Dr. Andrey Novozhilov, a Buteyko disciple. Their treatment involves two courses of five sessions each: one in breathing technique and the other in lifestyle management. The breathing exercises gradually enable clients to lengthen the time between breaths. Mr. Wiebe, for example, can now take a breath after more than 10 seconds instead of just 2 while at rest.
Responses May Vary
His board-certified pulmonologist, Dr. Marie C. Lingat, told me: “Based on objective data, his breathing has improved since April even without steroids. The goal now is to make sure he maintains the improvement. The Buteyko method works for him, but that doesn’t mean everyone who has asthma would respond in the same way.”
In an interview, Mrs. Yakovlev-Fredricksen said: “People don’t realize that too much air can be harmful to health. Almost every asthmatic breathes through his mouth and takes deep, forceful inhalations that trigger a bronchospasm,” the hallmark of asthma.
“We teach them to inhale through the nose, even when they speak and when they sleep, so they don’t lose too much carbon dioxide,” she added.
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At the Woodstock center, clients are also taught how to deal with stress and how to exercise without hyperventilating and to avoid foods that in some people can provoke an asthma attack.
The practitioners emphasize that Buteyko clients are never told to stop their medications, though in controlled clinical trials in Australia and elsewhere, most have been able to reduce their dependence on drugs significantly. The various trials, including a British study of 384 patients, have found that, on average, those who are diligent about practicing Buteyko breathing can expect a 90 percent reduction in the use of rescue inhalers and a 50 percent reduction in the need for steroids within three to six months.
The British Thoracic Society has given the technique a “B” rating, meaning that positive results of the trials are likely to have come from the Buteyko method and not some other factor. Now, perhaps, it is time for the pharmaceutically supported American medical community to explore this nondrug technique as well.Conservation group seeks help to pay for the $100,000 licence which lets owner drag 1.2km nets along length of the reef
A conservation group has taken the unusual step of buying a commercial shark fishing licence on the Great Barrier Reef, and will retire it, saving the sharks that it would otherwise be used to catch.
WWF said it was now seeking funds to cover the cost of the $100,000 licence, which gives the owner the right to drag a 1.2km net anywhere along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, targeting sharks. It can also be used for fishing with lines to target other species.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A fisherman holds a juvenile hammerhead shark caught in a gill net. Photograph: Jeff Rotman / NaturePL
WWF said the licence was used to target sharks for 10 years until 2004, when it caught about 10,000 sharks each year.
The move comes as Queensland government figures show shark catches on the Great Barrier Reef almost doubled between 2014 and 2015: from 222 tonnes to 402 tonnes – about 100,000 sharks that year.
WWF-Australia’s conservation director, Gilly Llewellyn, said protecting apex predators such as sharks was particularly important after the unprecedented bleaching event that devastated the Great Barrier Reef this year. A 2013 study showed that removing sharks from coral reefs disrupted the ecosystem, making it harder for reefs to recover.
“After bleaching, algae spreads,” Llewellyn said. “Researchers found that where sharks were removed by overfishing, smaller predators like snapper became more abundant. These snapper kill the algae-eating fish and the algae then overwhelms young coral.”
Dead dugong raises concerns over fishing practices in Great Barrier Reef Read more
Australia has been reluctant to protect endangered sharks from fishing. In November 2014 the Australian government agreed to grant 31 species of sharks protection under a UN-administered convention. But two months later, the government opted out of the agreement with respect to five of the species, including two species of hammerhead sharks.
“These enormous nets kill tens of thousands of juvenile sharks each year, including hammerheads which are listed internationally as endangered,” Llewellyn said. “Hammerhead numbers have crashed in Queensland, possibly by 80%.”
Besides catching the target species, these long nets catch almost anything they pass over, Llewellyn said. That includes dugongs, dolphins and turtles.
How often that happens is not known, since while fishers are required to report the by-catch, there is evidence they could be attempting to hide the catches.
This month a dead dugong was found near Townsville, with signs it had been caught in a net.
And in 2010 and 2011, a dugong and a pair of dolphins were found, in a similar area, which looked as though they had been tied up by the tail and weighed down, with fishers attempting to hide the carcasses.Is it the talent or the system?
That's the question scouts and coaches routinely debate when evaluating top players across the NFL landscape. In a league full of world-class athletes, evaluators spend countless hours in the film room trying to ascertain whether a player is a transcendent star capable of thriving in any scheme or a "system guy" who needs to play in a specific game plan to produce at a high level.
Last offseason, this was the debate around free-agent running back DeMarco Murray. The 2014 NFL rushing king was coming off a remarkable season that saw him post 12 100-yard games and carry the Dallas Cowboys into the playoffs (where he added another 100-yard outing). While some observers viewed Murray as an emerging superstar at the position due to his explosive jaunts (15 runs of at least 20 yards), others viewed the Pro Bowler as a good player running behind an ultra-talented offensive line that would make life easy for any runner. Many also noticed how the Cowboys' power-based running scheme (power, counter and isolation) enhanced Murray's downhill running style, allowing him to consistently hit the line of scrimmage with his shoulders square.
At the end of the day, the Cowboys were reluctant to break the bank for a running back who appeared to be at least somewhat of a "system guy" in their minds. The Philadelphia Eagles, on the other hand, viewed Murray as a superstar who could seamlessly fit into a zone-based scheme that featured more lateral runs (outside zone and sweeps). After watching Murray struggle in a side-to-side running game that didn't suit his talents as a downhill runner, the Eagles elected to trade the back, thus acknowledging the franchise's misevaluation of a "system guy."
Watching the NFL Network's "Top 100 Players of 2016" this offseason, I was blown away by the player-on-player evaluations. While I assumed players would have a better feel for transcendent talents, I was surprised at the number of "system guys" ranked highly despite their obvious limitations. Given some time to study the All-22 Coaches Film, I wanted to spotlight a few notable names that, to me, fall in one of these two classes: system guy or star. Here we go!
System Guys
Josh Norman, CB, Washington Redskins: Despite garnering serious consideration for the 2015 Defensive Player of the Year award after a stellar campaign that eventually earned him a $75 million contract from the Redskins, the Pro Bowler isn't considered a "shutdown" corner by traditional standards. Norman is a "clue" corner adept at pattern-reading and keying the quarterback from distance in a zone scheme that enables defenders to play with vision from off coverage. Although Norman gained some experience playing bump-and-run coverage during his time in Carolina, there are serious concerns about whether he possesses enough speed and athleticism to thrive in a scheme that prominently features man coverage.
Now, I know Norman routinely challenged premier receivers -- including the likes of Dez Bryant, Odell Beckham Jr. and Julio Jones -- at the line of scrimmage in recent years, but there are plenty of instances on tape where his lack of elite speed and burst could've resulted in big plays down the field (see: Beckham's drop against Norman in the first quarter of their rowdy matchup last season). In fact, I had an AFC North personnel director suggest that Norman could get "exposed" if he had to match up with a premier WR1 and shadow him for four quarters of coverage.
While I have the utmost respect for Norman's playmaking ability as a zone corner, I don't believe his skills are conducive to playing the role of a CB1 in every system. With a move to the NFC East and intriguing matchups dotting the schedule, the football world might soon see if Norman is the lockdown corner he claims to be.
Julian Edelman, WR, New England Patriots: This wily pass catcher is the premier slot receiver in the NFL, but he is not a transcendent star, despite his fine stats. The electric punt returner/receiver is an exceptional catch-and-run specialist in a system that features a number of option routes and short crossers for the slot receiver. This is a system that helped Troy Brown, Deion Branch and Wes Welker rise from obscurity to become household names.
Edelman has piled up 258 receptions over the past three seasons (39 games, due to injuries). Upon closer inspection, though, only half of those receptions have resulted in first downs, and he has just 24 receptions of 20-plus yards during that span.
Now, there is certainly value to having a receiver on the roster who can handle the dirty work between the hashes, but superstars move the chains and put the ball in the paint as the focal point of the offense. In addition, stars are capable of getting it done without needing a playmate to alleviate the pressure on them to carry the passing game. In New England, Rob Gronkowski is the focal point of the aerial attack -- his ability to command a double-team creates plenty of room for Edelman to operate. That's why I view Edelman as an appetizer instead of a main entree on Tom Brady's menu.
Clay Matthews, LB, Green Bay Packers: The sight of Matthews on a list of "system guys" will lead to quizzical looks from some readers, but hear me out before lighting up my Twitter timeline with irate responses. There's no disputing Matthews' impact as a disruptive play |
and negotiations, Russia swapped Eston Kohver for Aleksei Dressen, who Estonian officials had accused of treasonous activities on behalf of Moscow. So, for the Baltic States, the fear of a Russian intervention is very real. Earlier in 2017, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian special operations forces joined their American counterparts in West Virginia for practice sessions focusing on operations behind enemy lines and fighting insurgents.
After the invasion of Crimea, the Pentagon quickly deployed other aircraft and ground troops along NATO’s eastern flank and stepped up regular training exercises and aerial surveillance missions in close coordination with all of the alliance’s members. America’s whole-of-government effort to calm its European allies became known as the European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), while the U.S. military dubbed its part Operation Atlantic Resolve.
It seems highly unlikely that Tsahkna wasn’t alluding to Russian aggression in nearby Ukraine. The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania most recently gained independence from Moscow after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. All three were particularly concerned about Russia’s forceful annexation of the Crimea region in 2014, followed by the Kremlin’s active support for rebels fighting the government in Kiev.
“The introduction of the newest fighter to Europe, with its state of the art systems will help the alliance maintain the fundamental sovereign rights of all nations,” Estonian Defense Minister Margus Tsahkna said at a ceremony filled with international press announcing the new arrivals. “Hosting such advanced aircraft is certainly a big recognition to Ämari Air Base and to the Estonian air force as a whole.”
As it often does, the Pentagon insisted that the surprise move was long-planned, had no relationship with any current events, and was just like any other training exercise with a NATO. Neither the Estonians nor the Russians seemed inclined to agree.
It’s not clear whether the 20-person total included the crew of a KC-135 tanker from the Air Force’s U.K.-based 100th Air Refueling Wing, which also deployed to support the mission, security forces to guard the jets, or any other personnel.
The pilots, maintenance specialists, and other support staff came from the active component 34th Fighter Squadron and the Air Force Reserve's 466th Fighter Squadron, both based at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Earlier in April 2017, a total of eight F-35s and 250 airmen touched down at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom for training missions across Europe.
On April 25, 2017, U.S. Air Forces in Europe formally announced that two F-35As stealthy fighter jets and approximately 20 airmen had arrived at Ämari Air Base in the Baltic country’s Harjumaa County. The base sits less than 150 miles west of the Russian border and about 300 miles northeast of Russia’s geographically separated enclave of Kaliningrad.
The U.S. Air Force’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter has made its first trip to Estonia. Though small, the deployment is an important statement to Russia, America’s NATO allies, and critics of the often vexing aircraft.
“The question of an F-15 and an F-16 in a European scenario on its own, neither one is going to do it,” Air Force Lieutenant General Mark Nowland, the service's Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, said earlier in April 2017, according to DefenseNews. “They both are going to get shot down and die.”
But the threat of steadily improving, integrated anti-aircraft weapons and advanced fighter jets were also among the main reasons the Pentagon has been pushing for the F-35 in the first place. The Air Force has consistently argued that 4th generation fighters would be unable to survive any future, hypothetical shooting war in Europe or Asia against a near-peer adversary like Russia or China.
In the past, the Air Force has sent F-22 stealth fighters and other fighter jets to the region in shows of force. To make up for the limited capabilities of all three Baltic air forces, NATO members send fighters to police the region’s airspace on a rotational basis, too. Having the advanced F-35s in the area could send the message the Pentagon continues to be serious about responding to these incidents. From Estonia, the jets could patrol a not insignificant portion of Russia’s border with NATO.
Sometimes the incidents have been more threatening or dangerous. In August 2014, Russian fighters chased an Air Force RC-135V/W Rivet Joint signal-snooping spy plane out of the Baltic Sea and inadvertently into Swedish airspace. Eight months later, another Russian pilot barrel-rolled over an RC-135U Combat Sent, which was in the same area likely gathering details on the Kremlin’s air defense radar network. Oh, and then there’s Moscow’s harassment of U.S. Navy warships much further south in the Black Sea.
However, it's doubtful the jet's low observable features will come into play during this particular deployment. Official pictures and videos show crews had fitted the jets with radar reflectors so they would appear on even civilian radars and make the transit to the United Kingdom and onward to continental Europe as safe as possible. It also means the Russians most likely won't get a chance to study the jet's actual radar signature. Of course, in any actual combat scenario, the aircraft would not carry these devices. It might actually be the F-35 that ends up scanning Russian defenses along the Baltic. Lockheed designed the F-35's mission computer to collect, analyze, and display electronic signatures from radars and other air defense assets to help pilots detect and avoid them during missions. With the ability to gather this information passively, depending on how functional the Joint Strike Fighters' systems are, they may be able to act like small spy planes and scoop up various details during their upcoming training exercises. That being said, pilots may opt not to use all of the sensors available to them in order to prevent the Kremlin from finding out too much about those capabilities, too. The F-35's advanced APG-81 AESA radar in particular would be of special interest to Russian intelligence. But it can operate in low-probability of intercept mode, and possibly even in heavily degraded training modes that would not compromise its full capabilities. That is if the jets' pilots are allowed to turn it on at all.
Regardless, critics have argued the Joint Strike Fighters may never be truly ready for combat. So, beyond just sending the advanced planes to stare down Russia, the Air Force's deployment of F-35A to the United Kingdom and then onward to Estonia are important milestones for the program in general. In the face of serious cost overruns and delays, the Air Force in particular, which plans to ultimately buy a huge force of more than 1,750 of the stealthy jets, has been keen to show the aircraft are ready for combat. This push has only escalated since the service controversially declared initial operational capability (IOC) with the jets in August 2016. Putting up impressive numbers at major air combat exercises like Red Flag are one thing, but they can’t compare to actual operational deployments like the visits to the United Kingdom and Estonia when it comes to getting the jets out in the field, away from their usual creature comforts.
USAF
On April 24, this display of the F-35s abilities became even more important when the Government Accountability Office, one of the U.S. governments top watchdogs, published its latest report on the program. The nearly 50 page review warned about the potential for costs to keep climbing, despite attempts by the Pentagon to stabilize the project’s final price tag. “Cascading F-35 testing delays could cost the Department of Defense (DOD) over a billion dollars more than currently budgeted to complete development of the F-35 baseline program,” GAO stated up front in the review’s introduction. “The program’s projections are based on anticipated test point achievements and not historical data.” The investigators disagreed with the F-35 Joint Program Office’s estimations of how far delays in testing would set back the beginning of operational test and evaluation and how much the schedule slip would cost. Officials working on the Joint Strike Fighter insist the delay will only amount to 5 months and require an additional $532 million to complete development of the jet’s Block 3F software and mission systems. GAO concluded it would actually take an entire year and at least another $1.2 billion to move forward. Running off more than 8 million lines of code, the F-35’s computer brain is responsible for everything from flight handling to detecting and tracking targets and threats in the air and on the ground to diagnosing malfunctions and breakages. The Joint Program Office wants to start work on the next iteration of the system, Block 4, sometime in 2018, but needs to complete work on 3F first in order to know what works and what doesn’t. GAO is of the opinion that the latest delays would push back plans for full-rate production beyond April 2019.
USAF
At the same time, the F-35 has become a major issue for President Donald Trump and his administration. On the campaign trail and after his election victory, he singled out the aircraft as just one troubled U.S. government project that he would fix. In an interview with the Associated Press on April 24, 2017, Trump reiterated his claim that it was his personal intervention after taking office that saved the program hundreds of millions of dollars. “I saved $725 million on the 90 planes,” Trump said. “Now you know that's a saving of billions and billions of dollars, many billions of dollars over the course of – it's between 2,500 and 3,000 planes will be the final order.” Most experts agree that the deal with defense contractor Lockheed Martin likely only involved a smaller unit cost, something that the Pentagon had long expected to happen as overall production numbers increased. Whether or not Trump’s attempts to exert pressure on the F-35 by threatening to pursue an alternative design – and potentially leaking key details to competitor Boeing – have had any impact remains up for debate. This budgeting and politicking probably don’t matter much to officials in Estonia, who are clearly thrilled to have America’s newest fighter jet in their country. Whether the Russians get the intended message is another issue entirely. Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.comAlmost Perfect Artifacts Improve only in Small Ways:
APL is more French than English
Professor Alan J. Perlis
Yale University
I’m an apostate from ALGOL. Having been raised on programming languages of the ALGOL variety, I came under the influence of APL rather late in life. Like all people who enter interesting things late in life, one tends to go over one’s head very quickly. I think it might be interesting to say how I came under the influence of APL, because maybe many of you have gone the same route. I was at a meeting in Newcastle, England, where I’d been invited to give a talk, as had Don Knuth of Stanford, Ken Iverson from IBM, and a few others as well. I was sitting in the audience sandwiched between two very esteemed people in computer science and computing — Fritz Bauer, who runs computing in Bavaria from his headquarters in Munich, and Edsger Dijkstra, who runs computing all over the world from his headquarters in Holland. Ken was showing some slides — and one of his slides had something on it that I was later to learn was an APL one-liner. And he tossed this off as an example of the expressiveness of the APL notation. I believe the one-liner was one of the standard ones for indicating the nesting level of the parentheses in an algebraic expression. But the one-liner was very short — ten characters, something like that — and having been involved with programming things like that for a long time and realizing that it took a reasonable amount of code to do, I looked at it and said, “My God, there must be something in this language.” Bauer, on my left, didn’t see that. What he saw or heard was Ken’s remark that APL is an extremely appropriate language for teaching algebra, and he muttered under his breath to me, in words I will never forget, “As long as I am alive, APL will never be used in Munich.” And Dijkstra, who was sitting on my other side, leaned toward Bauer and said, “Nor in Holland.” The three of us were listening to the same lecture, but we obviously heard different things. What attracted me, then, to APL was a feeling that perhaps through APL one might begin to acquire some of the dimensions in programming that we revere in natural language — some of the pleasures of composition; of saying things elegantly; of being brief, poetic, artistic, that makes our natural languages so precious to us. That aspect of programming was one that I’ve long been interested in but have never found any level for coming close to in my experience with languages of the FORTRAN, ALGOL, PL/I school. It was clear in those languages that programming was really an exercise in plumbing. One was building an intricate object, and the main problem was just to keep your head above water. But, so difficult is it to keep your head above water with those languages that this aspect of the languages we use in programming just never surfaces. For me, in listening to Ken then — and I’d heard him before — for me, at that moment, there came what I can only call a revelation. I heard Ken speak in 1963 at Princeton at a meeting on programming languages, and he spoke about APL. But at that time APL was not running on any computer; and he stoutly insisted that it was unnecessary that it ever run on a computer. It was for him a notation with which he could express algorithmic concepts; and for him at that time, that seemed sufficient. To those of us who were concerned with making programs work on real computers, this seemed far short of the mark. Some years later, due to a favourable conjunction of stars in the heavens — some very good programmers, the fact that Harvard didn’t give Ken tenure and he went to IBM, and that the 360 was available and people thought one ought to be able to do timesharing with it — that conjunction of talented programmers, the availability of Ken, Adin Falkoff, and a few others, and the 360 gave us all APL. And I think we should all realize today that APL is what it is because of such a conjunction. The system under which it ran was so rock stable that people could actually be assured of reasonable continuity of operation at a time when timesharing was an extremely unstable activity; the language, as represented in the first 360 implementation; and a group of ardent disciples who submarined the language outside of IBM — because back in those days, IBM was not anywhere near as receptive as it should have been. But that’s been IBM’s history all along. Like all large corporations, it has a large amount of post facto wisdom. But that really means that we — particularly those of you who work for IBM — must always be aware of the fact that IBM is amenable to good ideas, but it takes time, lots of time, to overcome the inertia of a Goliath. Now, to get back to this question of APL as a language. In talking to people, I am constantly amazed — but in retrospect not surprised — that when I talk about APL, it’s almost as if we’re talking about two different things: their vision of APL and mine. And when I look at your symposium papers, I find that many of you are concerned with aspects of APL that don’t interested me at all, and I’m sure that I’m interested in aspects that probably don’t interest you at all. What does that mean? To my mind, it means that APL, as a language, is approaching a kind of completeness that we expect from a good, rich language. There are large, intelligent, useful groups of people who find the language worthwhile and have an intersection of interests in common which is almost null. That’s not bad; I think it is good and inevitable. And it points out, I think, that in attempting to arrange for APL’s future development, we’re probably going to find the task an extraordinarily difficult one. Because those of us who use APL approach it from so many different avenues, and are concerned with so many different points about how the language should change. In a way, we are very fortunate, I think, that the language is as good as it is and is changing so slowly. One thing that those of us in programming have certainly become aware of over the years is that people don’t mind programming with a bad language or an incomplete language. As long as they get some useful work from it and some pleasure, they will find any kind of rationalization to support their continuance of that language — even in the presence of much better linguistic vehicles, as witness the fact that FORTRAN thrives. I know practically no one who is interested in programming languages as such who has anything good to say about FORTRAN, other than the fact that its influence and its use continues to grow. That is a very good thing to say about any language. What’s happened, of course, with FORTRAN is that it has become the lingua franca of the computing world. It is the one language that everybody understands to some level of detail — it is on every computer, in every country, made by every manufacturer — and one could learn to use FORTRAN reading books at every level of complexity, written in every language on the surface of the earth. It is universal, like the air we breathe, and I don’t think it’s going to be displaced for a long time to come. And one of the reasons it’s not going to be displaced, and perhaps should not be displaced, is that there are always new groups of programmers coming into existence for whom FORTRAN is mother’s milk. It isn’t going to do us a bit of good to throw before them an APL one-liner that will do as well as 50 lines of FORTRAN. First of all, it will take the people a long time to learn how to use the one-liner and even more to write one, so that FORTRAN will continue to grow and succeed. And I don’t think APL will usurp its position; there’s no reason why it should. And it certainly shouldn’t be a goal of people who use APL to stand forth and say, “Why do you jackasses use these inferior linguistic vehicles when we have something here that’s so precious, so elegant, which gives me so much pleasure? How can you be so blind and so foolish?” That debate you’ll never win, and I don’t think you ought to try. Now, there’s a great deal of talk today — since APL is such an almost perfect instrument — of making it perfect. We won’t succeed in that. For the simple reason that for all of us there are so many different avenues by which APL can reach fruition or perfection. There is no single avenue. Some people say the most important issue at hand is to improve the data structures of APL. Others say what APL needs is a little bit of Franglais, which in our terms is APLGOL. “If APL only had the while-statement, or the if-then-else, or the for-statement, it would become such a perfect language.” That’s ridiculous. And it’s silly to say that if APL had arrays of arrays, all of our troubles would disappears. In point of fact, what will happen is that the amount of troubles would just grow almost exponentially if that happened. Nevertheless, it is important that one attempt to expand the language along these lines and others. And people will do so, no matter what I say or what you do. If it isn’t done within IBM, it will be done elsewhere, because there is tremendous fascination in believing that you can take a language, and by making a few changes today and a few more tomorrow, bring people to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What many of us forget — and we should never forget, of course — is that programming step-by-step must someday, though we don’t know how, reach the point where it is universally capable of expressing our thoughts, at least insofar as they involve giving prescriptions on how to do things. Programming is thinking — not all thinking yet, and maybe never all thinking — but insofar as when we sit down at the computer we are faced with so many attractive possibilities which never occurred to us until we programmed, insofar as that happens, we are going to be dissatisfied with the programming languages we have. And that includes every language that’s ever been created and those yet to come — and there will be others yet to come. So my view of how APL should alter will differ inevitably from yours. And there’s no reason it shouldn’t. The things that interest me in APL are not necessarily the things that interest you, and that’s what makes the language, I think, so glorious. As a professor, one of the things I’m interested in doing is teaching people how to program; but it’s more than teaching them how to program, because to teach people how to program, any programming language is sufficient. The idea that only one language or any particular language is critical to learning what it means to program is false. If that is your goal, to teach people how to build programs, BASIC is perfectly satisfactory. There are some things you can’t do in it; therefore, you invent constructions for doing them; and the invention of these constructions is learning to program. Sooner or later, in all languages, we have to go to constructions which we build laboriously and arduously out of the components of the language. And we curse the fact that the language doesn’t have them already. But they are not all there now, and they never will be there. The word that I associate with programming — and I’m sure everybody associates with programming — is: “frustration”. Everything is possible, and nothing is easy. We sit down to write a program, and our initial, beautiful thoughts soon get bogged down in the slime of unavailable constructions. And we write procedures, or functions, or what-have-you, and more functions; we invent data structures, and more data structures; and the programs which start out so nice and elegant soon become mired down and have no structure. We find it difficult to describe to anyone else what they do. And we say, “If I programmed differently, if I used, for example, ‘structured programming’ this wouldn’t happen if I had arrays of arrays this wouldn’t happen if I had a while-statement this wouldn’t happen ” Nonsense. If it doesn’t happen today, it will happen tomorrow, even with all those things there. Because programming, by its very nature, is a kind of bootstrapping activity. What Iverson and God give you today, you’ll find insufficient tomorrow. So, the quest for the perfect, what I call “spherical language” — the language which grows gracefully, equally, in every direction that is conceived by us today as well as by our offspring tomorrow, and those after that — is unlikely ever to become a reality. And we shouldn’t be too impatient, because I think it is true that in any language that you deal with, you can say everything you really want to say about programming. Some of it will always be at the constructive level — outside the primitives of the language. But with APL, there’s something extra; at least I find it so. Some years back, we had a visit at Carnegie from a person at MIT whose name I’ve forgotten. He started to give us a lecture in a little office about some programming issues in LISP. He went up to the blackboard and he spoke LISP. Everything he wanted to describe, he described in terms of parentheses and CONS and CARS and CDRS. He found himself quite capable of expressing his ideas in the language in which he programmed. Not once during the half hour or so that he lectured to us did I see the inevitable block diagram, the flow charts that show up on the blackboard with things written in semi-English. He didn’t need them. And at the time I said to myself, ”LISP has a very precious character, if indeed there are some people who can express programming ideas to other people in the language in which they program.” I can’t do that with ALGOL; never have I been able to do it with ALGOL. Whenever I’ve programmed in ALGOL and I’ve wished to make some statements about the program I was writing, I was forced to go outside the language and use English, or mathematics, or some block diagrams or what-not. In APL, I find that to a far greater degree than any other language that I’ve used, I can make statements about the programs that I’m writing, in APL — actually not exactly APL, but APL with some nice little extensions that I dream up at the moment but would never think of implementing. But by and large, I find that the language allows me to express myself, in the language, about the things I’m dealing with. I find that a very precious property of a programming language. A second precious property I’ve found, with respect to APL, is the term that I’ve used in that little article that was printed in SIAM News — the word “lyrical”. I find that programming APL is fun. It’s charming. It’s pleasant. I find that programming is no longer a chore, and one of the reasons it’s not is the fact that there are always so many choices available to me. Whereas, the people in structured programming tell me if you put enough structure in programs, everybody in the room here will write the same ALGOL program or PASCAL program. Thus, it’s going to be easier to read — but also dull. God made us all different. No two of our minds work exactly alike, and one of the great powers of English is that those of us who learn to sharpen our wits on it, and use it properly, can say things differently from other people. And hence, it’s a pleasure to read English when it’s written by someone who has that talent. The other day I was reading a newspaper, an article by somebody in the arts who said if Shakespeare were alive today he’d be writing for TV. And I said to myself when I read that, “Not so. If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be a programmer, and he’d be writing one-liners in APL.” If you take a problem, even a very simple one, and give it to a class of 50 people to program in APL, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to get 35 to 40 different solutions. To some, that’s a horrible state of affairs. To me it indicates the language really has some power to it, some value; it’s just perfect for people, in a sense, to use who like to think originally, if possibly poorly, about things. This variation, this choice which is available, brings to APL programming almost what I would call a literary quality, which I have not been able to find in any other programming language. Now, people always say, “To hell with literary quality, we’ve got to meet deadlines; we’ve got to run the program on a computer. If you take 10 minutes instead of 7 minutes, that’s three minutes of money that has to be paid” and so forth. That’s true, and I’m not saying it’s not important. But what I am saying is that when one goes to program a task in APL, at first blush, one has before oneself an enormous number of alternatives — which is not bad, but good — out of which one can satisfy any number of criteria, only one of which, I maintain, is machine efficiency. When I first learn to program, everybody used assembly language. We programmed in machine code. Looking back at it now, I realize that something went out of programming when FORTRAN came in. What went out of programming was the pleasure, the frustration, the challenge of writing a program that was elegant and clever! That’s nothing wrong with being elegant and clever; indeed, in almost every field I know of it is considered to be praiseworthy. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be in software. When FORTRAN came in, in effect what one did is start the program off with the statement DO or INTEGER I. I like to tell my ALGOL friends that they all have stationery, which they buy in the local stationery store, that has in the upper right-hand corner their name; in the upper left-hand corner the word begin; underneath, the word integer i,j ; at the bottom, lower-right hand corner, end, followed by a place for the signature. And when one programs in ALGOL, so help me, that template is in your skull. You start off with a begin, and you declare i and j to be integers, and you say, “Now what am I gonna do next?” In APL, what flashes through your mind is a cascade of operations: chasing data through arrays, out of the other end of which come — limping and bruised, you know — seven numbers. After having built up arrays of rank eight and coming perilously close to a workspace full out from the other end comes these seven numbers — and they’re pulled out almost painfully — and you say to yourself, “My God, that’s wonderful! That’s a mechanism!” I know there are many criticisms of the one-liner syndrome. Phil Abrams has used the phrase “APL Pornography”. But as we all know, being people of the world, pornography thrives! And it thrives not because we’re evil, but because we’re human. And similarly, one-liners will thrive, no matter what label we stick on them, because the language APL is an invitation to create one-liners, and there is no better way to learn or appreciate that language than to write them. Indeed, APL, I believe, can only be learned by writing one-liners — only by seeing in a sense, what you can compress into a line. After a while, of course, you become more urbane, more weary of the world, and you begin to write little short things like i=3 and so forth. But at least in the first flush of enthusiam, one appreciates the language best by writing one-liners. When we teach APL, which we’ve done at Yale since I arrived there, I constantly hammer on the students, “I don’t want to see any loops, no go tos” — not because the programs they write are efficient this way, because truly one can write in many cases loop programs that run much better than one-liners, but because only by attempting to build these wringers through which you run 10,000 numbers to get two, or five — only by building them do you begin to appreciate the absolutely gorgeous harmony of APL. I want my students to come to me and say, “In this program, which is 5 lines long, I’ve used every APL primitive, because it fits. There was a place where decode fits, and I used it.” And indeed, we’ve observed that after a short time, the student programmers begin to feel that every primitive in the language serves, so to speak, an equivalent role. Transpose no longer frightens them — diagonal transpose is used all the time. It just fits; all of it fits. Now in changing APL — which there is every indication will happen over the next several years — we must keep, among all things we want to keep in the language, what I call this “spherical harmony”. Don’t ever let APL become what I’ve chosen to call “the dumbbell model of a language”: where there are two clumps — one here, and one there — that communicate over a narrow pass band; and the programmer, when he writes his program, either spends all his time over here, or all his time over there, with very little time in between. This hasn’t happened with our natural language, and it shouldn’t happen with APL. Now, when I’ve looked at APL, there are things about it I don’t like, naturally. No language is perfect. And the things about it I don’t like are the things that I and some of my students are trying to change. But they by no means represent either the things of top priority or the things of the greatest intellectual importance in changing APL. That I can’t say. And I say right now, no one can say those things about APL. It’s already, as it were, too much a part of the public domain, and too many aspects of APL programs deal with what we might call the commerce of programs. No one can say that by making certain changes and those changes alone, the language will move from its current level up to a higher level. For example, the first thing that I observed about APL that used to bother me was the fact that when I execute statements, I do create these huge arrays, and three numbers come limping out at the other end. And in the interim, large amounts of storage are used; and therefore, the first thing that occurred to me was that I had to find some way not to have to use that storage. And a very simple solution was found that enabled us to cut down on the amounts of storage drastically. It didn’t change the language much, and I don’t know that it’s going to have any major effect on APL, either. The second thing that occurred to us was that we need an APL machine, because APL is now running on FORTRAN machines. FORTRAN is the way it is because computers are the way they were when FORTRAN was invented. When you look at FORTRAN, what you find is a language which is ideally suited to the computer that we had in those days: one accumulator; an overflow register for handling the second part of the multiplier, and the remainder in division; and a couple of index registers; a single program counter; and an order code of maybe a hundred or so instructions. And that’s what FORTRAN was built to work well on — the IBM 704. APL is a different kettle of fish, because it didn’t come from the same development strain. Iverson, when he was working on APL, I believe, — I’ve never heard it from his lips — was not developing a language which had to fit the computers of that time. I believe he grew up on one of the Marks — Mark IV or Mark III, one of those — and there’s very little relationship between APL and those machines. As a result, APL came along and was made to fit the hardware that was available commercially at that time; which hardware, by the way, had come down the path directly along the FORTRAN line. The question then comes up, “We ought to have machines on which APL can be executed much better than on these machines. What should those machines be like?” Well, again, operating on this idea that we are pushing these three numbers through a wringer, what I saw APL as — and what others, I’m sure, have seen it as — is a stream processing language, a language in which one processes streams of data. Consequently, the machine we ought to have is one which is built to execute these streams — from which one could derive very quickly, relatively easily, a machine design. Such a machine is now being built by a couple of people at Cal Tech this year. Then we’ll see if it really is as good as we’d like it to be. It probably won’t be! The third problem that came to our mind about APL was, of course, the fact that virtual memory — which came to us out of operating systems for the express purpose of enabling us to swap programs and page our data with relatively small working sets — virtual memory, which came to us down that path, is not by any means the right way to organize memory for an array language like APL. How should one handle large arrays? Well, it occurred to us, and I’m sure it has occurred to others, that a way of solving this problem is to study the scheduling of data through these APL one-liners — again, using this stream model of the numbers going through the wringer and coming out the other end. In what order are the data needed? And how do we bring them in from backup memory, so that using relatively small buffers we can always have the data in memory that are needed for the execution of the part of the expression which we happen to be executing? We’ve had some very good results which indicate that using this kind of model, the amount of memory one needs for data storage is a small fraction of what we’ve become accustomed to thinking is needed in virtual memory machines. Back of all this development, in my mind and those of my students, has been the fact that we’ve got to get BASIC out of the public school system. BASIC is really harmful for young people. It’s all right for old-timers. But for young people in the 11th and 12th grades of high school, in junior colleges, and in universities, the belief that by writing BASIC programs they are appreciating the beauty of programming at the exercise level that they do, and can do, in the amount of time available to them — that idea is pernicious. It is very dangerous, to boot. We are creating a set of semiliterates, whom you people at IBM, unfortunately, will have to try to retrain. It is very difficult, believe me, to take someone who has been exposed to BASIC — and therefore believes that he now has the key — and teach him how to think in terms of APL; it’s just very difficult. It’s almost as though you’re asking them to turn in one lobe of their brain for another — and they’re not prepared to do so. So in the back of our minds has been this problem: How do you get an APL machine at such a low cost that it can be used in the public school systems of this country, so that people can begin to appreciate the lyrical nature of APL? Because we have learned — and I think everybody has learned this — once you’ve learned APL, you know BASIC, you know FORTRAN, you know ALGOL, indeed, I think you know all programming languages. You don’t know how you know them, but you know them. The mastery of the complexity of putting these things together, these tinker toys — that mastery carries with it implications that cover all programming. Whereas, the low level at which you operate intellectually when you program in BASIC does not allow you to appreciate the aesthetics which are involved when you switch over to APL. Indeed, what it appears to be is one arduous puzzle that you’re not prepared to work on. I’ve heard from so many people who program in ALGOL — or PASCAL now in the universities — that they are not willing to learn APL because of the threshold investment in their time that it takes. They are not willing to spend the time to think the way I think you have to learn to think if you’re going to program in APL — to learn to think, so to speak, of arrays not as mathematical objects but as carriers. Because when you program |
action, he said.
Foreman, the Arizona Business and Education Coalition CEO, said a push from the community and business groups has already begun, and he hopes it will grow.
"We've made the tax code incredibly complex. There are winners and losers, and the schools are getting the worst of it," he said. "I think we should all be winners, and the way to do that is through transparency, simplicity and evening out the rate."
But while the business community is very influential at the Legislature when it comes to tax policy, Novak, the ASU tax policy expert, said state leaders will need to go out of their way to make sure the public has a voice on a topic that can sometimes be confusing.
"What you really need to hope for is elected officials who really do want to come up with the right policy and who understand it can be a one-sided game where the business lobby has all of the advantage," he said. "Officials will have to seek out and make time for the underrepresented, which with taxes is the masses."
Tax credit proposals
More than half a dozen bills this year propose to add or expand credits, and come from both Democrats and Republicans:
A new tax credit for donations to low-income schools.
A new credit to cover the cost of gun-safety training needed for a concealed weapons permit; legislative analysts estimate it could cost the general fund $1.9 million a year.
A new tax credit for early childhood education programs.
A new credit for teachers who buy classroom supplies; analysts estimate it could cost the state about $8 million a year.
Expand the existing public K-12 school tax credit to apply to classroom supplies.
Expand the existing public K-12 school tax credit to cover additional sports programs.
Increase the credit limit on charity donations to $400, from $200; analysts estimate it could cost $2.8 million a year.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1pfVyhXPushing the wheels up the slight hill towards the army checkpoint, the strain on Kamal Abdeen's face is plain to see. It's not so much the physical. His arms are strong, his hands toughened. Twenty years in a wheelchair tends to do that. It's more the emotional which makes this a difficult journey a return to the place where he was shot and paralysed.
With hundreds of others, the 20-year-old had gone to the Ibrahim Mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs for early morning Ramadan prayers. The place was packed.
A few saw when Baruch Goldstein walked in in his Israeli army reserve uniform. They must have wondered what was happening with such a puzzling sight before them. Over his shoulder, he carried his army issued Galil rifle and at least three full magazines of ammunition. Pulling his gun into position, he started firing at the kneeling worshippers and kept going.
Kamal remembers first hearing the gunfire. Those around him were not quite sure if it was coming from inside or outside. "People were terrified, some were dropping on the floor. When I turned to see what was going on, I received a bullet right here" He points to what is now a faint mark in his neck. "I woke up four months later in a hospital bed".
Goldstein killed 29 that morning and wounded at least 125. He was only stopped when someone smashed him on the head with a fire extinguisher. The angry crowd then beat him to death. The American Israeli worked as a doctor in the local hospital. He had been a member of the Jewish Defence League, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the US government.
All sides condemned the killing.
The massacre brought violence to the streets. More people died in days of rioting that followed. So the Israeli authorities, worried they would face retaliation on similar or even greater scale imposed heavy restrictions in the areas in Hebron where once Israeli settlers lived next to Palestinians. Two years after the massacre, in 1996, Shuhada Street, the main artery through the ancient city was closed to Palestinian Traffic. Then fourteen years ago, a large part of the street was declared a no go area for Palestinians. Homes were emptied, more than 500 shops were shuttered overnight. Human Rights groups described the action as 'disproportionate and misdirected'.
Now to get on to the street, you have to pass a check point where young conscripts, fresh faced and suspicious at the same time, demand to see passports of anyone who is clearly not a local. At a second checkpoint, Palestinians are turned back. The rest of the street is strictly off limits, while Israeli settlers walk and drive unhindered.
In one of the homes before the second checkpoint, Mufeed Sharabati sits, nursing injuries he says were inflicted after a beating by Israeli soldiers. He shows me x-rays where pins were inserted in his back and holds up a bloody cup he says contain fragments of bones pulled from his body.
He's 47 and lives on Shuhada Street, in the house where he was born. He and his brothers owned a tobacco shop on the street.
"Business was good, we were happy,” he said.
In a place where it seems every other person is frantically puffing on a cigarette it's not hard to believe. But then he was told he had to close his shop.
"Overnight we were out of business. Even if we wanted to re-open again we couldn't. The Israelis won't allow it."
He's tried to understand what has happened, but he believes the massacre hurt the Palestinian community here, and the events since had made things even worse. "Palestinians have been punished, the mosque was divided, Shuhada Street was closed, stores were shut and people were caged in their homes. It's like a prison, only you know when you will get out of prison."
The Israelis insist by dividing the city of Hebron, they can keep more people safe.
Kamal Abdeen stops outside the mosque and looks over at its impressive clean façade. He's only been inside twice since the shooting. It's too painful to remember, too inconvenient in his wheelchair.
And so today, he won't go in. He decides to go home, and he leaves. But looking at his face as he pushes his wheelchair down the hill, it's clear the memories, the terror of that day twenty years ago never will.
Follow Alan Fisher on twitter: @AlanFisherIf you made a list of the factors that landed Donald Trump in the White House, Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale would put Facebook near the top. “Facebook now lets you get to places—and places possibly that you would never go with TV ads,” Parscale told CBS earlier this month. “Now, I can find, you know, 15 people in the Florida Panhandle that I would never buy a TV commercial for. And, we took opportunities that I think the other side didn't.” The relationship with Silicon Valley wasn’t one sided: as major tech companies face mounting criticism for allowing political disinformation to proliferate on their platforms, a new study suggests that employees at Facebook, Google, and Twitter also took on crucial roles within the Trump campaign, acting more like political strategists than on-site salespeople.
The collaboration allowed Team Trump to shore up its digital operations in a way that would have been difficult to accomplish on its own, according to Politico, which got an early look at the study. Embedded tech employees took on responsibilities such as targeting hard-to-reach voters and coming up with responses to probable lines of attack during debates. “Facebook, Twitter, and Google [went] beyond promoting their services and facilitating digital advertising buys,” the peer-reviewed paper concludes. The companies “actively [shaped] campaign communications through their close collaboration with political staffers.”
The Clinton campaign turned down the assistance, which Facebook, Google, and Twitter all offered to 2016 candidates free of charge. (One tech company employee in the study said her campaign “viewed us as vendors rather than consultants.”) The Trump campaign, on the other hand, used the “embeds” extensively during the general election. Ultimately, the work each company did for Trump—Google recommending geographically targeted ads, Twitter analyzing the success of tweet-based fundraising efforts, and Facebook identifying which pictures performed best on Instagram, for instance—helped close the gap between him and Clinton, experts cited in the study conclude.
The collaboration likely proved lucrative for all three companies. Online political-ad spending during the 2016 election totaled $1.4 billion—the Trump campaign spent $70 million on Facebook alone, making client services a valuable extension of Facebook’s ad product. The collaboration also conferred additional benefits, as Politico points out: national exposure, a testing ground for new features and products, and the chance to build a relationship with a candidate who might end up holding the regulatory reins once in office.
In the wake of Trump’s victory, Silicon Valley is facing difficult questions about that symbiotic relationship, and a potential regulatory reckoning. It also underscores a nearly universal truth about how the tech and media industries treated the 2016 presidential race: employees at Facebook and Twitter, among other companies in the overwhelmingly liberal Bay Area, never really expected Trump to win.“It’s like riding down the highway and expecting to keep the exhaust from your car within the boundaries of the road.”
ANDREW AND MELISSA DUNHAM spent years transforming their farm, which has been in his family for five generations, from a conventional producer of corn, soy, and alfalfa into a diversified operation with 40 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, a herd of 20 grass-fed cattle, even a few beehives. Finally, in May 2009, the couple’s 80 acres in Grinnell, Iowa – now named Grinnell Heritage Farm – became certified organic.
Just two months later, the Dunhams’ pickers spotted a crop duster flying low over nearby seed-corn fields, then noticed a cloud creeping toward them. The crew got out of the way as a fog of fungicide descended on two acres of hay, effectively revoking the acreage’s organic certification for three years, the chemical-free transition period required by the USDA.Associated Press Former Apple CEO John Sculley gave his take on the Apple Watch and Apple Pay in a recent interview with Forbes.
Sculley lauded Tim Cook's success as CEO, but said he doesn't think Apple takes enough risks.
"If you say who in Silicon Valley is willing to go out and take the big risks, change the game, you see people like Amazon and Google, Facebook, are willing to take big risks to go into entirely new industries than they were in before."
Sculley said Apple will continue reaping insane profits even if they don't innovate new products.
"The question is: is there anything on the horizon," he said. "I'm not convinced yet that the Apple Watch is one of those items. Maybe I'll be wrong. But it isn't clear to me that it's as big a deal as an iPhone, or an iPad, or an iPod."
Keep in mind Wall Street expects Apple to sell in the neighborhood of 24 million Apple Watches next year.
But despite Sculley's negativity about the Apple Watch, he's bullish about Apple Pay:
I think Apple Pay can be a fundamental creative leap. Look what AliPay is doing. So I'm very optimistic about Apple Pay. But realistically, even if you're an optimist, it's going to take several years to deploy that around the world. And no retailer wants to bet 100% of their future just on Apple.
At least some analysts share Sculley's optimism about Apple Pay: Barclays published a note on Monday pointing to services as a growth area for Apple in the next few years when they raised their target to $140, up from $120 per share.Police In U.K. Use Stun Gun On Their Own Community Relations Adviser
YouTube
A British police watchdog is investigating an incident last Saturday in Bristol in which an officer fired a stun gun at a black man who has served as a community-relations adviser for local law enforcement.
Judah Adunbi, 63, was incapacitated after a confrontation with two officers who apparently mistook him for someone wanted by police. In fact, Adunbi has volunteered as a member of an independent advisory group for Avon and Somerset police, a panel established to improve relations between police and the local communities of color.
A neighbor recorded the incident on video, shown above.
"Avon & Somerset police officers used the Taser on a 63-year-old man in Colston Road, Easton at around 9.10am," the Independent Police Complaints Commission said in a statement released Friday. "A complaint from a member of the public who witnessed the aftermath of the incident was voluntarily referred to the IPCC by the force on 19 January."
In the neighbor's video, two officers are seen stopping Adunbi outside his home as he was walking his dog. They refer to a wanted man they are looking for, and ask him for his name. Adunbi refuses to give his name several times as he attempts to enter his front gate.
Like everyone in the U.K., Adunbi has the right to withhold his name when stopped by officers, according to Avon and Somerset Police guidelines.
After a break in the footage, the video shows one of the officers apparently pulling Adunbi out of the gate by the arm. Immediately after that scuffle, one of the officers uses her Taser on Adunbi.
Once on his back, Adunbi appears to toss his wallet to the ground beside them, telling the officers to look at his ID as they handcuff him.
"You are under arrest for assault," one of the officers tells him. The charges were later dropped, the BBC reports.
"The way I fell, on the back of my head, I was just paralyzed," Adunbi later told the British broadcast network ITV. "I thought that was it. I thought they were taking my life."
He says his fear stemmed partly from a similar confrontation with police. In 2009, "he won a wrongful arrest case against Avon and Somerset Police and was awarded compensation," according to the BBC.
Since then, Adunbi has been a volunteer with the Bristol IAG, one of several groups that serve "a vital role in helping us build trust, confidence and better relationships, especially with our diverse communities," according to the Avon and Somerset police.
"It's a little distasteful in my mouth," Adunbi told The Guardian. "To know that one of the founder members of the independent advisory group, which was created some years ago in order to improve the relationship between the Afro-Caribbean community and the constabulary, and to be treated like this, it's difficult."
Chief Superintendent Jon Reilly, Bristol area commander for the Avon and Somerset police, says the force voluntarily referred the complaint about Saturday's incident to the watchdog IPCC. He said he would like to answer further questions but could not, given the ongoing investigation.
According to ITV, he added:
"I want to reassure the community the whole incident was captured on body-worn camera. Both officers were wearing it. "And we're determined to understand what happened. That's why we've referred it, voluntarily, to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for them to assess whether an independent review is necessary. "We work really hard to work positively with all communities and I can see no reason why that should change."
The IPCC has asked members of the Bristol community to come forward if they have any further information. The group said it has not yet spoken to the two officers involved.by BRIAN NADIG
An ice rink has been on the wish list of the Jefferson Park Advisory Council for 2 years, but this winter Mother Nature provided one at no charge.
Residents reported at the council’s March 12 meeting that on Feb. 23 an influx of cold air froze the snow that had been melting over the two baseball diamonds in the southwest corner of the park and that a smooth icy surface formed. Until the ice began to melt a few days later, as many as 10 people could be seen skating there, resident Magda Stojko said.
Scenes like that were common at city parks until about 40 years ago, when concern about damage caused by skating rinks which park staff or residents created by flooding a portion of a park ended the practice. Outdoor rinks are now operated by a professional company that can cost $50,000 or more, according to council members.
Council president Lionel Rabb said that the council has not given up hope that funds will be available for an ice rink next winter. The council is seeking the opinions of residents on whether they want an outdoor rink as part of a 5-year vision plan that the council is creating for the park.
The proposed improvement plan includes plans for an expanded playlot, a band shell, a concession stand, a dog run, a picnic area and new tennis courts. An online survey on the proposal is available at www.jmpac.org.
Rabb said that about 100 people have completed the survey and that the council will tabulate the results and provide them to the Chicago Park District in April. He said that if the council can demonstrate community support for the proposal, the district would adopt it as its "framework plan" for improving the park.
The council is planning to raise $3 million to $5 million to implement the plan. In the past year the council has hired a staff member, purchased movie projection equipment for the park and sponsored community picnics and concerts, and this summer it will lease two 25-foot-tall water slides.
Also at the meeting, the council approved a resolution to explore a partnership with the organizers of the "Figment" festival. "They are looking for a new home, and they really like this park," council member Cyd Smillie said. "It is just a creativity festival. They don’t charge for anything."
Last year the festival was held in August at the Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave., but a scheduling conflict at that park has forced organizers to seek a new location, Smillie said.
The festival, which has no entrance fee, features a variety of art forms, Smillie said. The festival, which organizers describe as family-friendly, was founded in New York in 2007 and takes place in several cities.
The council also plans to meet with representatives of the Roberts Square Playlot Park Advisory Council and the Thuis Playlot Park Advisory Council to discuss the possibility of the councils holding their meetings at the same time. All three parks fall under the supervision of Jefferson Park supervisor Andrea Woppel.
Rabb said that having the same meeting time would make it easier for Woppel and would allow the councils to share ideas and resources but that several issues would have to be worked out. He said that each council may need a designated time slot on the meeting day so that votes can be taken.
The Thuis council is in the process of forming and filing its paperwork with the park district. The 1/3-acre park at 4759 N. Lavergne Ave. has a playlot with a soft surface and a sandbox.
The Roberts Square council, which was formed several years ago over concerns about vandalism and maintenance, has sponsored community events at the 3.5-acre-park, 5200 W. Argyle Ave. The council has campaigned for new play equipment in the park and recently sought the opinions of residents on playlot design.
The Jefferson Park council meets at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of every other month at the park fieldhouse, 4822 N. Long Ave.
Photos provided by Magda StojkoA woman's body was found with a gunshot wound along Interstate 80 near the Farad exit in Nevada County. Secret Witness is offering a $2,500 reward for information on suspects involved. (Photo: RGJ file)
Secret Witness is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of any suspect involved in the homicide of a 47-year-old Reno woman found on Interstate 80.
On Monday, a tow truck driver found a woman’s body near the underpass at the Farad exit on I-80, according to Secret Witness.
Nevada County investigators identified the woman as Felicia Romaine Spruwell-Jones, authorities said in a news release.
Investigators said they believe the woman died of a gunshot wound less than 12 hours from the time she was found. It was unclear whether the shooting occurred in Nevada or California.
Authorities were still investigating.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Nevada County Sheriff’s Department at 530-265-1263, or Secret Witness at 775-322-4900, online at www.secretwitness.com or text the tip to 847411 (TIP 411) with the keyword “SW.”
Check with RGJ for more information as it becomes available.
Marcella Corona covers breaking news for the Reno Gazette-Journal. Contact her at 775-788-6340, email her at mcorona@rgj.com or follow her on Twitter at @Marcella_Anahi or on Facebook at Facebook.com/Marcella.Anahi
Read or Share this story: http://on.rgj.com/1RYDUbWWhile there has been a see-saw regarding the confirmation of whether diesel prices will go further north or not, Veerappa Moily, Oil Minister has confirmed that prices for the sticky fuel will be hiked by 40-50 paise/litre every month. This will continue till oil marketing companies wipe off their losses. It is said that diesel is currently being retailed at approximately a loss of Rs 11/litre.
On January 17, the Indian government had asked state-owned oil firms to levy a price hike on diesel till the time they cover their losses. This deregulation resulted in the companies hiking diesel prices by 45 paise. In addition to this, bulk customers like public transport undertakings, defence and railways are being made to pay almost Rs 10 more per litre than what is the retail price. Moily says that he has heard of several state governments asking their fleets to refuel at regular petrol pumps instead of the designated oil supplying firm to avoid the price hike. In his opinion, instead of asking them to find another way of avoiding taxes, the state government should reduce the VAT or local taxes so that diesel prices automatically drop. He however said that they wouldn't be allowed to get an upper hand and the matter is being investigated.We really had our last hurrah with Kitkat on 4.4, and that too did not have all the features of AOKP on 4.3 (Which ofcourse was the peak of our Kangy Awesomeness).
We did pretend to be trying to make Lollipop (first with 5.0 and then with 5.1) releases, and as our team member akellar says – “We pretended to be a ROM team” a couple of times, but for the whole of 2015, the best thing we did really manage was pull off a April Fools prank on Xiaomi and all the tech blogs ;)
But with Marshmallow, there probably is, after a looooooong time, a real real chance of AOKP releases coming out. I would like to thank some new folks like stelix, zeeshan and akhil.narang who have worked hard to revive AOKP in form of MarshMallowKang.
Now they are part of the team – forming the latest new fold of Team Kang, and all the MarshMallowKang effort has been pushed up into our official github and gerrit
The source right now is pretty up-to-date, in line with AOSP 6.0.1_r13. It builds for quite a few devices like bullhead, mako, hammerhead, falcon and oneplus2
With a few minor changes here and there bacon, find7, sprout, condor and a few more devices should build too. We are adding more devices (yeah I am gonna get those Xperias up) over the next few days.
YES WE HAVE ROM CONTROL TOO! Again thanks to stelix for having relentlessly working on it. We are right now based on CM-13, and almost all of the features are CM’s only. There are a dozen or so features ported from other ROMs and a forward ported original AOKP features from our older versions too.
I won’t make tall promises, but with MarshMallow, we have a real chance of kickstarting the rainbow-farts spewing unicorn machine again. Let’s see where the next few days takes us and hopefully we’ll be able to come out with proper official builds soon enough.
The oldies like marclandis and bmc08gt have been pulling a few punches too, and the experts tdm and roman have been in the thick of things as well. Here’s hoping more of the original Team Kang – like zaphod and stevespear come out of retirement ;) and code some more awesomesauce like Ribbons and Navrings and Swagger Toggles.
Building at home repo init -u https://github.com/AOKP/platform_manifest -b mm repo sync. build/envsetup.sh lunch aokp_hammerhead-userdebug mka rainbowfarts
Donations
I want to give a loud shoutout to the few people who have donated money to AOKP account in the past year. It was really touching to see people trying to support the project even though we were not actively developing. The amount of money we received was not big (it was less than what $$$ we drowned into maintenance cost of keeping our servers live), the love meant a lot to us.
If any good souls want to donate, we would graciously accept. Rest assured we won’t be buying yachts – we all have one each – but it’ll go towards reacquiring a build server if any.
Cheers and keep kanging :)Bureaucrats love secrets. If they are given unchecked power to create secrets, they will find the temptation to use this power irresistible. They will use it to cover justified cases, for example, to preserve diplomatic and military secrets that are important for national security, or to protect the privacy of individual citizens (the information contained on tax returns, for instance). But at the same time bureaucrats use secrecy to obscure from public sight anything that might embarrass them or reduce their political power and influence, for instance, innocent mistakes, evidence of incompetence, evidence that the policies they have made or implemented do not work or have unforeseen negative consequences, corruption, or even evidence of criminal conspiracies and dealings.
Democratic deliberation rests on the premise that ideas, once exposed to the public—unfolded, challenged, tested, and disputed—will stand or fall on their own merit. The bureaucratic drive for secrecy rests, in many cases, on a need to keep information out of the hands of individuals who could use it to harm the bureaucracy. The bureaucrat will invariably say that an enemy could use the information to harm the country, but more often than not the real concern originates with the bureaucrat personally or the office where he or she works.
The bureaucrat may fear that the exposure of a mistake will damage his chances for promotion or undermine the prestige and influence of the bureaucratic institution where he works, making it vulnerable to bureaucratic rivals. To the extent this is the case, secrecy produces a government that is more poorly informed, dull-witted, and more corrupt than would be the case if the power of classifying secrets were stripped away. This is because information stamped “secret” cannot be tested and challenged in the forum of democratic debate; it goes unquestioned and tends to be accepted as truth. If the secret is nonsense, it will likely be revealed as such once exposed.
Bureaucrats quickly learned that affixing a “secret” stamp to their claims insulates them from critical review, and compartmentalizing the secret—further restricting who has access to it—helps even more.
This enables the authors of decisions based on erroneous but “secret” information and analyses to quickly climb through the ranks. They will argue that their mistakes cannot be disclosed because that would reveal even more secrets. Robbed of critical perspective, the duller, less efficient, more corrupt members of the bureaucracy steadily climb to the top of the bureaucratic pyramid. You could climb to the top by being brilliant and successful, of course. But it is much easier to ascend the bureaucratic peaks by being secretive. Thieves and charlatans naturally thrive and prosper in this matrix of secrecy.
One example of the validity of this thesis about the degenerative effects of secrecy on bureaucratic institutions involves the aptly named Dusty Foggo, who concluded a twenty-four-year career in the CIA as executive director.
Foggo had played an important role in ensuring that personnel involved in rendition cases that went awry never faced meaningful discipline and, to the contrary, were advanced ahead of their peers.
(Among them was Alfreda Frances Bitkowsky, the “Queen of Torture” described here in The Intercept by Glenn Greenwald and Peter Maass.)
Foggo was until recently an inmate at a federal correctional facility in Pine Knot, Kentucky, after being charged with fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering in relation to his dealings with defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and accepting a guilty plea on one of thirty counts. Foggo was a protégé of CIA director Porter Goss, a CIA agent turned Republican congressman appointed by George W. Bush to replace George Tenet. He had vaulted from a midlevel management position to the number three slot at the agency, where he wielded immense power over personnel and logistics. Among his signal accomplishments was the construction of a system of secret prisons used in extraordinary renditions, which were quickly scrapped after the CIA took stock of the track record of the program in 2006.
Ultimately Foggo was not tripped up by his wrongdoing in the clandestine service, expansive though that may have been, because it was effectively shielded by state secrecy. His problems were exposed in the routine Washington world of pork belly contracting, where they became fair game for investigative journalists and federal prosecutors. There he learned that bribing political figures by purchasing prostitutes for them, a routine gambit for a company man, might be viewed by a humorless federal prosecutor as a crime.
One of the many jaw-dropping moments in the Foggo prosecution occurred when prosecutors submitted a sentencing memorandum— a document laying out various peripheral considerations for the judge in the course of passing sentence. It revealed that Foggo had a twenty-year career of alcohol abuse, physical violence, philandering, and corruption, including forcing the CIA general counsel’s office to hire Foggo’s mistress. It also showed that as the criminal investigation leading to his conviction began, Foggo had been busily planning to return to his native San Diego to run as a Republican candidate for Congress, with the apparent support of Congressman Duke Cunningham. Cunningham, a powerful Republican on the appropriations and intelligence committees, fell in a related corruption scandal.
How could a rogue like Foggo work his way to the top of the CIA, particularly in view of a long career of boozing, petty corruption, and philandering? Secrecy. Because of the culture of secrecy at the agency and its almost manic efforts to suppress public knowledge of wrongdoing by its operatives, particularly the more senior among them, no one was in a position to challenge Porter Goss when he picked his friend Foggo for the sensitive senior post.
Adapted from Scott Horton’s new book, Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Warfare. Also see The Intercept’s Q&A with Horton.
Photo of Foggo: Denis Poroy/Associated PressSNc Channels:
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Dec-30-2008 16:04 TweetFollow @OregonNews Marijuana Legalization: Retired Seattle Police Chief Says Obama Should Listen to Voters We understand Mr. Obama has a full plate. Our economic crisis and the threat of terrorism are only two examples. However, we know that ending the drug war will offer a partial fix to both of these issues.
Courtesy: NBC
(SEATTLE) - In early December, Barack Obama invited Americans to participate in an unprecedented, bottom-up approach to government. Visitors to the President-elect’s official website, Change.gov, were able to submit questions and vote on which questions should take priority for the new administration. More than a dozen of the top 50 questions called for amending America’s drug policies, with inquiries ranging from availability of doctor-recommended medical marijuana to the economic impact of continuing to arrest and incarcerate millions of people for drug offenses. The number one vote getter was: "Q: Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?" Americans got their answer, sort of. A one-sentence response from the President-elect’s transition team: "A: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana." Speaking as a 34-year cop with six years as police chief of one of America’s largest cities, I know how much money has been squandered in prosecuting the drug war. Obviously, I’m disappointed and confused by this response. His silence on the issue can't be due to fear of political backlash. He and his team must have seen the recent Zogby poll that shows three of four Americans believe the "war on drugs" is a failure. And the Time/CNN poll showing only 19 percent of Americans think we should continue arresting and jailing marijuana users.
We understand Mr. Obama has a full plate. Our economic crisis and the threat of terrorism are only two examples. However, we know that ending the drug war will offer a partial fix to both of these issues. A legal and regulated drug trade would imprison fewer people and generate substantial new revenues. A recently released Harvard study reports we could boost our economy by at least $76.8 billion a year by ending drug prohibition, and that’s a conservative estimate. Legalizing and regulating drugs would help Mr. Obama achieve a greater state of security for Americans. It would effectively “take a bite out of” rampant domestic organized crime, which goes well beyond mere domestic street gangsters. And, given that our drug war enriches the coffers of organizations such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, it would dramatically reduce international crime and terrorism. In Mexico, President Felipe Calderón’s increased police and military pressure on drug traffickers has not slowed the supply or the demand for drugs. In fact, the crackdown has only added to illegal drug markets and spiraling violence. Despite this, Calderon has asked U.S. taxpayers for $1.4 billion to fund his country’s version of our failed policy. Amazingly, we’re handing it over. At the request of President-elect Obama, Americans have initiated discussion about the immediate and far reaching implications of our disastrous drug policy. We respectfully ask Mr. Obama to explain his position to all the people who took the time to participate in this innovative, democratic process. We need to know when this issue truly will be “open for questions.” For more background, visit this Salem-News.com article by Tim King: Marijuana Legalization Tops List of Questions for Obama in Online Poll Norm Stamper, former Chief of Police of Seattle, is an advisory board member of CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com). He is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing. You can email Norm at media@leap.cc. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is an international nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to reduce the multitude of harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition. You can visit LEAP here, leap.cc/cms/index.php
Medical marijuana | Marijuana | Seattle | Legal | Most Commented on
Articles for December 29, 2008 | Articles for December 30, 2008 |Marion Cotillard Says She Cries Whenever She Watches 'Step Brothers' (Which Is Often)
Published Jan 03, 2017
Revered actor Marion Cotillard is always showing up in awards season, but she's clearly not just obsessed with prestige pictures. Considering the fact that she spend 2014 dueting with Nathan Fielder, she's obviously got good taste in comedy. Proving that theory right, she's now spoken out about her love of Step Brothers.The 2008 Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy is a truly special film, and Cotillard agrees. Speaking with W magazine [via Vulture ], she said the endlessly idiotic film moves her every time she sees it. And the number of times she's seen it is now in the double digits."It might sound weird, but I always cry at the end of Step Brothers," she said. "I've seen the movie ten times, and it still touches me at the end, when Will Ferrell sings. You don't expect to cry watching that type of comedy, but I always do."The scene she's referring to, of course, takes place at the motherfucking Catalina wine mixer. You can revisit it below.Veineless joins Team expert before Contenders
After the split of Dignitas a month ago, their free agent players found new homes in varied places. For Ana and Zen aficionado Veineless, home will soon be in Bad Tölz, the German town playing host to Team expert’s gaming house.
Veineless joined the team a few weeks prior to the Contenders EU qualifiers, replacing former support Ruby, and helped Team expert claim their spot in Contenders Group A. Their journey through the qualifiers hit a speedbump in the form of a 1-2 loss against Movistar Riders on the first day, but that map win showed improved upset potential for expert whose previous tournament outing saw them get bullied in PIT.
On the second day of qualification, Team expert had a clean bracket through to the semifinals where they fell 0-2 to Cyclowns. While they have dodged both of those dive titans in Group A, Veineless and company still find themselves alongside eUnited and Bazooka Puppiez.
It is likely to be a hotly contested battle for second place, as eUnited look head and shoulders above the other three teams in the group. Speaking to expert Lucio support Talyz, he felt that his team had a strong chance of leaving the group in second place and spoke of his confidence in the new roster.
If Team expert make it through the Contenders group stage they may face NWA for a fiery head-to-head; currently sat in Group B, NWA are a rebuilt roster whose lineup previously included Veineless in late 2016. After the original NWA split apart, wat7, evokje, and Veineless joined Dignitas to give them a much-needed boost. Any battle after reuniting without Veineless will be an interesting showdown.
Group games begin for Contenders on June 17th.
Delays with renovating the Team expert gaming house left the players unable to move in as scheduled at the end of May, but Talyz reaffirmed their plans to move in together, hopefully at the end of June.
The new roster for Team expert is:SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of people rushed on Tuesday to withdraw money from branches of two small Chinese banks after rumors spread about solv |
sky's The Wine of Solitude is a brilliant coming-of-age novel and the most autobiographical of Némirovsky's works. Many people now know Suite Française, but her other novels shouldn't be overshadowed by it. I particularly loved the scenes set in Finland during the civil war, and the portrait of a loveless relationship between a young girl and her mother. Némirovsky is so honest and she never fluffs a line.
I had some reservations about Pulphead, a collection of essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan (FSG, USA). The David Foster Wallace influence seemed so pronounced, there was the conspicuously dubious taste and a fondness for deranged critical hyperbole – I mean, who would even bother to listen to Guns N' Roses, let alone claim that Axl Rose achieved "the greatest white male rock dance moment of the video age"? But then I thought: hey, what a great category of praise to invent! By then the DFW doubt had retired itself and JJS's prose was working its own hard-to-fathom magic. It has a ramshackle loquacity, a down-home hyper-eloquence and an off-the-wallishness that is almost lapidary. I'm still puzzling my way though the life – Sullivan was born and lives in the American South; as a teen he went through an evangelical Christian phase (beautifully revealed in the opening piece, "Upon this Rock") – and the writing that's resulting from it, but am feeling the way publishers do when they come across a new voice, fully formed and quite distinctive. Assuming a UK edition is forthcoming, might I pitch in with the suggestion that the cover features a William Christenberry photograph?
Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station
Ben Lerner's recent novel Leaving the Atocha Station (Coffee House Press)and Joshua Cody's new memoir [sic] (Bloomsbury) are undoubtedly the kind of books that the former Swedish Academy secretary Horace Engdahl had in mind when he faulted American authors for their insularity and self-involvement. Both books are also hilarious and cracklingly intelligent, fully alive and original in every sentence, and abuzz with the feel of our late-late-modern moment; and one senses that these are the qualities of American literature that actually annoyed Engdahl.
Leaving the Atocha Station is the story of a mentally unstable, substance-dependent young poet brilliantly and excruciatingly wasting a fellowship year in Madrid. [sic] is the story of a moderately depraved young musical prodigy who is suddenly stricken with near-fatal cancer. The former is worth whatever Amazonian contortions are required for a British reader to lay hands on it.
Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
Norman Davies's Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe (Allen Lane) is many rare things, rolled into one. An exercise in salvage and retrieval, recalling from oblivion some of history's losers; an encyclopedia of unremembered Europe, recounting the stories of Europe's failed states, some never having had a chance of survival, others casualties of events or folly; a personal ramble, by a great historian, through some of the continent's lost byways – it's all of these, and a book that any reader interested in modern Europe will be sorry to finish. It's also – though Davies is too civilised and graceful a writer to labour the point – a warning. "Successful statehood," he writes, "is, in fact, a rare blessing." I only wish that this wonderfully exhilarating and melancholy book would be read by our leaders, and borne in mind when they next consider exporting our accidentally successful arrangements by military force to some other country.
Simon Hoggart, A Long Lunch: My Stories and I'm Sticking to Them
The title of the biggest ego in American letters is never anyone's for long, but with her shameless book of essays The Professor and Other Writings (Harper) Terry Castle grabs the crown and hugs it to her. This is the critic as narcissist, literature just the stuff you stand on to get a better look in the mirror. But the techniques and strategies honed by such sumptuous self-love make this Stanford academic murderous when she sets about other great egos – chiefly those of her exes, her mother and Susan Sontag.
Two British memoirs seem reticent by comparison. Simon Hoggart denies that A Long Lunch (John Murray) is an autobiography, but it clearly is, and all the better for being hilarious. Fascinating, the degree to which his time spent reporting Northern Ireland in the 1970s shaped Hoggart's valiant view of life. And Michael Frayn's My Father's Fortune: A Life (Faber) retrieves a complicated suburban childhood in Surrey in the 1940s. Everything about it rings familiar, funny and true.
Alexandra Styron, Reading My Father: A Memoir
I was fascinated by Alexandra Styron's memoir of William Styron, Reading My Father (Scribner): an intimate and unsparing account of what it was like to be the youngest daughter not only of an illustrious novelist – difficult enough in itself, I would have thought – but of a profound depressive, who also seems to have been friends with just about everyone famous in America. Two novels published this year have particularly lingered in my mind: David Lodge's portrait of HG Wells, A Man of Parts (Harvill Secker), succeeded in fusing the best bits of fiction and biography to bring the man and his erotic adventures to life; and Justin Cartwright's Other People's Money (Bloomsbury) created a believable, fictional private bank on the brink of destruction. Finally, Max Hastings once again demonstrated his pre-eminence as a chronicler of the second world war with All Hell Let Loose (Harper), a masterly one-volume account of that epic conflict – a book which the rulers of Europe would do well to read at the end of this melancholy year.
Eric Hobsbawm
Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
Among the 2011 books that came my way I particularly welcomed Owen Jones's Chavs (Verso), a passionate and well-documented denunciation of the upper-class contempt for the proles that has recently become so visible in the British class system. Unaccountably neglected, Göran Therborn's The World: A Beginners Guide (Polity), a survey of the present state, problems and outlook of the globe by a Swedish master sociologist, is one of the rare books that lives up to its title. It is lucid, intelligent about the future and admirably researched. The book I have enjoyed most is Karl Miller's Tretower to Clyro (Quercus), a collection of characteristically pawky essays by one of the great literary editors of our time, combined with a wonderful account of explorations à trois of the Celtic parts of Great Britain.
Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life
Two books this year gave me the almost dreamlike pleasure of finding out things that I'd long wanted to know. Susie Harries's Nikolaus Pevsner (Chatto) may justly be subtitled "The Life": it shows a complete mastery of the many different areas, cultural, political and artistic, in which this complex and essential figure moved and made his mark. The book's very fitting scale and tirelessness are more than matched by its wit, subtlety and human understanding. In Duncan Fallowell's How to Disappear (Ditto) travel and its chance encounters provide the pretext for pursuit of much more marginal figures: in "Who was Alastair Graham?" he explores the post-Oxford life of Evelyn Waugh's Oxford boyfriend in a way that throws light into dim corners of British social history. In "The Curious Case of Bapsy Pavry", an Indian lady who became the Marchioness of Winchester and lived out a long widowhood in a Firbankian fantasy of social aspiration is chased down with a tenderly marvelling mordancy that is a keynote of Fallowell's brilliant and haunting book.
Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger's Child
Alan Hollinghurst's novel The Stranger's Child tracks the cultural, sexual, biographical and social changes that took place in 20th-century Britain. He has a versatile wit and enjoys playing with figures from the past as well as with his readers, teasing them and misleading them until, drawn into the story, they almost become additional characters in it. This is a modern version of the novel EM Forster would have wished to write.
A most ingenious and original solution to the moral and aesthetic problems thrown up by the cult of biographical fiction is given in John Spurling's A Book of Liszts (Seagull Books) – a brilliant set of supple variations encircling the life and career of the great virtuoso Franz Liszt. Those who believe that such speculative and experimental hybrids mark the end of more traditional biography should read Fiona MacCarthy's wonderful The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination (Faber). This is a perfect coming together of biographer and subject.
Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens: A Life
Everyone else will pick Claire Tomalin's superb Charles Dickens, so I won't. But I've read three terrific novels this year, all of them funny, all of them sad. Joe Dunthorne's Wild Abandon (Hamish Hamilton), like Kevin Wilson's The Family Fang (Picador), is about what happens to children when parents become consumed by their beliefs. In Wild Abandon it's communal living that causes all the trouble, in The Family Fang it's performance art; both books are populated by flawed, occasionally exasperating, lovable and, above all, thoroughly imagined characters. James Hynes's Next (Reagan Arthur) is, mystifyingly, still without a publisher in the UK, but don't let that put you off. It's dark, comic, real and, in the end, terrifying, and there are many, many men in their late 40s and 50s who would wince with recognition at Hynes's Kevin Quinn.
Hampton Sides's Hellhound on His Trail (Allen Lane), a gripping account of the hunt for James Earl Ray, reminds us once again that a lot of Americans in the 1960s were living through a nightmare, not through a long, dreamy summer of love.
Teju Cole, Open City
As ever a lot of my reading has been books that haven't been released this year – many titles in the wonderful New York Review Books classics series, whose multicoloured spines now take up a good two feet of bookshelf in my apartment. Teju Cole's Open City (Faber), a Sebaldesque wander through New York, and Hisham Matar's Anatomy of a Disappearance (Viking) both stood out in fiction, as did David Foster Wallace's unfinished The Pale King (Hamish Hamilton). I also enjoyed McKenzie Wark's tour through the legacy of Situationism, The Beach Beneath the Street (Verso), and Manuel DeLanda's attempt at a unified description of everything in Philosophy and Simulation (Continuum). Sonia Faleiro's Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay Dance Bars (Canongate) also did what every good piece of reportage ought to – took me to a place I couldn't have gone by myself.
Hanan Al-Shaykh, One Thousand and One Nights
Hanan Al-Shaykh's vivid "reimagining" of the One Thousand and One Nights (Bloomsbury) is a treat and a trap for story lovers. Like a contemporary Shahrazad, Al-Shaykh has rendered 19 little masterpieces into a wondrously warm, ribald and hilarious concoction, reminding us of how bang up to date these stories can be.
If we might forget how central these tales are to our culture, Marina Warner's wondrous Stranger Magic (Chatto & Windus) is a scholarly excursion around some of the stories, her mind as rich and fascinating as the stories themselves, taking us on a magic carpet from Borges and Goethe, to Edward Said and the movies.
In his magisterial What is Madness? (Hamish Hamilton), Darian Leader explains that the "irrational" delusions and hallucinations of the mad are their attempts at sense: a good story is a good symptom, and can make a life possible. As Virginia Woolf said: "The whole world is a work of art."
Nicola Shulman, Graven with Diamonds
Non-fiction: I loved two very different books of criticism, Nicola Shulman's beautifully lucid study of Thomas Wyatt, Graven with Diamonds (Short Books), and Owen Hatherley's furiously pro-Modernist A Guide to the New Ruins of Britain (Verso). Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow (Allen Lane) seems to me a genuinely important book. Fiction: A four-way tie between Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (Fourth Estate), Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists (Quercus), and Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding (Fourth Estate, January). Guilty pleasure: George RR Martin's fantasy sequence A Song of Fire and Ice. I'm now on volume five, A Dance with Dragons (HarperVoyager), and fear the withdrawal symptoms when it's finished.
Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
Belatedly and deservedly, this was the year of Julian Barnes: winner of the Man Booker and the David Cohen prizes and shortlisted for the Costa – as close as a Leicester City fan will get to doing the triple. Although ideally, for literary posterity, Barnes's mastery of the short form in The Sense of an Ending would have seen a Nadal-Federer showdown in the Booker finals with Alan Hollinghurst's mastery of the long form in The Stranger's Child. In a UK-US prize, they could also have slugged it out with The Marriage Plot (Fourth Estate), with which Jeffrey Eugenides again showed the benefits of taking almost a decade between books. Two great veterans of the suspense form made us glad that there's no gold watch or golden handshake for novelists: PD James with Death Comes to Pemberley (Faber) and Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery (Harvill Secker). David Lodge wrote a fine novel in the form of a literary biography – anatomising HG Wells in A Man of Parts – and Jeanette Winterson an extraordinary tragic-comic literary autobiography: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Jonathan Cape).
Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad revived memories of the days, decades ago, when American fiction seemed so much more vital and innovative than our own. It is unusual in structure, presenting a number of stories, most of them about people in the music business, which seem to be freestanding but prove to have surprising connections with each other, and the style effortlessly hits its targets again and again. Raymond Tallis's Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (Acumen) is a trenchant, lucid and witty attack on the reductive materialism of many scientific accounts of consciousness – not from a religious point of view, but that of an atheist humanist with a distinguished record in medicine and neuroscience. The book that gave me most pleasure, however, was one I bought in 2010 and didn't get round to reading until this year. Philip Larkin's Letters to Monica, edited by Anthony Thwaite (Faber), make a remarkable human document that is, by turns, bad-tempered, self-lacerating, tender, sad and irresistibly funny.
Robert Macfarlane
Philip Connors, Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout
Two books of fire and one of water: Philip Connors's Fire Season (Picador), about his seasons spent as a fire-watcher in the Gila Wilderness; Jocelyn Brooke's cracklingly bizarre The Military Orchid, a memoir-satire-nature-quest about orchids and home-made fireworks, first published in 1948, and just reissued in a beautiful edition by Little Toller Press; and Susie Parr's The Story of Swimming (Dewi Lewis), a superbly illustrated cultural history of bathing – dipping, watering, wild swimming – in Britain. I also greatly admired Matthew Hollis's biography of Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France (Faber), and was fascinated by much of the work gathered in Harriet Tarlo's anthology of experimental landscape poetry, The Ground Aslant (Shearsman).
Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England
Two history books written with flair and dash, both gripping and enjoyable, both filling gaps in the imagination. Thomas Penn's Winter King is a lively and alarming study of the strange and ferocious Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Helen Castor's She-Wolves (Faber) is subtitled The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth, and includes a fascinating study of Margaret of Anjou, who rages through Shakespeare's history plays, dauntless and ferociously energetic, battling on behalf of her fragile husband Henry VI. Penn shows us how an instinctive Machiavellian with a feeble claim to kingship transformed himself into a despot and founded a dynasty. Castor shows how her heroines fought and flourished, despite the affront to the moral order represented by women on the battlefield and women on the throne.
Aravind Adiga, Last Man in Tower
In 15th-century Benares, the iconoclastic Indian poet Kabi inadvertently began one of the world's oldest literary collaborative projects. The poems attributed to him have been enriched by the renderings of Ezra Pound and Czesław Miłosz as well as those of Rajasthan's bard singers. A stylishly contemporary contribution to this work-in-progress is Songs of Kabir, the translations by the poet and essayist Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (NYRB Classics). Yu Hua's China in Ten Words (Pantheon) offers something very rare: a boldly ironic, even caustic, perspective on Chinese society by a literary novelist still resident in China and privy to its innermost everyday tensions. Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo (Verso) stimulatingly uncovers the contradictions of an ideology that is much too self-righteously invoked. I also enjoyed Aravind Adiga's novel Last Man in Tower (Atlantic) and Gyan Prakash's essay Mumbai Fables (Princeton) – both books set in Mumbai and exceptionally alert to the exuberance and malignity of the city's gangsterish capitalism.
Ta Obreht, Tea Obreht, The Tiger's Wife
I read two books that won prizes in the UK this year, Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife (Phoenix) and Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending, and found them exquisitely written and deeply engaging. Obreht's novel is written so authoritatively if obliquely, one of its themes being what it is to have once been on the right side of history and then find oneself later on the wrong, but the writing, sentence by sentence, is what really impresses. The same is true of The Sense of an Ending, with which in some ways it shares a theme.
Christopher Hitchens, Arguably
In his polemic Reality Hunger (Penguin), David Shields argues for the pleasures of the "lyric essay" – part-autobiographical, part-narrative, part-intellectual inquiry. Three collections of essays this year help his case. First, Caryl Phillips's Colour Me English (Harvill Secker), which reflects on race, migration, Islamophobia and (in one scary essay) mountaineering, with telling passages on his upbringing in Leeds in the 1960s and arrival in New York round 9/11. Second, Tretower to Clyro, in which Karl Miller celebrates country themes (from lambs to foxes) and country writers (from John McGahern to Ted Hughes); there's the bonus of a long preface by Andrew O'Hagan, describing journeys to the Celtic fringes that he and Miller took with Seamus Heaney. Third, Arguably by Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic), a selection from one of the great polemical journalists of our age and the ideal complement to his memoir of last year Hitch 22 (Atlantic).
The most chilling full-length work of non-fiction I read this year was Richard Lloyd Parry's People Who Eat Darkness, about the murder of Lucie Blackman in Tokyo.
Ali Smith, There But For The
By far the best novel I read this year – and I read the entire Booker longlist out of increasingly perplexed curiosity – was Ali Smith's There but for the. It's smart, warm, experimental, and surprisingly moving; I'm dismayed it hasn't received more recognition. Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, on the other hand, has taken numerous awards, but deserves every one. It's the first book in a long time that made me jealous. And for adults, for teenagers, for anyone at all, Mal Peet's Life: An Exploded Diagram (Walker Books) must be sought out. Concerning the pursuit of virginity loss in 1960s Norfolk against the background of the Cuban missile crisis, it's fresh, vital and with an ending that still stuns, 11 months after I read it.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad managed to be both inventive and hugely entertaining, and I also enjoyed Edward St Aubyn's At Last, the final instalment of the consistently excellent Patrick Melrose series. Read them all, now. Stewart Lee's How I Escaped My Certain Fate (Faber) restored at least a little of my faith in stand-up comedy, and two current reads are late additions to the list of favourites; Claire Tomalin's admirably brisk and entertaining Dickens biography and Craig Taylor's Londoners (Granta)an epic portrait in eighty voices that shows the city to be just as … well … Dickensian as it has ever been.
Jamil Ahmad, The Wandering Falcon
The most memorable fiction I read this year was Jamil Ahmad's The Wandering Falcon (Hamish Hamilton), a series of loosely connected stories set on the frontiers of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The author was nearly 80 before his book was published, having spent his working life among the tribes of Balochistan, whose stories he obviously absorbed over the years. In this captivating book you can feel them blow off the page like dry desert air.
Matthew White, Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements
Roy F Baumeister and John Tierney, Willpower (Allen Lane). The counterculture was wrong: your problem is not that you're uptight and repressed and should let it all hang out, but that you're profligate and impulsive and need to bulk up your self-control. Baumeister's ingenious experiments, enlivened with Tierney's vignettes from history and technology, show you how. Joshua S Goldstein, Winning the War on War (Dutton); John Mueller, War and Ideas (Routledge); Andrew Mack, Human Security Report 2009/2010 (OUP USA). Believe it or not, war is going out of style, according to these updates from some of the sources I used in my own recent book. Matthew White, Atrocitology (Canongate). A serious book, written with a light touch, on the hundred worst things humans have done to each other (that we know of). Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works (Columbia). Gandhi was right, not just morally but empirically: nonviolent resistance is three times more effective than violence.
Craig Raine
Alice Oswald, Memorial
In Alice Oswald's Homer (Memorial, Faber), the nameless are named. Oswald has excised the main Homeric narrative – Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Helen, Paris. True, Hector gets a mention, but only to say that he, too, died like the little people, the bit-players who bite the dust. Homer's brief lives: "Euphorbus died / Leaving his silver hairclip on the battlefield." Oswald shares with Christopher Logue fearless anachronism – Oswald's Hector, "Like a man rushing in leaving his motorbike running" – but Memorial, though good, isn't a patch on Logue's Homer. A better editor would have dissuaded her from monotonously repeating her epic similes. Towards the end, there are 10 unrepeated similes. So the final, 11th simile, which closes the poem, is the more forceful for being repeated – like a closing, extended chord. And it is brilliant in its own right: a shooting star as a "whip of stars". Memorial has 15 or so perfect touches that show Oswald to be a considerable poet: for example "flower-lit cliffs", "the darkness hit him with a dull clang", the sea "just lifted and flattened lifted and flattened", "fire with its loose hair flying rushes through a city".
Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table
It's impossible to explain through any discussion of plot and character the hypnotic brilliance of Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table (Jonathan Cape). The joy of boyhood and the darkness at its edges are conveyed in scenes of extraordinary imagination – boys lashed to a deck in a storm, a dog biting down on the throat of a man, a girl skating across the deck of a ship in the early morning, a prisoner in chains walking its length at night. It is entirely … well, Ondaatje-esque.
Yiyun Li, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
Among the best collections of short stories I've read this year is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Pocket Books), where the form is used to explore character in a way I haven't seen done before, examining the heroine from story to story via different viewpoints and time perspectives. Yiyun Li's Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (Fourth Estate) tells sad, graceful stories of love and savage loneliness, beginning with the haunting almost-novella-length "Kindness". The title story of Margaret Drabble's A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman (Penguin Classic) is worth the cover price alone. After several novels Sarah Hall has this year published The Beautiful Indifference (Faber), seven skilfully adrenalised stories, precise and sensual, in which the scent of violence is a constant. And from half a century ago comes Vasily Grossman's The Road (Quercus), whose title story can be read as a 4,000-word distillation of his epic novel Life and Fate (Vintage), written the year following the confiscation of that novel's typescript by the Soviet authorities.
I'm delighted to see Selma Dabbagh's book Out of It published (Bloomsbury). Driven, fast-paced, edgy, this is Dabbagh's first novel – although she's written excellent short stories. A narrative of Gaza, it brings a very welcome new voice and a new consciousness to the Palestinian story.
Amjad Naser's Haythu la Tasqut al-Amtar, or Where the Rain doesn't Fall (Dar al-Adab, Beirut), is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Naser is an inspired poet and this work takes the precision and economy of his language into prose narrative for the first time. Gentle, sad, hopeful – a poet writing prose at his mature best. Watch out for the English translation. I'm reading Chris Harman's A People's History of the World (Verso). It's really helpful to zoom out from time to time when you're living massive events at very close quarters.
For bilingual readers I cannot end without mentioning Tamim al-Barghouti and Amin Haddad's poems born of the Egyptian revolution – even though they are as yet uncollected. These were the poems that were read and sung in Tahrir Square and the other public spaces of Egypt. They still keep us going.
Colm Tóibín
Joan Didion, Blue Nights
Three books by literary stylists which dealt with grief and loss raised fascinating questions about style and tone and storytelling under fierce pressure. I found all three books affecting and disturbing. One was Joan Didion's Blue Nights (Fourth Estate), which is even more raw and filled with loss than her previous memoir; the second is Francisco Goldman's Say Her Name (Grove Press), a masterpiece of storytelling and scene-setting; the third is Gjertrud Schnackenberg's Heavenly Questions (Bloodaxe), poems with her customary eloquence and gravity now filled with shock and hurt, certainly the most beautiful work she has made. In the meantime, Jeffrey Eugenides and Alan Hollinghurst produced two supremely confident novels; their ambiguous versions of destiny and desire in The Marriage Plot and The Stranger's Child made me laugh at certain moments and sit up and shiver at others.
Andrew Miller, Pure
Two historical novels achieve quiet distinction this year: Andrew Miller's Pure (Sceptre) and Barry Unsworth's The Quality of Mercy (Hutchinson). While Miller's prose is poetic and impressionistic, Unsworth's is formal and dense, yet both novels unfold highly dramatic stories in a measured and unfussy way. Pure gives to a young engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, the gruesome task of digging up and carting away the mountains of the dead who lie in the Cemetery of Les Innocents in Paris in 1785, polluting its surrounding air and water. Over Baratte's terrible enterprise lies the shadow of the coming revolution, thus giving to Miller's vivid images of "purification" a fine historical ambiguity. Unsworth's novel, picking up the story of the 18th century slave-ship mutiny told in Sacred Hunger, has Erasmus Kemp, son of the disgraced ship owner, trying to bring the mutineers to trial in England, but finding himself thwarted not only by one slippery fugitive, but also by his own conscience, made suddenly manifest to him by his love for the reforming sister of a liberal lawyer. Both books are notable for their subtle meditations on kindness and compassion.
Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees
Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees (Picador). Take one line, "What will you do with the gift of your left life?" Beautiful and moving poetry for the real world.
Ali Smith, There but for the. What would you do if an uninvited guest locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out? She writes so well, distinctive, a bit crazy, compelling in the way that language should be, with surprises everywhere.
Darian Leader, What Is Madness? Our madness-measure is always changing. This is a thought-provoking book about how we diagnose and differentiate our many kinds of insanities. In spite of the Freud/Lacan obsession with the phallus as a central psychic symbol (oy vey), this is a book posing necessary questions and offering genuine insights.
Leo Hollis, The Stones of London: A History in Twelve Buildings (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). A clever tour through London's long life using her built architecture and the stories found there. From Westminster Abbey through Regent Street and Wembley Stadium to the Gherkin. Absorbing and enjoyable.
• Compiled by Ginny Hooker.
• To order books mentioned, with free UK p&p, call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop
• What have you enjoyed reading in the past 12 months? Send us your recommendations (including details of the publisher) in no more than 150 words, by email to readers.books@guardian.co.uk or write to us at Readers' Books of the Year, Review, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, to arrive no later than Sunday 11 December. We would most like to hear about recent titles. Please include a postal address and telephone number or email address. We will publish a selection of your choices in the paper and on the website – or join the books of the year debate hereA Reuters article quoted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as “raising the specter of a world war” in an interview to a German newspaper. The problem is – he didn’t say any such words.
The leading world news agency reported on an interview that Medvedev gave Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper on the eve of talks on Syria in Munich.
"All sides must be compelled to sit at the negotiating table, instead of unleashing a new world war," the agency quoted the head of the Russian government as saying.
The report referred to a German translation of his words, which is incorrect and implies that Russia is warning that a full-scale war between leading world powers may be ignited from the Syrian conflict.
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The quote comes from the portion of the interview in which Medvedev argued against starting a foreign ground intervention against Syria, saying it would only prolong the armed conflict for years or decades to come.
Medvedev’s actual words, according to the Russian transcript on PM’s website were:
“What is necessary is to use strong measures, including those taken by Russia, by the Americans and even under certain provisions those that the Turks are trying to take, to sit at the negotiating table, instead of unleashing yet another war on Earth. We know all too well the scenarios leading to that.”
The misquotation incident is the second in February involving a senior world official and the Syrian conflict. Earlier, The Financial Times claimed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blamed Russia for the collapse of the Syrian peace talks.
In a letter to the FT viewed by RT, Ban’s office said that the quotes of the secretary general used in the article were “technically correct” but taken out of context and “framed in a way that attributes to him direct language that is incorrect.” In particular, author Sam Jones made it appear that Ban Ki-moon had singled out Russia and the Syrian government in describing the difficulties that the peace process is facing, which he didn’t do.
The office requested that a correction be published to accurately reflect what the Secretary-General actually said.This rush of good feeling, to put it mildly, hasn't yet materialized. ACA tradeoffs: Now they tell us...
President Barack Obama is suffering the worst season of his presidency because people are mad that critical parts of the Affordable Care Act are not working the way they are supposed to work.
The larger longer-term threat to his signature legislative achievement — and to his presidency generally — is different. It is the growing backlash over Obamacare working precisely the way it is supposed to work.
Story Continued Below
The broken HealthCare.gov website, while an excruciating embarrassment, is on the path to repair. If Amazon and the airlines can manage millions of transactions a day over the Web with ease, say experts, the federal government’s class of slow students surely will solve the problem in due course.
( Understanding Obamacare: POLITICO’s guide to the ACA)
But the problem with Obamacare’s stumbling start is that it shined a harsh light on intended consequences — more costs and more government regulation — that were always embedded in the ACA but were deliberately downplayed by Obama and Democrats on the way to passage. Backers hoped the costs of the ACA and its roster of losers would remain obscured after launch in a rush of good feeling about the law’s benefits and its roster of winners.
This rush of good feeling, to put it mildly, hasn’t yet materialized. But some very clear tradeoffs that were always central to Obamacare have been put on sharp display.
*It is, in many respects, a classic social welfare program. Like other social programs, it involves transferring from haves to have-nots. Healthy people are going to have to pay to help sick people get coverage. People who had skimpy coverage before — and in some cases, not-so-skimpy coverage — will have to upgrade to insurance that covers more things, but costs more. And young people will have to pay so older people don’t face sky-high premiums.
( PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about Obamacare website)
*For some people, the policy changes were always going to be highly disruptive. To rebuild the broken individual health insurance market, the part of the market that has always been riddled with holes, the law eventually has to move people with individual coverage into new plans with stronger rules and benefits. Whether it happens now or later, it has to happen — otherwise the new market falls apart.
*There is no subtle way to control costs. To keep the prices of the new plans from rising even higher, a lot of them have narrower networks of doctors and hospitals than the health plans most Americans are used to. And the cheapest Obamacare plans have high deductibles — so people who go for the lowest monthly premiums may find that they’re stuck with higher out-of-pocket expenses.
*The changes will be felt by more than a sliver of the population. You may not be taxed directly to pay for the financing of Obamacare itself, which includes subsidies to help low and middle-income people buy coverage. But health insurers will be, and they’re going to pass their costs on to you. And there’s talk that employers could follow the lead of the Obamacare exchanges and shift to narrower doctor networks in a few years — because they’re running out of other ways to control their own costs.
( PHOTOS: House hearing on Obamacare website)
It is not as if these trade-offs — the kind required by any big social program — were not understood by experts at the time Obamacare was being debated in 2009 and 2010. But they certainly weren’t part of the pitch Obama and the Democrats made to the rest of America — the people who shouldn’t have had to read between the lines to know what was going to happen.
Here’s how Obama pitched the health care bill to a joint session of Congress in September 2009: “It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”
It’s not that Obama tried to make health care reform sound like a completely free lunch. He talked about the need for young and healthy people to buy health insurance, and for most businesses to cover their workers. What he didn’t say, though, was that healthy people might have to pay more to cover sick people — or that people who already had individual health insurance would have to upgrade, even if they liked their skimpy coverage.
Republicans in Congress have been quick to say that they warned of the dangers of the law. But the truth is that they sounded the alarms about so many threats, including dubious assertions about death panels and the slippery slope to a Canadian-style single-payer health care system, that they never put any sustained focus on the |
way of abstracting the complexity in various parts of the semiconductor design, and there can be dozens of models required for complex SoCs. Some are tied to a specific IP block, while others are abstractions of an entire system. There also are models that are meant to be lightweight and very fast, such as those used to model heat in a complex design or those used to determine which architectural approach will improve performance. Models also can be cycle-accurate, meaning they are direct representations of a particular function or even an entire chip.
The problem is that there is a lot going on at 7nm—multiple power domains, physical effects such as leakage and heat, RC delay, a very large number of possible use cases, and variation of all sorts—so not all models work equally well. And perhaps even more confusing, not all models work equally well together.
“The biggest challenges are in advanced circuits on advanced nodes,” said Oliver King, CTO at Moortec. “Accuracy is a relative term there. If you take a model of a device, it may be accurate for some elements. But that same model may not be useful to another person working on a different part of the device.”
There are some fundamental changes at each new node, as well, that substantially weaken the value of certain types of models, while leaving others as relevant as ever. So at 28nm and above, it was enough to model inductance to determine how signals would move through a device. That began to change at 16/14nm, and it completely changed at 10/7nm, where various types of noise—power, thermal, electromagnetic interference—are much bigger concerns.
“You now need to re-validate models,” said Magdy Abadir, vice president of marketing at Helic. “Electromagnetic crosstalk wasn’t even on anyone’s radar at 28nm, but we’re seeing it in finFETs. The problem is that it may or may not go through the substrate. EM waves can move in many mysterious ways. How do you model that?”
There are other issues, too. Models tend to identify what works and what doesn’t, but not all models are updated frequently enough to capture all of those changes. In complex devices, problems may not even show up until devices are in use in the market.
“With advanced nodes there is not a lot of data, so you basically have to make your own data,” said Mike Gianfagna, vice president of marketing at eSilicon. “We see this especially with lower-level models like SPICE models. You take a design, you get the measurement data and you send it off to the fab, and when you get it back the processor is not where the SPICE model said it would be. Then you have discussions about how to fix it, either by creating new models or re-centering the design. This wasn’t a problem at 28nm and above. The 1.0 PDK from the fab was considered the gold standard. Below that, it’s not that easy.”
Fig. 1: Chip thermal model. Source: ANSYS
Different types of models
There are models for almost everything in the design flow, from IP blocks to security to reliability and failure predictability.
“Each type of model has its own strengths,” said Tim Kogel, senior manager of applications engineering at Synopsys. “There are software models, but now power management is being dragged up into software. There also are system-level models, power models, and different models for emulation, which have more functional detail. One challenge everyone is facing is to figure out which models to use and how much to invest in creating those models. Then there is the problem of mixing and matching models.”
In general, models based on the most up-to-date and consistent data fare best. A model is only as good as the data used to create it.
“If a product is constantly changing, it’s difficult to build a model,” said Michael Schuldenfrei, CTO at Optimal+. “If you have high-running, long-term products, the model can’t understand and predict those changes. In the end, there’s no magic bullet to find everything that can possibly go wrong. You can’t run every possible scenario and catch every variable.”
It gets worse as the number of variables increases, too. That includes use cases, interactions with other IP blocks or chips in a system and security flaws. The need to constantly update those models increases, but so does the risk of something going awry.
And it gets worse again as the model sizes increase. “If you’re looking at the entire SoC, that’s where modeling really gets tricky because now it’s interacting with the chip, the package and the board,” said Arvind Vel, director of applications engineering at ANSYS. “It spans three different domains. And then you can add in time. Time-dependent modeling for something like power is very complex.”
At the system level, this can become cumbersome very quickly. To capture an Android phone’s boot up, for example, would require modeling the entire system, which is a gargantuan task.
“Every model comes with its own inherent shortcomings,” Vel said. “The thermal time constants for every system are different. For a phone, you’re typically looking at milliseconds of performance, but it actually takes seconds to reach a steady state.”
Modeling vs. brute force approaches
The result is that models are being used in a variety of ways—and not for everything.
Arm, for example, backs both cycle-accurate and fast models for analyzing how embedded processors work in complex designs. The company’s approach recognizes the pros and cons of both cycle-accurate models, which faithfully reproduce the complete functionality but which are too slow for many system-level tasks, and fast models, which are functionally correct but lack correct bus timing.
“There is always a desire for something faster,” said Bill Neifert, senior director of market development at Arm. “When you deliver something faster, customers want it to be faster again. No one is willing to trade off the functional accuracy of how the instruction set is executed, because without it a device won’t work. But if you’re just writing application software you may want to trade off certain features for speed, and lightweight models are a response to that. You will not be able to come up with an architectural decision or see other lower level activity such as caching or security based on those. So you can accelerate the execution, but not represent what the actual IP will do. To faithfully represent all of the IP behavior, a lightweight model won’t do, and for accurate bus cycles a step up to a cycle-accurate model is required.”
Maintaining accuracy requires diligence, though, and successive refinement. “It’s a continuous integration because you want to see if your initial assumptions hold,” said Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for product management and marketing at Cadence. “Sometimes brute force techniques are a good alternative to abstraction. With emulation, you can run one second or one minute in real time and not have to abstract the data at all. This is particularly useful at hardware boot, where extreme parallelism can be competitive.”
And this is where things also can get really fuzzy. Bart Vanthournout, senior manager for R&D at Synopsys, said companies are regularly asking whether to use a brute force approach with emulation or simulation, or whether to utilize abstractions in models.
“What we’re finding is that we need to train users to know what to model, and more importantly, what not to model,” Vanthournout said. “This is all about speed and fidelity. With fidelity, what features does a model need to provide? And what can you run in emulation, simulation and with an FPGA prototype? Often there is value in combining use cases, if it’s all in RTL or on an FPGA accelerator. And you may accelerate this, for example, by putting the host processor in a simulator and the rest on an emulator. But then what do you do with it?”
There is no single answer that fits all designs. The reality is that additional work is required no matter what route chipmakers take.
“The key is successive refinement,” said Cadence’s Schirrmeister. “It’s continuous integration. You want to see if the initial assumptions hold. But you also need more data and more accurate models within the balance of your assumptions.”
Safety-critical models
A big unknown here is how models will fare in markets such as automotive, where requirements for safety and security depend on accuracy.
“One of the big issues is degradation modeling,” said Roland Jancke, head of the department for design methodology at the Fraunhofer EAS. “This depends on electrical loads, thermal loads and mechanical loads. How do you account for vibration? If you put a PCB into a car, there are only a few ways to verify it. And with external mechanical stress, it might no longer work. In addition, there are critical parts that generate noise. You need to model for cross-coupling in circuits.”
This is something rarely understood outside of the analog world, let alone in the automotive market. But it has crossed over into the digital world at 10/7nm and beyond because of thinner insulation layers, thinner wires, and the same or higher clock frequencies.
“We’re finding companies are struggling with complexity of finFET models now,” said Moortec’s King. “This used to be something analog designers worried about because analog modeling was never very good. The concept of pure analog is long gone at these nodes because many IP vendors are using digital power at 7nm. But because process variation is decoupled, the traditional method of simulating circuits is not holding up. So for the analog portion you still do Monte Carlo models. But for timing, you do a clock tree at one process corner and timing at another.”
That’s very difficult to model, and it’s one of the issues that has cropped up advanced nodes. It also makes it hard for other design team members to utilize those models because they don’t mesh with other models being created for a design.
“It turns into an integration nightmare,” said Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at ArterisIP. “Each model has to be at the right level of abstraction. There are big tradeoffs you have to make between having enough data and stripping away too much data from models, which can make them useless. So there are three things you have to worry about here. One is the speed of the model. The second is the abstraction, which is a reflection of how much data it gives you. And the third is visibility into the model. So the model gives you more visibility than the RTL, but if it’s not at the right speed, visibility and accuracy level, it’s not useful.”
On top of that, it’s becoming harder to tell exactly what is useful because it varies by node, by project and by market. And there are so many new markets cropping up these days that it’s not exactly clear what will become critical factors within these markets because there is little to no data available upon which to base some of these models.
“We’re seeing more and more segments that are new,” said Anush Mohandass, vice president of marketing and business development at NetSpeed Systems. “Think about automotive, hyperscale storage and 5G. These are all emerging segments, and there is little legacy.”
Models based on historical data tend to be more accurate. But historical data doesn’t necessarily work at new nodes with some of the various physical effects that are now first-order problems, either. “Once you have all of the parasitics, you can create better models,” said Helic’s Abadir. “Crosstalk, power, timing and thermal all depend on parasitics and models. But models are developed with assumptions, and some of the assumptions were developed in the 1990s. Those are still being used for some of the models being built today.”
This can cause issues in any design, but it’s particularly problematic in safety-critical markets, where models need to tie into the actual implementation at some level.
“In that case, a cycle-accurate model from an actual implementation is needed,” said Neifert. “There is increased software content too, so virtual models play a larger and larger role here. In many cases, this is a new methodology that is being put in place. With the design cycles associated with automotive in the past, they could take their time and still meet their deadlines, but there was much less software content there. This is the first time we’re seeing SoCs and processing tasks for some automotive functions, and that needs a whole new level of modeling.”
There seems to be a fair amount of agreement on that point, but how that actually is implemented isn’t entirely clear. “We abandoned highly accurate fault simulation years ago because while it worked on designs of several thousand gates, it became unwieldy with millions or hundreds of millions of gates,” said Mark Olen, product marketing manager at Mentor, a Siemens Business. “Models are no longer quite so accurate by definition, and when we run tests we assume they are mostly correct by construction. That’s fine if you drop a cell phone call. It’s not okay if it causes an accident in a car.”
Olen said the Portable Stimulus may help in this regard—particularly a lesser known part of this standard. While most of the focus with PSS has been on re-using stimuli for IP blocks on a simulator, it also includes a way to intelligently solve problems across a wider range for a specification. “As it generates more test cases, it provides a mathematical way to keep track of what’s been done before. It also can adapt, because as it traverses specs it can understand the resources available at any point in time and make changes based on the number of DMAs (direct memory access engines) or interrupts or how much memory is accessible.”
Conclusion
Put this all together and it becomes harder to determine where models work, when and how to use them, and which models work well with each other. Joe Davis, product marketing director at Mentor, said DFM models have consistently been able to deal with more corners and rising complexity. But the big advantage there is that foundries are sharing data much more than in the past. “Good models are not necessarily the hardest part. It’s coming up with a model that design teams can utilize,” Davis said.
In other parts of the design, the data used to create models is much weaker, and this is particularly true at the most advanced process nodes. And to make matters worse, the siloed nature of designs tends to favor creation of models for specific purposes, without regard to how they can be integrated with other models by different groups within the design flow.
In all cases, models need to be seen as useful tools, but ones that also have some flaws. That doesn’t necessarily make them less valuable. Still, the key is understanding those flaws and working around them. As statistician George Box famously wrote in a 1978 book (with co-author William Hunter), “All models are wrong; some models are useful.”
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Competing models vie to show how the brain works, but none is perfect."Sometimes it seemed like there wasn't a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn't want to invade, intervene in, or topple," Donald Trump declared in Philadelphia today. It was one of the better lines in a speech that, as is often the case when Trump talks about foreign policy, zig-zagged erratically between the refreshing and the ridiculous.
On the upside, the candidate decried the human and financial cost of Clinton's record in Iraq and Libya, said America's allies should share the burden of paying for their defense, and promised to "emphasize diplomacy, not destruction." On the downside, he sounded like a typical GOP hawk on Iran, threw in his usual fearful notes about immigration, and called for a massive military buildup, which he promoted not just on defense grounds but as a source of jobs and technological innovation. A great deal of the speech was devoted to pretending that the U.S. military, by far the most heavily funded fighting force in the world, is actually running on a shoestring. Like Hillary Clinton, he denounced the Pentagon sequester's already weakened limits on spending; a Trump presidency, he declared, would begin with him asking Congress to entirely eliminate those restraints. In a fiscal fantasy, he claimed he could "fully offset" these spending hikes while still protecting "hard-earned benefits for Americans" through such measures as collecting unpaid taxes, not replacing every retiring worker, and trimming bureaucratic waste.
Trump also pledged that as president he would immediately "ask my generals to present to me a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy ISIS." This is becoming part of his standard repertoire: He made the same promise at a rally yesterday in Greenville, North Carolina. I've embedded that moment from the Greenville speech here, because it encapsulates both what's welcome and what's frustrating in Trump's foreign-policy vision:
Note how Trump progresses from that pledge to decrying "endless wars," and from there to deriding the competence of Clinton's foreign policy advisors, promising that his "top military experts" will "know how to win," and then circling back to denouncing "this endless war, the war that's been going on forever and draining our country." He echoes the war-weariness of so much of the country, but his alternative is merely a vague promise to win. He suggests—rightly—that Clinton's foreign policy team isn't about to extract us from Washington's endless interventions abroad, but his payoff is just a pledge that his Top Men will be better. He acknowledges a problem that other GOP nominees would never have touched, but he can't enunciate a radically different vision. (At least he didn't praise torture this time.)
As distinctly Trumpian as that moment was, it also sparks memories of several politicians of the past. The let's-get-our-best-experts-together-and-ask-them-what-to-do rhetoric was a mainstay for Ross Perot, a man often cited as a precursor to Trump (though Perot was much more of a deficit hawk and also more of a foreign-policy dove). And Trump's gather-the-generals, get-a-plan, win-and-get-out thoughts on ISIS are almost identical to George Wallace's rhetoric about Vietnam. "So I would go to the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Wallace would say, "and I would ask them, 'Can we win this war with conventional weapons?' And if they said yes, I would make full use of the country's conventional weapons to quickly end this war and bring our boys home."
I blogged about the parallels between Trump and Wallace's foreign policies last week, but Trump's remarks yesterday sounded so Wallace-like that I just have to underline the point today. Watch that video of Trump above, and then watch this Wallace ad from 1968:
Trump's foreign policy may not be entirely coherent, but it belongs to a coherent tradition.Base is a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic unicorn from a blind bag.The miniature was remodelled using Grey Stuff and was painted with acrylic paint and dabbed here and there with gloss varnish to get a wet look.Coin on display in the upper insert is an American penny shown for the size comparison.This one has been on my mind for quite a while, but I have lacked time and inspiration to get it done.Especially the wings caused me quite a head ache, but in the end (thanks to quite some cutting and trimming) they took approximately the shape I wanted.The head were the least of my worries and once I got the suckers on the trio of tentacles that is the tail, it went smooth.The green markings on the head were inspired by my sons Cthulhu plushie (he got it the day he was born. He still loves it)If you like this one, go check out the rest of my ponies. Who knows. Perhaps you'll find something you really like (and please take a look at the For Sale gallery or contact me for a custom pony).And as always feel free to leave questions, comments, praise, criticism and bacon below.******************************************My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ©HasbroCthulhu may or may not be ©... but I am not sure to whom (aside from the legacy of HP Lovecraft)Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: SkipDog!, an online Japanese pet store that specializes in puppies and Chihuahuas, is offering dog outfits for cosplay and events. Specifically, it offers "Mobile Suit Pundam" and "Epangelion" knitted hats inspired by the Mobile Suit Gundam and Evangelion anime series. They include hats for the original Pundam, MP-06 Zapu, MSP-006 Zeta Pundam, PX-178 Pundam Mk-II, PX-78 NT-1 Pundam Alepx, PS-18E Punpfer, Paro (pictured at right), PX-77 Puncannon, PX-75 Puntank, MP-07 Goup, MP-09 Dop, and PX-93 Nu Pundam (with a Pin Funnel shirt).
Beyond "Pundam," the store offers knitted hats based on the Epangelion Unit 1 and the third Angel, Puchiel, as well as knitted hats, caps, and backpacks inspired by bees, bears, and pigs.
Thank you to Eileen Hu for the news tip.Syracuse, N.Y. — Andrew White is taking his decision down to the final days.
White, a 6-foot-7 graduate transfer from Nebraska, has narrowed his list of schools to Syracuse and Virginia Commonwealth. White had previously visited both Michigan State and Miami, but has since eliminated both schools.
Syracuse was the first school that White visited. The Orange remains in the hunt for White along with VCU, which is located in his hometown of Richmond, Va.
A decision is expected soon. VCU's fall semester begins on Thursday, while Syracuse's first day of classes is Monday.
White would have a major impact at either school. He averaged 16.6 points per game at Nebraska last season. He also made 41 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Syracuse lost three starters off a team that advanced to the 2016 NCAA Final Four. Gone are 6-7 point guard Michael Gbinije, shooting guard Trevor Cooney and 6-7 small forward Malachi Richardson. All three were perimeter players. They were also Syracuse's top three scorers and they also were the top three in terms of 3-pointers attempted.
White would help ease the pain of those departures.
Currently, White would be the only natural small forward on SU's roster. Tyus Battle, a 6-foot-6 freshman, is expected to see most of his time at the shooting guard position. Tyler Lydon's future is at small forward, but the 6-9 sophomore has not played the position before. He spent most of his time at power forward and center last season. Matthew Moyer, a 6-8 freshman, was a four in high school and will need time to develop his perimeter skills.
But VCU is a legitimate option for White, too.
First of all, if White picked VCU he would be able to spend his final year of college playing in front of family and friends. White played his first two years at Kansas before transferring to Nebraska where he sat out one year and then played last season. Going to VCU would be a nice homecoming.
VCU is also a very good program. The Rams went 25-11 last season and went to the NCAA tournament for the sixth straight year. VCU was bounced out of the tournament with a second-round loss to Oklahoma.
However, VCU hasn't made it past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since its surprising Final Four run in 2011. Syracuse has been to the Final Four twice in the last four years and also had an Elite 8 appearance in 2012.
VCU lost two key starters off last year's team in 6-3 guard Melvin Johnson (17.4 points per game) and 6-3 guard Korey Billbury (11.2 ppg).
The Rams return starters Mo Alie-Cox, a 6-7, 250-pound forward/center; and 6-1 senior guard JeQuan Lewis.
Three other returning players were part-time starters last year. Justin Tillmon, a 6-7 forward, averaged 7.2 points off the bench. He did start four games, but his playing time increased late in the year. He made 60 percent of his field goal attempts.
If VCU coach Will Wade puts Alie-Cox at center, he could go small with Tillmon at power forward.
That would leave White battling with 6-5 freshman De'Riante Jenkins, 6-5 senior Jordan Burgess, 6-4 redshirt freshman Samir Doughty, and two other incoming freshmen in Marquell Fraser and Malik Crowfield for time at the shooting guard and small forward positions.
Burgess started 14 games last season, averaging 4.9 points per game. Jenkins is VCU's prized recruit and a likely starter.
Jenkins was the No. 36 recruit in the 2016 class, according to 247sports.com. He led Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy to a stunning 47-1 record last year.
Doughty, a highly-touted recruit from Philadelphia, sat out last year as a partial qualifier, but he's expected to vie for playing time in 2016-17.SEAL Slams Singer
Former Navy Seal Carl Higbie dared pop singer Katy Perry to hold a concert in Syria, if she believes Americans can just “hug it out” with Muslim terrorists.
Appearing on Fox News, Higbie responded to Perry’s public claim that “open borders” and “love” will protect Americans from terrorism. Celebrities who excuse terrorists intentionally misunderstand the situation he said:
“We don’t have people who respect the culture of the United States of America. You have people like Katy Perry, for instance. I mean, this woman has said ‘oh we need to give them hugs, hug it out. Go to hell Katy Perry. “Hold one of your concerts in Syria and see how it goes.” “These people fundamentally don’t understand what’s going on here. “They don’t understand any of this - and they don’t want to understand, too. And that’s why I’m so strong against these celebrities who speak out, saying ‘Oh, we can fight this through love, it’s not really violent, they don’t really mean it.’”
This type of political correctness endangers the lives of American citizens, Higbie warned:This Election Day, Austin voters will decide on the largest single bond proposal in the city’s history. A little more than half of the $1 billion bond package would go towards a light rail line, the other half for road improvements.
Supporters say the package provides a solution to Austin’s traffic, but some wonder if building out more mass transit and expanding roads is really going to make a dent.
If you believe some folks pushing for Proposition 1, the proposed new light rail line could help.
“It's just going to have a huge impact on the overall traffic we have in this community,” says Greg Hartman, President of academic medicine, research and external affairs for Seton Healthcare Family. He's also the treasurer for the Let's Go Austin Political Action Committee. They're supporting Prop 1 with a catchy slogan you might have seen around town: "Traffic Bites. Bite Back".
“You can argue about this route or that route,” he says. “The ultimate thing, though, is we've got to get something started here to begin taking cars off the road, which is what this route does.”
Selling mass transit as a way to ease traffic congestion is nothing new, but is it accurate? Does putting in a light rail line actually do anything to ease traffic? Opponents of the project, like Jace Deloney say, ultimately, it doesn't.
"We are never going to solve congestion,” Deloney says. “Congestion is a symptom of a successful city."
Deloney is a local transit advocate and board member on Austin's Urban Transportation Commission. He opposes the plan, he says, because it's too costly and poorly planned.
“If you look at any city across the world, you have congestion. This rail proposal won't solve the situation on I-35 like it's being pitched,” Deloney says. "And I think it's dishonest to say that it will."
While both Hartman and Deloney’s arguments seem intractable, it turns out there's a consensus on this issue. Because there are case studies demonstrating whether transit projects like Proposition 1 have an impact on congestion. Jeff Wood is with Overhead Wire, a San Francisco-based consulting firm. He says these sorts of projects, despite being billed as traffic-busters, actually create congestion.
“When the road gets emptied out by other modes or carpooling or anything like that, it tends to fill up with other drivers,” Wood says.
The phenomenon is called induced demand.
“Basically, the road fills up with car drivers because the road becomes less empty,” he says. “You see this in cities all over the county, where we reduce the number of people that are driving, but then the drivers fill up that space again."
If you don't believe an out-of-town transit expert like Wood, maybe you’ll believe the guy in charge of coming up with Austin’s rail proposal.
"Can we solve the congestion problem?” asks Kyle Keahey, project lead for Project Connect. “That is something that quite honestly never gets solved."
Keahey says the project isn’t a fix, but that the project seeks to create alternatives to drivers being stuck in their cars on congested roadways.
Right now, Austin is the fourth most congested city in the country, between New York and San Francisco — both places that, like Austin, are highly desirable locations.
They also have more robust transit systems that many in Austin envy — more alternatives if you don't want to sit in traffic and opt to take mass transit instead. But, still, there’s plenty of congestion in both of those cities. So, if light rail and road expansions won't solve the problem of traffic, what will?
One option is an economic downturn. Detroit, for instance, isn't seeing much traffic these days. But, obviously, Austin doesn't want to go down that road. So what else could the city do?
Wood says one option is called congestion pricing, which basically charges drivers to use roads when they're busiest. He says congestion pricing would discourage some commuters on I-35 from traversing their well-worn routes.
“You switch the designation of I-35 to SH-130, and then you congestion price into the center of the city, or through traffic on I-35, and you might actually see an appreciable result in terms of reduced congestion,” Wood says.
Charging people just for the privilege of driving into the city is an idea that's had success in major cities like London. It would face an uphill battle in a place like Austin, of course. And it could well be unconstitutional.
“You’re paying for it either way. You're going to lose time in your car, which as the Texas Transportation Institute says costs billions of dollars a year,” he says. “Or you're going to pay for the road to be open."F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone says drivers "shouldn't have someone on the pit wall telling them what to do"
Formula 1 bosses have backtracked on a ban on teams giving drivers advice over the radio.
Governing body the FIA has responded to teams' concerns that the ban would have cost and reliability implications.
Messages about the operations of an F1 car's complex systems will be allowed for the rest of the season.
But teams will still be forbidden from giving driving advice, such as how to improve cornering technique, via radio. The full ban will now start in 2015.
On Thursday, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone had said he was behind the ban, saying he felt drivers were being helped too much.
But his claims that all the drivers were supportive of the idea were undermined when some, including Williams's Felipe Massa, expressed vociferous opposition.
And the teams argued to race director Charlie Whiting that the proposed ban could lead to reliability and even safety problems.
The FIA has provided to BBC Sport the list of radio messages that are permitted and banned.
Among those still banned are: Cornering speeds compared to another driver, driving lines and use of kerbs Gear selection compared to another driver Braking points and anything to do with the application of the brakes and throttle Car set-up parameters Use of the DRS overtaking aid Anything to do with driving technique
The FIA's note clarifying the ruling with the teams said: "It seems to us that information being passed to the driver concerning the performance of his car should be separated from information concerning his own performance.
"It has become clear that the former is a very complex matter and that any list of restrictions imposed at short notice will have a significantly different effect from team-to-team. The latter information on the other hand can be considered simple driver coaching.
"With this in mind we propose to postpone enforcement of the information being passed to driver concerning the performance of his car until 2015.
"We believe this will give sufficient time for teams to prepare properly and, more importantly, to ensure that the regulations are being enforced fairly and equitably.
"On the other hand, information being passed to the driver concerning his own performance will be stopped with immediate effect."
Whiting said the ban on radio messages had not been intended as a precursor to banning all telemetry, as Ecclestone had suggested on Thursday.
"That hasn't been discussed at all," Whiting said.
He added that he expected any punishment for transgressing to be "sporting rather than financial" and while pointing out that the stewards decided penalties, he gave examples of a drop of a grid position if the offence was in practice or a five-second penalty if in the race.Houston, we have a problem.
A giant African land snail has been spotted in a Houston garden, and residents are being warned to stay away from it—and to watch out for others.
Texas station KPRC reports that the slow-moving menaces are sometimes carriers of a life-threatening meningitis. It "can cause a lot of harm to humans and sometimes even death," Autumn Smith-Herron, director of the Institute for the Study of Invasive Species at Sam Houston State University, told the NBC affiliate.
The monstrous mollusk is the first of its kind known to slime its way into Texas, and no one is sure how it got there.
A woman in the Briar Forest neighborhood of Houston found the snail and “notified workers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center who deal with invasive plants,” according to the station.
The disease-carrying, freakishly big hermaphroditic snails—they can grow up to almost 8 inches in length and up to 4 inches in diameter—can each lay some 100 eggs per month.
In other words, where there’s one, there are likely to be more.
These invasive creatures have already been found by the thousands in Florida. The USDA warns that, in addition to carrying diseases, they're the “most damaging snails in the world because they consume at least 500 different types of plants [and] can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco."Before a while a new major version of the well known log4j logging framework was released. Since the first alpha version appeared 4 more releases happened! You see, there is much more activity than with the predecessor log4j 1. And seriously, despite log4j 2s young age it is ways better. This blog will give an overview on a few of the great features of Apache log4j 2.0.
Modern API
In old days, people wrote things like this:
if ( logger. isDebugEnabled ()) { logger. debug ( "Hi, " + u. getA () + “ “ + u. getB ()); }
Many have complained about it: it is very unreadable. And if one would forget the surrounding if-clause a lot of unnecessary Strings would be the result. These days String creation is most likely optimized by modern the JVM, but should we rely on JVM optimizations?
The log4j 2.0 team thought about things like that and improved the API. Now you can write the same like that:
logger. debug ( "Hi, {} {}", u. getA (), u. getB ());
The new and improved API supports placeholders with variable arguments, as other modern logging frameworks do.
There is more API sweetness, like Markers and flow tracing:
private Logger logger = LogManager. getLogger ( MyApp. class. getName ()); private static final Marker QUERY_MARKER = MarkerManager. getMarker ( "SQL" );... public String doQuery ( String table ) { logger. entry ( param ); logger. debug ( QUERY_MARKER, "SELECT * FROM {}", table ); return logger. exit (); }
Markers let you identify specific log entries quickly. Flow Traces are methods which you can call at the start and the end of a method. In your log file you'll would see a lot of new logging entries in trace level: your program flow is logged.
Example on flow traces:
19:08:07.056 TRACE com.test.TestService 19 retrieveMessage - entry 19:08:07.060 TRACE com.test.TestService 46 getKey - entry
Plugin Architecture
log4j 2.0 supports a plugin architecture. Extending log4j 2 to your own needs has become dead-easy. You can build your extensions the namespace of your choice and just need to tell the framework where to look.
<configuration … packages= "de.grobmeier.examples.log4j2.plugins" >
With the above configuration log4j 2 would look for plugins in the de.grobmeier.examples.log4j2.plugins package. If you have several namespaces, no problem. It is a comma separated list.
An simple plugin looks like that:
@Plugin ( name = "Sandbox", type = "Core", elementType = "appender" ) public class SandboxAppender extends AppenderBase { private SandboxAppender ( String name, Filter filter ) { super ( name, filter, null ); } public void append ( LogEvent event ) { System. out. println ( event. getMessage (). getFormattedMessage ()); } @PluginFactory public static SandboxAppender createAppender ( @PluginAttr ( "name" ) String name, @PluginElement ( "filters" ) Filter filter ) { return new SandboxAppender ( name, filter ); } }
The method with the annotation @PluginFactory seves as, well, factory. The two arguments of the factory are directly read from the configuration file. I achieved that behavior with using @PluginAttr and @PluginElement on my arguments.
The rest is pretty trivial too. As I wrote an appender, I have chosen to extend AppenderBase. It forces me to implement the append() method which does the actual job. Besides Appenders, |
.2m in 2008-09.
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.
Diana Johnson, a schools minister, said that senior staff were entitled to travel first-class and were advised "if they need to work on the train then there may be occasions when first class travel will be less busy and noisy than standard class".
But David Laws, the Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said: "Ed Balls has warned he will slash the schools budget and lay off headteachers to do so, yet he is wasting millions on allowing his department's bureaucrats to travel first-class.
"This money should be making a real difference in our schools. Ed Balls needs to get a grip on his department."
Margaret Morrissey of the parents' pressure group Parents Outloud said: "I know there are reasons why civil servants would have to travel – but why would they need to go first-class? It's absolutely ridiculous.
"If they spend so much time on the train, that may be the reason why they take so much time to answer a query. It can take two months to get an acknowledgement for a letter and another two months for a reply."
One of the reasons for the high cost is said to be because its offices are spread around the country with staff in Darlington, Runcorn and Sheffield often being called to London for meetings.
John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents secondary headteachers, said: "Surely they could do a lot more of their business by telephone conferencing?"
A DCSF spokesman said the department saved cash, and created jobs, by having several locations outside London. "This multi-site operation does present some logistical challenges, meaning staff occasionally have to travel down to London and back from the regional offices.
"However, every effort is made to ensure that meetings can be done via video phone where possible to save time and money. Most journeys are in standard class."
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.
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Spenser Watkins with the Whitecaps.
(Taylor Ballek | MLive.com)
Starting pitcher Spenser Watkins, the Tigers 30th-round draft pick in 2014, was suspended 50 games Monday by Major League Baseball following a second positive test for drug abuse. The suspension is effective immediately. Watkins, a right-hander from NCAA Division II Western Oregon, was the Opening Day starter for the Class-A West Michigan Whitecaps. He is 1-0 with an ERA of 1.69 in two starts this season. He has struck out 12 and walked three in 10 2/3 innings. The Whitecaps referred interview requests to the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers issued the following statement:
MLB does not release names when a player has a first drug violation, including when it occurs within the minor league drug prevention and treatment program. The 23-year-old Watkins, who entered the Tigers' system in late 2014, split last season between West Michigan and Connecticut in New York-Penn League. He went 5-4 with a 2.23 ERA in 12 starts in Connecticut and was 0-0 with a 3.38 ERA in four games (three starts) late last season with the Whitecaps.We don’t do scores on RPS, but sometimes we mourn for the inability to deploy a 7/10. The ur-score, the most double-edged of critical swords, the good but not great, the better than it deserves to be, the guilty pleasure, the bungled aspiration, the knows exactly what it is, the straight down the line. One score that can mean so much.
There is one particular type of 7/10 game that heralds joy, not disappointment: the solid, maybe ever so slightly wonky action game with no interest in being anything more than a solid action game.
You know the sort. Bit of shooting, bit of jumping, exaggerated explosions. often a war-torn sci-fi setting (for fantasy ones, substitute shooting and explosions for stabbing and magicking). Maybe a car or two. Pantomime villains. Collectibles. Protagonist who would fit the name ‘Jack’ even if he (and sadly it is almost always as he. I really do hope the stalwart developers of stalwart 7/10 action games will diversify their stalwart 7/10 output) is not, in fact, called ‘Jack.’ Bit wonky, but not enough to spoil the show. They are legion, and some of them are brilliant even though they could not, in good conscience, be scored higher than 7/10.
There is Good 7/10 and Bad 7/10, you see. A bad 7 is a game that was much-hyped and much-anticipated but fails to live up to early promise. A bad 7 is a game made with the expectation of 9s and 10s but is either too flawed or too routine to pull it off. I’m going to be mean and suggest the majority of the Assassin’s Creed series for that, or the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot. (A bad 7 doesn’t mean the game is bad; it just means it’s not the game it thought it was).
A good 7 is one knowingly made to be a 7. (Paradoxically, this may mean it scores 8, but let’s stay pure for now). An action game with no ideas above its station, no attempts at Big Messages or narrative ingenuity or post-modernism or groundbreaking mechanics. A Solid Good Time. You dig? Good. These, then, are RPS’ favourite Good 7/10s. Brilliantly, perfectly average action games, this hobby as unadulterated adrenal escapism.
Avalanche, 2015
The game which inspired this feature, as I only just began playing it in earnest. Avalanche’s sandbox post-apocalypse title suffered somewhat at the time for standing in the tall shadow of Fury Road, the preposterously propulsive fourth Mad Max movie, but now it has a chance to breathe it stands out as the best contemporary example of the Perfect 7 I can name. Tons of space, crunchy fights, fast cars, great environments, wonderful skyboxes. Mindless destruction writ large. By and large has a strong understanding of how not to waste its players’ time. A game you cannot necessarily justify playing for dozens of hours, but a game you don’t feel awful about yourself playing for dozens of hours. Go forth and destroy.
Score: 7/10
Rebellion, 2006
The other game I had in mind as the ur-7 when writing this. Rogue Trooper never quite excels, but it never meaningfully fails. As a straight-up action adaptation of a war-themed sci-fi comics character (from 2000AD), it’s hard to ask more. A couple more missions, more escalation of difficulty, yes, but what’s there is a true-blue Good 7, with a solid mid-line of open violence and stealth, fun toys, appealing characterisation and an appropriately lean story. Rogue Trooper feels like the work of 7/10 Action Game experts, and I honestly do mean that only as a compliment. I feel real sadness that I’ll never know where Rogue Trooper might have gone with a sequel and a bigger budget.
Score: 7/10
Relic, 2011
Possibly cheating ever so slightly with this one, as there’s a strong argument to be made that it’s a Bad 7. Expectations were high, and many stars seemed to have aligned: Dawn of War dev Relic making a third-person action game in which you got to make a Warhammer 40K Space Marine squish a gazillion Orks was the wish-dream of a great many PC gamers of a certain age. What we got was probably more humdrum and certainly more repetitive than what we fantasised about, but despite its somewhat hollow nature it’s achieving much of what a good Good 7 should: meaty combat, ceaseless appetite for destruction, a certain amount of escalation, non-cerebral sci-fi setting (Only War!) that fits the mindless nature of the game and, yeah, that simple joy of making pretend monsters fall over forever.
Score: 7/10
Saber Interactive, 2007
Our first first-person entry here – third-person is the 7/10 norm, but FPSes with the same sort of ethos and execution absolutely count. I’m going on memory and can’t guarantee that it hasn’t aged appallingly, but certainly at the time this was yer quintessential Pleasant Surprise. Timeshift had seemed as though it could only be a mess from afar – delayed, redesigned, a (to me) memorable press briefing in which a brash developer had bellowed “who the fuck cares about puzzles?”, and a stylistic hodge-podge of generic-looking sci-fi. Somehow, it all fell together, having dispatched its higher-minded time-control ideas in favour of simple, slick pauses, slo-mos and rewinds with which to get the drop on tricky enemies. It is a Good But Not Great Shooting Game With A Gimmick. In a way, it was a precursor to the slick, focused, modern-yet-old-school action of Machine’s latter-day Wolfenstein games, although it’s simply too ordinary to hit those games’ high notes.
Score: 7/10
2k Australia/Marin, 2013
I know, I know! Bear with me on this. I was as disappointed as anyone that 2K’s initial attempt at an X-COM reboot went through various vague and didn’t-quite-get-it designs before settling on a fairly straight-up third-person shooter. Move past the sense of insult and the Bureau is not, in fact, anything like a disaster. It’s a 7/10 action game with many of the traditional problems of a 7/10 action game – perfunctory story, thin characterisation, repetition – that is harmed by being associated with a noble bloodline. Don’t think of it as X-COM (a sting lessened in any case by the fact we have XCOM, which is at least turn-based strategy game even if it does depart hugely from X-COM) and you get a third-person shooter with strong retro-sci-fi visual style, some absurdly elaborate environments (clearly leftover assets from earlier, more ambitious designs), oddball weapons and a nice line in simple squad controls which make surviving incredibly tough enemies feasible. As an XCOM game, this is Bad 7. As a third-person action game, it’s Good 7.
Score: 7/10
United Front Games / Square Enix London, 2012
Or “that GTA one in Hong Kong, wossisface, y’know, there’s kung fu and lots of sunglasses”, as I tend to describe it, which rather reflects the fact it’s a perfect 7 and nothing more. Sleeping Dogs is a sandbox shooting, punching and driving game which is both hard to outright praise and even harder to complain about. It’s just there, being perfectly adept at its city-sprinting and gangster-tussling, without ever conjuring up a solid-gold reason to recommend it over anything else. If you want a GTA-like that isn’t characterised by the mean-spirited characterisation and humour of Rockstar’s titles or the whack-to-the-max excess of Saint’s Row, can’t go wrong here.
Score: 7/10
High Moon Studios, 2012
There are so many terrible Transformers-themed third-person action games, so a Transformers-themed third-person action game which can be summarised as “yeah, fine” is the Citizen Kane of Transformers action games. (Something something Orson Welles’ final performance, etc). Fall of Cybertron has a clear love of 80s robot toys, tempered somewhat by overly sombre tone and dark’n’spiky aesthetics, but most of all it just gets on with being a shooty-thumpy game about pew-pewing bots who can turn into vehicles any time they like. Though being set on the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron costs us a sense of scale, at least it spares us the disappointment of another Earth-set game in which you’re not allowed to squish puny humans with wild abandon. (See also last year’s Transformers: Devastation, but I found a little bit too fiddly to truly scratch that 7/10 dumb shooty itch).
Score: 7/10
Double Fine Productions, 2009
The first in our Hall of Average that’s more about thwacking than shooting. There’s also a case to be made that it’s Bad 7 not Good 7, but I think it’s hopped categories over time, now the massive expectations around The Next Game From The Folk Behind Psychonauts has died down. Also, what keeps it a 7 is that it’s a very much a game of two halves: a joyful, metal-themed, cameo-littered button-mashing romp with wild visuals for the first few hours, then a well-intentioned but misjudged sorta-strategy game in later stages. Have a wonderful time for a couple of days then slip away, basically.
Score: 7/10
Earth Defense Force: All Of Them
Various developers, 2003 onward
I’m surely putting words into developers’ mouths here, but I am convinced that this is the only 7/10 Action Game that sincerely wants to be a 7/10 Action Game. Profoundly stupid, impossible to defend on any meaningful artistic level, always, always the same, and with a rich streak of self-awareness about it. EDF is the game you play when you just want to shoot a load of things and not be interrupted by anything else – or feel that the game wants you to be thinking about anything else. The series has seriously suffered for doing the same thing over and over again, but it remains a go-to 7/10 for mindless co-op mayhem.
Score: 7/10
Ninja Theory, 2010
Admittedly something of an oddity in this list, as I rather suspect Enslaved desperately wanted to be a 9/10 breakout hit. High culture inspirations, beautiful art, layered characters, Something To Say – but all attached to a wonderfully fluid jumpy-thumpy game which essentially impeded its other intentions. But it is beautiful and it feels great in the hand, so to speak, and a fine example of standard action game concepts being wielded by master craftsfolk.
Score: 7/10
Volition, 2009
One of the working titles for this feature was ‘THQ action games, 2007-2013’, as the now-defunct player was for something of an avatar of perfectly adequate 7/10 shooters for quite some time. 2009’s Red Faction: Guerilla is an exemplar of that: a sci-fi third-person shooter with loads of destruction, an open world with vehicles and strongholds, and a brown environment peppered by explosions. It doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is, and as such could never suffer from the ‘wait, is that really it?’ issues of BioShock: Infinite or ‘alright, alright, you’ve made your point’ emotional blackmail of Spec Ops (to name two games that are 7/10 shooters wearing 10/10 clothes). Rest in peace, THQ. You 7/10ed so very well.
Score: 7/10
Ubisoft Paris, 2003
Sadly – or perhaps mercifully, as my memories might be way off – this early-noughties shooter isn’t available for legal download yet. Despite being perfectly ordinary in most respects, it made waves at the time for its then-striking cel-shaded, faux-comic art style (doing Telltale long before Telltale) and for starring the bemused voices of David Duchnovy and Adam West. I must admit, I feel a slight nostalgia for more innocent times, when we didn’t expect quite so much of our videogames and a fairly rudimentary, entirely linear, vaguely Bond-esque shooter with prettygraphics and loads of environments but nothing to say about anything seemed like a big deal. Naturally, I would go mad if all our action games were like this today, though.
Score: 7/10
Flying Wild Hog Software, 2011
Something of a prototype for Flying Wild Hog’s later Shadow Warrior remake (which is a 7 to me, but Adam unabashedly loves it so I’ll pretend it’s elevated above this category for his sake), Hard Reset is mindless robo-bothering in pretty places, with half a mind on old-school shooters in the Nukem idiom. One of those games where you sort of forget what you’re playing and what your objectives are as you play it, but you keep playing anyway because shooting robots is shooting robots.
Score: 7/10
Digital Extremes, 2012
This is 2K doing a THQ. A lesser sequel to its sadly not-on-PC forerunner, which attempted ambitious environmental design and some freeform structure in addition to its ridiculous tale of a demonic gangster who could summon ethereal tentacles from his body. The Darkness II is a more straight-up power fantasy wearing particularly lurid bodypaint, one you play through to end in a couple of pleasantly-diverted sittings then fail to remember anything specific about afterwards. Totes THQ, even though it’s not.
Score: 7/10
Double Fine Productions, 2011
And here’s Double Fine, in their second appearance in this feature, doing a THQ too – although, as it happens, it’s the only one of their triumvirate of games published around that time, the others being Costume Quest and Stacking, that was not published by THQ. Iron Brigade is the third-person shooter meets loose tower defence, and that means it’s primarily about making a walking tank mow down tons and tons of aliens while vague quips play. Not a lot to it, but every battle feels tense and tricky at the time, but entirely meaningless when thought about afterwards. Shooting and smiling and nothing else.
Score: 7/10
IO Interactive, 2007
Looked upon somewhat poorly at the time due to preconceptions about what kind of game Hitman devs IO Interactive should be making, and indeed due to the scoring’n’firing scandal that rocked Gamespot, in fact the first Kane & Lynch was a grungey, nasty, tight shooter which borrowed liberally from the movies and did the openly hateful protagonist thing long before GTA V shat out Trevor. Sequel Dog Days amped things up into a deranged nightmare, which seems to evenly split players between love and hate, but the first is yer classic 7 Shoulders’n’Guns affair.
Score: 7/10
Vigil Games, 2010/2012
Another Classic THQ 7, this is from the hack-slashy fantasy side of things rather than the shooty family, but it has the same compulsive, propulsive, Gotta Slay ‘Em All ethos. Vigil’s RPG-tinged monster-basher is a game you wouldn’t beseech anyone else to play, but one that you have yourself a damned good time with then never think about gain. God rest ya soul, THQ.
Score: 7/10
Raven Software, 2010
To some extent, Raven are the quintessential 7/10 studio – Activion’s go-to team for branded action fare and the shooter sequels id didn’t have the bandwidth for. To be honest though, much of their output was either Bad 7 (Quake IV, Soldier of Fortune) or actually rather good (Return To Castle Wolfenstein, Jedi Knight 2 & 3), and not that solid-gold average I keep banging on about. Singularity was their last attempt at the big leagues before being reduced to an odd job team for Activision – these days Raven mostly contributes bits and pieces to Call of Duty games – and is for my money the cleanest-cut 7 of their output. Singularity was an own-IP shooter With a Twist, that being a time manipulation device. I’d argue that it didn’t manage to be the good, clean fun of the ostensibly similar Timeshift, partly because it didn’t feel as sparky despite trying to achieve more but mostly because I suspect it wanted to be so much more than a Good 7, but it’s certainly got a whole bunch of silly ways to relentlessly kill pretend people.
Score: 7/10
Surreal Software, 2004
‘The Suffering’ – I mean, come on, it might as well be called ‘7 Out Of 10.’ Never has a title been more profoundly average. Prisoners, violence, horror, monsters, shooting, and an abundance of tropes from all of those things. Morality and insanity meters provided the required twists to straight-up action and all told it’s fine, albeit in that somewhat distasteful way that characterises the glut of 00s games that seemed to revolve around incarceration and retrograde interpretations of mental health.
Score: 7/10
Techland, 2015
Adam’s a big fan of Techland’s sandbox zombie survival knees-up, though is at pains to point out that it didn’t achieve true greatness until The Following DLC / Enhanced Edition. I’ve only played the original, and would stick an ‘I’M A 7/10 VIDEOGAME KISS ME QUICK’ boater onto it in a heartbeat. Awful characters, reedy story, collecting’n’killing frenzy, keeps you busy, disproportionately high-fidelity art’n’tech for what it actually is. I’m not entirely convinced it’s got that raw joy factor that some of my most beloved entries in this chart do, but it’s certainly the right kinda dumb.
Score: 7/10
Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor
Monolith Productions, 2014
Oh come on, it’s a 7. Yes, yes, I know it’s got the nemesis system and a smashing melee combat system, but come on, the purest distilled essence of 7/10 beats through the veins of the delightfully dumb Lord of the Rings combat game. From Evil Ghost Elf advisor to mad psychic powers orcs’ WWE-style intros, it’s like a grimdark celebration of the solid killing and high concept twists of all the best seven-squadders. Between this and Mad Max, we have proof positive that the perfectly average 7/10 action game is still alive and well to this day, despite Assassin’s Creed’s best attempts to sap the life out of it. Long may it reign.
Score: 7/10
And now, quite naturally, I open the floor. Give me your average, your ordinary, your adequate masses yearning to breathe free.Harry Kane has scored 12 times in his last 11 top-flight appearances
West Ham were denied a win at Tottenham because the referee played too much added time, says manager Sam Allardyce.
Spurs drew 2-2 after Harry Kane's late penalty was saved and he scored the rebound with the last kick of the game.
But asked if the whistle should have gone immediately after Adrian's save, Allardyce said: "The answer is yes. But he [referee Jon Moss] wouldn't be brave enough to do that at home would he?"
"So we're doing NFL now aren't we. I'd like a timekeeper to be honest."
In American football's NFL, the clock stops when the ball goes out of play, meaning a 60-minute game lasts much longer and the game can also run on after the final whistle until the ball is dead.
"He [the referee] will say there was still two seconds to go," the Hammers boss said. "He will say when the penalty was taken, there were five seconds left, when the rebound came off there were three second left."
Cheikhou Kouyate has scored three goals this season for West Ham
West Ham, looking for a third straight win at Tottenham, were leading 2-0 with just 10 minutes remaining thanks to goals from Cheikhou Kouyate and Diafra Sakho.
But Danny Rose struck to reduce the deficit before Kane, who scored his 24th goal of the season, was brought down in the box by Alex Song in the last moments of five minutes of stoppage time.
Allardyce claimed Kane had "fallen over" as Spurs were "desperate" to win the penalty, but said Song had been foolish to give Moss a decision to make.
"From our point of view, Alex has to keep his hands off him because he's going to feel that contact and take to the floor. He's got to.
"Whether it's the right decision or not, it's the way football is today. If we're to learn anything by it, we have to do the same as what Tottenham do more often, because we stay on our feet and don't get fouls and they get touched and go down and they do get fouls. In the end it's make a difference."
The result keeps West Ham eighth in the Premier League table, five points behind sixth placed Spurs.The great folks over at Google have developed an awesome language called Go. At first glance, it seems like Ruby and Go are distant cousins, at best. However, their complementary skill sets provide a perfect match.
It is definitely worth any Rubyist’s time to take a look at Go as some of the innovations it brings to the table are quite enticing.
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For me, Go was the missing link between C++ and Ruby. Especially when writing servers that need to be quick on their feet, I often chose C++ and found myself missing the niceties of Ruby. I would have liked to write Ruby instead, but even with recent, massive performance improvements, Ruby can’t cope.
Go fills this gap. It provides the feel of a dynamic language like Ruby or Python, but has performance comparable to many of its compiled relatives.
It also has some really unique features which we’ll look into in this article. Let’s jump in.
Why Go?
When writing a server, opening one thread per client as a means of concurrency (if all of that sounds like gibberish, that’s fine, keep reading) is terrible when need to handle lots of clients. The option is to use something called non-blocking IO (thumbs up to the Node crowd). But, even across Unix-y OSes (e.g. Linux, Mac OS X, etc.), the mechanism for handling non-blocking IO efficiently differs. Then, in addition to all of these complications, there’s C itself. I don’t have anything against C for embedded devices or where running speed trumps development time significantly. But, as a day to day language, C doesn’t fit the bill for me.
Go provides amazing concurrency primitives, a nice syntax, a well stocked default library and a quick compiler. It solves the problems I had with C (and also C++, to some extent). It is fun to use even when your codebase gets larger.
In this article, I’ll go over the basics of the language in a whirlwind tour, pointing to documentation often. The main focus is to highlight the innovative features of the language that make it so unique.
The Tedium
Go is meant not to surpise; it should come easily. Here’s the basic code layout:
package main func main() { }
The main function is called to start us out. Let’s try out a “Hello, world:”
package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Hello, world!") }
The module for doing printing and scanning is called “fmt” in Go. Unlike Ruby, it isn’t included by default, so we’ve added an “import” statement at the top of the file to include it. The method Println from the fmt module will print out the string we pass in and a newline character (akin to puts in Ruby). Notice that public methods in Go begin with a capitalized letter.
Some quick looping:
package main import "fmt" func main() { //the basic for loop for i:=1; i < 100; i++ { fmt.Println(i) } }
Go and Ruby have a completely different idea of the for loop. The Go version is more or less similar to C. You define a variable, check a condition, and specify what to do at the end of one loop iteration (in this case, incrementing i ). This is basically the only kind of loop that Golang defines. Fortunately, it is extremely versatile. For example, this is a forever loop:
for { }
I would encourage you to check out some of the (documentation on for )[http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html#for].
Notice that when we set the value of i within the for loop, we don’t use “=”, we use “:=” instead. Here’s an example of the difference:
package main import "fmt" func main() { //defines the variable a a := 5 fmt.Println(a) //sets a different value to a a = 10 fmt.Println(a) //another way to define a variable var b int b = 15 fmt.Println(b) }
In the first chunk of the main function, the variable a is both declared and assigned. In the second, the value is reassigned, so = is used. The reasoning is that Go is actually a statically typed language, unlike Ruby, which is dynamically typed. So, the compiler has to know where variables are declared and where their contents are simply replaced. This is made clear with the third portion of the main function, which explicitly declares and sets the value of a variable using the var keyword.
Finally, as a likeness to arrays in Ruby, there are slices in Go. They are of the type []type, where type represents the type of object we want slice to return. Instantiating them is a little odd:
package main func main { ///this creates a slice of integers with length 15 mySlice := make([]int, 15) }
We have to use the make() call in order to make a slice.
That was likely a very quick tour of some of the most basic features of the Go; I’d rather spend more time on some interesting features rather than the basic syntax which is documented very well.
Let’s check out goroutines.
Goroutines
Writing concurrent code is hard. Writing concurrent network code is even harder. The problem is that traditional threads don’t scale well and they are extremely difficult to handle once you have a few of them running. The Go team set out to solve this issue, producing goroutines.
Essentially, goroutines are lightweight concurrency mechanisms that communicate with each other using constructs called channels. They are incredibly simple to use:
package main import "fmt" func wait() { //wait around with a forever loop for { } } func main() { go wait() fmt.Println("We didn't wait because it was called as a goroutine!") }
We have the method wait which is supposed to be a forever loop. But, we are calling the method as go wait(), instead of just wait(). This tells Go that we want it called as a goroutine and runs it asynchronously! Running the program does not produce a forever loop since the loop runs in the background.
So, Go has concurrency built into language, i.e. it has concurrency primitives. But, what’s the point? Just not having to include a library or module doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal. But, goroutines are fundamentally different from threads because they are much more lightweight. Remember how you shouldn’t write servers that use one thread per client? With goroutines, the situation is different:
package main import ( "fmt" "net" ) //notice that in the arguments, the name of //the variable comes first, then comes the //type of the variable, just like in "var" //declarations func manageClient(conn net.Conn) { conn.Write([]byte("Hi!")) conn.Close() //do something with the client } func main() { //we are creating a server her that listens //on port 1337. Notice that, similar to Ruby, //a method can have two return values (although //in Ruby, this would be an array instead) listener, err := net.Listen("tcp", ":1337") for { //accept a connection connection, _ := listener.Accept() go manageClient(connection) } }
Whoa. That might seem quite a bit more complicated, but the idea is very simple. Let’s break it down step by step.
Looking at the main function, start by a call to the net.Listen method, which returns two values (in Go, you’re not limited to one value, similar to Ruby’s array unpacking) the server connection and the error. Then, enter into the main loop of the server, where it just sits around and listens for requests with the server.Accept call. That call “hangs” until a client comes along to connect. Then, once we are connected, pass on the connection object into a manageClient, but call it as a goroutine! So, the server is ready to process the next client.
Finally, notice a couple things about the manageClient method. Firstly, in the arguments list, the name of the variable comes first, the type after. This is more or less a stylistic choice that the creators of Go have made; you won’t even notice it after a week or so with the language.
In the body of the method, write the “Hi!” message to the client and then close the socket.
So, with a couple of lines of code, we’ve written a reasonable foundation for a simple server. Without too much effort, you can turn this into an HTTP proxy (bonus points if you implement some caching). Goroutines allow us to do this. They actually aren’t just lightweight threads; there’s a lot of magic going on behind the scenes that makes it possible to write simple imperative code inside goroutines.
Channels
Goroutines by themselves are useful, but their utility is amplified massively with the concept of channels. These serve as a communication mechanism between goroutines as well as the main process. Let’s see a really quick example.
package main import ( "fmt" ) var eventChannel chan int = make(chan int) func sayHello() { fmt.Println("Hello, world!") //pass a message through the eventChannel //it doesn't matter *what* we actually send across eventChannel < - 1 } func main() { //run a goroutine that says hello go sayHello() //read the eventChannel //this call blocks so it waits until sayHello() //is done <- eventChannel }
We have a goroutine called sayHello that prints out a “Hello, world” message. But, notice the declaration of eventChannel. Essentially, we have declared a channel of integers. We can send stuff into this channel and other portions of the code can read from this channel, making it a communication method. In the sayHello method, the eventChannel pushes the integer 1 into eventChannel. Then, in the main method we read from the eventChannel.
There’s an important point here: by default, reading from the channel blocks, so it keeps waiting until there’s something that can be read from the eventChannel.
Let’s look at something a little bit more complicated:
package main import ( "fmt" ) var logChannel chan string = make(chan string) func loggingLoop() { for { //wait for a message to arrive msg := < - logChannel //log the msg fmt.Println(msg) } } func main() { go loggingLoop() //do some stuff here logChannel <- "messaged to be logged" //do other stuff here }
Here, we’ve defined a main loop that hangs around listening to events, i.e. loggingLoop. When it receives a message to be logged from the loggingChannel, it prints it out. This is a pretty common design, especially when there is some state to be held within the event loop.
So, with a few lines of code we’ve established communication between the main function and the goroutines. Shared memory has traditionally been a nightmare for developers because of issues such as locking, race conditions, etc. With Go, the concept of channels greatly reduces the chance of most traditional issues. Additionally, Go’s channels are an inherent part of the language; not just something tacked on with a library.
In comparison to Ruby, Go’s goroutines actually run in the background with the “default” implementation of the language (MRI Ruby runs entirely within a single thread so it cannot provide “real” parrallelism). Secondly, Ruby comes with a threading implementation, but using it is no easy task. In fact, the Agent library attempts to get some of the niceties of goroutines into the Ruby world.
Wrapping It Up (for now)
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article. We ran through the very, very basic syntax of Go code and then quickly dived into concurrency mechanisms.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll be going into some more depth with syntax and discuss some other awesome features that Go gives us.Welcome back to Puck Drop: NHL Preview 2013-14, where our hockey department gives you a detailed look at each team and divison around the NHL leading to the start of his hockey season. Check back often as new teams are added to our Puck Drop page. Today we take a look at the 2013-14 Metropolitan Division.
The NHL is entering its first season with the newly realigned divisions. There are now four divisions, two in each conference. How the guys in Toronto chose the name “Metropolitan division” is completely beyond me, though it does fix some of the problems from before. The divisions are now geographically sensible (well, except the Atlantic) and the newly remodeled “Metro” division now includes the Penguins, Capitals, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets and Flyers. You can pick any one of these teams and make the argument that a playoff push can be made, which is why people (co-workers) may disagree with some of these rankings. So without any further hesitation, let’s get started.
If you click on the team name, you can read the full preview on that team from a fellow LWOS writer. Our hockey writers weigh in with their own versions of the division standings at the end.
8. New York Islanders, (2012-2013 – 55 points, 16th Overall, 8th in Conference, 3rd in Division): Despite making the playoffs for the first time since 2007, I have the Isles ranked last going into next season. This is a very controversial pick, and one that none of my fellow LWOS hockey writers agree with (as seen at the bottom of the article). In the offseason, the Islanders lost captain |
State Legislatures, said the shift stems from a decline in juvenile crime, concerns about the costs of adult prisons and a growing understanding of adolescent brain development showing that the young have a greater potential for rehabilitation.The first time I heard a Bruckner symphony in the concert hall was back in 1990, as part of the celebrations that inaugurated the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The city scored a major coup that year by getting the Berlin Philharmonic to play two concerts under Kurt Sanderling. The second of these – every moment of which is seared into my brain – featured Mozart's Fourth Violin Concerto, played with dazzling warmth and delicacy by Frank Peter Zimmermann – and then, after the interval, Bruckner's Third Symphony.
As a dutiful and slightly obsessed teenager, driven to devouring as much classical music as I could get my ears around, I had read up on Anton Bruckner before the concert. From the strange countenance that stared out from the pages of the Collins Encyclopedia of Music, Bruckner seemed to be an elderly, otherworldy 19th-century peasant, wearing loose-fitting clothes and sitting in a gloomy room in Vienna at a grand piano. The book's description of his symphonies as some of the longest and oddest ever written didn't fill me with confidence, and neither did the notion that his life's work (nine and a bit symphonies, choral masses, motets, and a smattering of pieces in other genres) was simply a musical realisation of his devout Catholic faith. None of that made me think my life was about to change in the concert hall.
But then the Third Symphony started. And out of a cosmic mist of D minor arpeggios, a stately trumpet melody began, which built to an ear-bleeding climax – I was sitting just above the double-basses and the brass section – that shook the hall to its newly built foundations and made my brain and being shudder. The rest of the huge, 25 minute-long first movement passed as an almost hallucinogenic vision, not so much a piece of music as a sublime landscape, by turns nightmarish and consoling. The music lurched from the depths of abyssal terror in its huge, minor-key climaxes to gentle, song-like string writing, but the movement ended with the most thrillingly, obsessively dark music I had ever heard.
I was in a shocked trance for the rest of the piece and the next three movements. At the end, as the symphony at last found a transcendent major-key fanfare, I felt battered, bruised and elated. It was a surprise to look around at the applauding masses and realise the world was still turning, to walk outside the concert hall and see that life appeared to be going on as normal. But my musical life, at least, was never the same again.
Talking about my Brucknerian conversion to friends and musicians, I'm often taken aback that his symphonies don't have the same narcotic effect on everyone. But if you're reading this thinking you don't like Bruckner much, you're in good company. In his lifetime, he was set up as the Viennese polar opposite of Brahms, a Wagnerian symphonist for the contemporary avant garde to hold against Brahms's classicism. Pitted against the combined forces of Vienna's musical establishment in the late 19th century, Bruckner never stood much of a chance.
When he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the premiere of the Third Symphony in 1877, the leading critic Eduard Hanslick described the piece as "a vision of Beethoven's Ninth [that had] made friends with Wagner's Walküre and wound up trampled under the hooves of their horses". Hanslick liked the Eighth even less, if that was possible: "Interminable, disorganised, and violent, Bruckner's Eighth Symphony stretches out into a hideous length … It is not impossible the future belongs to this nightmarish style, a future we therefore do not envy." Gustav Dömpke, writing in 1886, a decade before Bruckner's death, wrote one of the masterpieces of musical vitriol of all time about the composer: "We recoil in horror before this rotting odour which rushes into our nostrils from the disharmonies of this putrefactive counterpoint. His imagination is so incurably sick and warped that anything like regularity in chord progressions and period structure simply do not exist for him. Bruckner composes like a drunkard!" Brahms summed up the anti-Bruckner position most succinctly of all, saying that he didn't write symphonies at all, but rather "symphonic boa constrictors".
Ironically, it's exactly the things Bruckner's fiercest critics hate that his devotees admire so much: the scale, the uniqueness of his harmony, the new kind of symphonic form he developed, the spiritual journeys he creates. But there's a dark side to being a Brucknerophile. It's arguable that the Nazis did more to co-opt Bruckner to their ideology than they did even Wagner. There's a chilling photograph of Hitler unveiling a bust of Bruckner in the Valhalla at Regensburg in 1937. That year, Hitler chose to end the Nazi's annual Nuremberg rally with a performance of the gigantic finale of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony; and when news of the Führer's death was announced in 1945, it wasn't Wagner that was played over German airwaves, but the slow movement of Bruckner's Seventh.
The Nazis had an opportunity to remake Bruckner in their own image. His biography is short on detail, apart from his career as an organist and teacher, his obsessive study of the arcana of musical theory (especially counterpoint, the art of matching different musical voices with one another), and his occasional, ill-starred attempts at the seduction of young girls. Bruckner never married, and almost certainly died a virgin. He left no writings or theoretical tracts of any substance, and so was a blank canvas on which the Third Reich could paint their vision of a völkisch Wagnerian symphonist.
Since the war, something strange has happened to the performance practice of Bruckner's symphonies. More and more, conductors have made the monumental, monolithic aspects of Bruckner's symphonies the defining feature of the music. At their best, there's a meditative, intoxicating quality to the mesmerically slow speeds of performances by such conductors as Herbert von Karajan and especially Sergiu Celibidache, but with less accomplished maestros, Bruckner is reduced to a weirdly one-dimensional architect of sound. Too often these days, his music is performed by conductors who unthinkingly take their cue from the slow speeds of the school of performance that sees Bruckner as a pseudo-spiritual-guru, as if the music were a static marble sculpture rather than a living, breathing organism.
At the Southbank Centre in London this year, there's a season-long chance to see where we are now in the story of Bruckner interpretation, with performances of six of the symphonies. The season starts with Claudio Abbado conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in the Fifth, a performance – that should sing and soar like no other before or since – of Bruckner's most contrapuntally ambitious symphony. It ends next April, when Daniel Barenboim conducts the last three symphonies with his Staatskapelle Berlin. I'm hoping we'll hear a more dynamic Bruckner from Abbado and Barenboim, as well as Vladimir Jurowski, Osmo Vänskä and the Southbank's other Brucknerians. Recent recordings by Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Jonathan Nott have revealed a different side to Bruckner, interpretations that make him a human being rather than a self-annihilating penitent.
But here's the biggest Brucknerian irony of all. You can experience the most dynamic vision of Bruckner in recorded history in performances given by Wilhelm Furtwängler, including some during the second world war with the Nazi-sponsored Berlin Philharmonic. There's a performance of the Fifth Symphony from 1942 that is still shockingly intense, vital and energetic. For anyone who thinks Bruckner only wrote slow, static, boa-constricting music, this is the performance to hear. There's an intensity and wildness Furtwängler finds that flatly contradicts the monolithic vision Hitler and Goebbels had of the composer. It's an energy and fearlessness today's conductors need to recover in their approach to Bruckner to do justice to the musical and existential revelations at the heart of each of his symphonies.
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The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.Performing actions and perfecting skills can improve your Seed’s overall abilities, but you won’t be able to see all of those abilities floating conveniently in space above your Seed’s head! Instead, in TUG, we’ll be using much more visual identifiers to measure your Seed by.
The easiest example we can use to start with is body mass, since the changes to your Seed’s body are so obvious. The math behind body mass in TUG has a lot to do with what your Seed eats -- and Seeds will eat a lot, to replenish health or stamina, or even add special abilities in rare cases. While we don’t intend for everyone’s characters to have to stay on crazy crash diets in order to keep looking fit, have a look at these examples for an idea of what we mean:
Looks familiar, right? A TUG-world Nutrition Facts label! Looking at the numbers, this apple doesn’t add anything to the Seed’s overall body fat, and gives a Seed 6% of their overall health back, as well as 1% of their stamina. Additionally, it has 10 calories, so your Seed will feel less hungry! But watch out, that warning at the bottom isn’t just for show. If you eat too much at a given time, even something as relatively healthy as this apple can have some adverse side effects!
Now lets look at a food that has a little more complexity to it.
Mmmm, crunchy amphiburgers! Satisfying and great for restoring your health and stamina-- but also a bit fatty! This tasty amphiburger gives us 40% of our health back, 10% of our stamina and 40 calories to satisfy our hunger -- but it also gives us a whopping 25% of our daily fat intake! That said though, it also gives us a temporary boost to our jump height, so it’s not all about a quick health boost, either.
So what happens to a Seed when he or she starts adding fatty foods to his or her diet? Let’s have a look at four examples: Joe, Roland, Hauser, and Mac.
Joe "The Newb"
Joe’s an average guy. Maybe he’s only just reached adulthood, or maybe he’s just been really good at staying a generalist, but he probably hasn’t specialized in any skills, he probably hasn’t seen too much combat, and he’s kept his diet simple. Or, maybe he’s a big eater, but he’s a bigger explorer, and he regularly gets out and travels the world.
Joe probably won’t be able to deliver any single huge hits in combat, but he can still be a challenging adversary since he’s able to dash in and out of combat and move quickly -- and he can run like mad to get out of the way if things start to go wrong.
Roland "The Hunter"
Roland’s been around the block a few times. He’s been in a few scrapes, started working with crafts, and put some thought into how to use food to his advantage, though he’s probably not using the skill-boosting fatty foods much -- only when he needs a quick boost for a hunt or a special item he wants to craft. He’s probably living an active life -- maybe as a hunter, tracking beasts and hunting them for food and skins.
Roland’s well-suited for ranged combat, since his melee attacks won’t be overly strong, but even so he’ll probably be a more dangerous opponent than Joe in melee because he’s sacrificed a bit of speed for survivability and strength. He’s probably dabbling in a number of skills that interest him too, which means he’s pretty well-rounded and fun to play.
Hauser "The Bruiser"
Hauser’s not the kind of guy you want to mess with. He’s probably used to wearing heavy armor and using heavy tools or big weaponry, and given his size he’s probably accustomed to eating a lot of fatty foods to give himself skill boosts and special abilities. Hauser isn’t the kind of guy who’s going to be firing arrows from the woods or doing fancy footwork -- he’s going to be wading into battle like a juggernaut and leveling the enemy.
Aside from battle, though, Hauser probably enjoys his free time around town. Unlike some of his fellow warriors who train hard or explore the world in between battles, he enjoys hanging out in the tavern, drinking ale and socializing with his friends, and those habits combined with his love of fatty foods give him his distinctive girth.
Mac "The Big Guy"
Mac’s a big dude. He’s probably been using heavy tools for a while now, and he might have some really advanced smithing skills under his belt, but the heavy costs of endurance his trade exacts on him force him to eat more often than other folks, and the fact that his profession keeps him in one place means he’s not burning off a lot of fat.
That said, Mac’s not just a great smith, but he’s going to be a real bear in a fight. His movements will be slower, but you’d better hope he never connects with that massive hammer he uses, because if he does you’ll feel it for weeks -- if you’re lucky!
One important caveat after all these examples -- we’re ONLY demonstrating the results of food consumption and illustrating some very specific examples that might result in a character looking like these guys. If you want to be a powerful warrior, you don’t have to look like Mac or Hauser to do it -- remember, Mac sits in his forge all day, and Hauser lounges around the tavern. So what can your Seed do to look and play more like a battle-hardened warrior of legend?
Naturally, Seeds will have the option of adjusting their diets to reduce the amount of fatty foods, but this option can affect the Seed’s general health too. The other option, then, is exercise! Engaging in many of TUG’s more active skills will count as exercise, as will extended travel and combat, and engaging in exercise will not only remove fat from your system, but build muscles in a very visual way -- biceps will swell, legs will grow thicker, and so forth. Of course, it’s best to remember that not all exercise in the world of TUG is safe. Running from a wild beast may be great for burning off the fat, but doing it wrong won’t be pretty!
In closing, these examples show just a couple of the ways we plan to display and affect player stats in the game. While the systems are complex, the formulas and the design is complete, and we’re working hard to implement them in our Beta phase -- and then adjust accordingly with your help and feedback!
-NekochuFollowing the arrest by the prefectural police in September, the Kumamoto district court yesterday judged 30-year-old male self-employed worker from Okinawa, Yo Uehara, guilty for illegally uploading Eiichiro Oda's popular manga series One Piece onto the internet. The court gave him a sentence of 18 months' imprisonment (suspended for three years) with a fine of 500,000 yen (about 4,400 US dollars), as demanded by the prosecutor.
The judge Suzuki said, "Making large profits from the habitual act is vicious. Because the manga was seen by many unspecified people, the degree of infringement of copyright was serious." Meanwhile, he gave a suspended sentence because the defendant was willing to pay for the damage.
Uehara was one of the five people who were arrested for posting scanned pages of One Piece and Sui
Ishida's Tokyo Ghoul:re on their "netabare" (spoilers) sites before the magazines' official release day.
He was the leader of the criminal group. It marked the first arrest case for an infamous "manga netabare"
site in Japan.
According to the police investigation, Uehara got copies of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump and Weekly
Young Jump at a so-called "hayauri (flying-get)" illegal store, then posted scanned manga pages onto
his netabare sites between July 2016 and July 2017. With the affiliate ads on the sites, he illegally earned
at least 74 million yen (about 653,000 US dollars).
Also in early this month, the Akita district court judged 32-year-old male web designer from Akita-city,
Yoshifumi Hottai, guilty for uploading the One Piece manga onto the internet before its official release day.
His penalty was the same as Uehara, 18 months' imprisonment (suspended for three years) with a fine of
500,000 yen. Hottai made at least 300 million yen (2.65 million US dollars) from his own netabare site
between May 2014 and July 2017.
Source: Nikkei, Asahi
"One Piece" manga image on the thumbnail © Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha
Related:
Two Men Uploaded "Yowamushi Pedal," "The Seven Deadly Sins" Manga Found Guilty in Japan
Japanese Police Arrest Five People who Posted Scanned Pages of "One Piece" Manga before Release Day
Japanese Police Staff Member Arrested for Stealing 25 Anime Rental DVDs
Chinese Court Finds Pirate Manga Site Guilty of Uploading 5,216 Japanese Titles
Three More Share Users Arrested for Illegally Uploading "Your Name."
Kyoto Police Arrested Chinese Man for Illegally Uploading "Ange Vierge" Anime Episode
Two Chinese Men Arrested for Selling Fake "Lyrical Nanoha" Hug Pillow
35-Year-Old Man Arrested for Uploading "My Hero Academia" Anime via Perfect Dark
Tokyo Police Exposed Game Centers in Akihabara for Offering Counterfeit "Love Live!" Prizes
Japanese Police Arrested 51-year-old Man for Uploading Anime Music illegally for 10 Years
54-Year-Old Unemployed Man Arrested for Illegally Uploading "your name."
Kyoto Police Arrested Two Chinese Men for Illegally Uploading "Arslan," "Prisma Illya" Anime
70-year-old Man Stealing Shonen Jump before Release Found Guilty, 10 Months in Prison
Japanese Police Arrested 44 People for Illegal Uploading in Three DaysGoogle's latest doodle pays tribute to one of the pioneers of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, who was born 126 years ago on Tuesday.
He died 42 years ago, but his steel and glass buildings can be found in most major American cities. His most famous buildings include the Seagram building in New York, the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, the Martin Luther King library in Washington DC and the National Gallery in Berlin.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aachen, Germany in 1886. Along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, Mies was regarded as one of the masters of modern architecture. He was appointed director of the Bauhaus School of Architecture.
The Great Depression of 1929 meant there was little money for building and the rise of the Nazis meant there was little taste for Mies' modern style of architecture. The style of Bauhaus and Mies was seen as not "German" enough after 1933, and the Nazis closed the school.
Mies emigrated to the US in 1937, where he was appointed head of architecture of what was to become the Illinois Institute of Technology. His designs, and those of the students he influenced, have dominated American city centres from the 1950s until today.[1] Move your cursor to identify delegates or click the icon to enlarge 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention.Move your cursor to identify delegates or click the icon to enlarge
The World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840.[2] It was organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, largely on the initiative of the English Quaker Joseph Sturge.[2][3] The exclusion of women from the convention had important ramifications for the women's suffrage movement in the United States.[4]
Background [ edit ]
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was principally a Quaker society founded in the eighteenth century by Thomas Clarkson. The slave trade had been abolished throughout the British Empire in 1807. In August 1833 the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act, advocated by William Wilberforce, which abolished slavery in the British Empire from August 1834, when some 800,000 people in the British empire became free.[5]
Similarly, in the 1830s many women and men in America acted on their religious convictions and moral outrage to become a part of the abolitionist movement. Many women in particular responded to William Lloyd Garrison's invitation to become involved in the American Anti-Slavery Society. They were heavily involved, attending meetings and writing petitions. Arthur Tappan and other conservative members of the society objected to women engaging in politics publicly. [1]
Given the perceived need for a society to campaign for anti-slavery worldwide, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) was accordingly founded in 1839.[2] One of its first significant deeds was to organize the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840: "Our expectations, we confess, were high, and the reality did not disappoint them."[6] The preparations for this event had begun in 1839, when the Society circulated an advertisement inviting delegates to participate in the convention.[2] Over 200 of the official delegates were British. The next largest group was the Americans, with around 50 delegates. Only small numbers of delegates from other nations attended.[2]
The circular message, distributed in 1839 provoked a controversial response from American opponents of slavery. The Garrisonian faction supported the participation of women in the anti-slavery movement. They were opposed by the supporters of Arthur and Lewis Tappan. When the latter group sent a message to the BFASS opposing the inclusion of women, a second circular was issued in February 1840 which explicitly stated that the meeting was limited to "gentlemen".[2]
Despite an earlier statement that women would not be admitted, many American and British female abolitionists, including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lady Byron, appeared at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Wendell Phillips proposed that female delegates should be admitted, and much of the first day of the convention was devoted to discussing whether they should be allowed to participate.[2]Published reports from the convention noted "The upper end and one side of the room were appropriated to ladies, of whom a considerable number were present, including several female abolitionist from the United States." The women were allowed to watch and listen from the spectators gallery but could not take part. [2]
Benjamin Robert Haydon painted The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 a year after the event[3] that today is in the National Portrait Gallery. This very large and detailed work shows Alexander as Treasurer of the new Society.[7] The painting portrays the 1840 meeting and was completed the next year.[1] The new society's mission was "The universal extinction of slavery and the slave trade and the protection of the rights and interests of the enfranchised population in the British possessions and of all persons captured as slaves."[7]
Proceedings (incomplete) [ edit ]
The convention's organising committee had asked the Reverend Benjamin Godwin to prepare a paper on the ethics of slavery.[8] The convention unanimously accepted his paper which condemned not just slavery but also the world's religious leaders and every community who had failed to condemn the practise. The convention resolved to write to every religious leader to share this view. The convention called on every religious communities to eject any supporters of slavery from their midst.[9]
George William Alexander reported on his visits in 1839, with James Whitehorn, to Sweden and the Netherlands to discuss the conditions of slaves in the Dutch colonies and in Suriname. In Suriname, he reported, there were over 100,000 slaves with an annual attrition rate of twenty per cent. The convention prepared open letters of protest to the respective sovereigns.[6]
Joseph Pease spoke and accused the British government of being complicit in the continuing existence of slavery in India.[10]
Legacy [ edit ]
After leaving the convention on the first day, being denied full access to the proceedings, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, " walked home arm in arm, commenting on the incidents of the day, we resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women." Eight years later they did, hosting the Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. [4]
One hundred years later the Women's Centennial Congress was held in America to celebrate the progress that women had made since they were prevented from speaking at this conference.
Incomplete list of delegates (and women who attended) [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Maynard, Douglas H. (1960). "The World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 47 (3): 452–471. JSTOR 1888877.
Sklar, Kathryn Kish (1990). " " Women Who Speak for an Entire Nation": American and British Women Compared at the World Anti-Slavery Convention, London, 1840". Pacific Historical Review. 59 (4): 453–499. doi:10.2307/3640236. JSTOR 3640236.
Further reading [ edit ]Three locations in the United States were used as landing sites for the Space Shuttle system. Each site included runways of sufficient length for the slowing-down of a returning spacecraft. The prime landing site was the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a purpose-built landing strip. Landings also occurred at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and one took place at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. No Space Shuttle landed on a dry lakebed runway after 1991.
The first international site was Cartago,Valle in Colombia (CTA)
Various international landing sites were also available in the event of a Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) scenario, as well as other sites in the United States and Canada in case of an East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL) situation.[1] Space Shuttle landings were intended to regularly take place at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for Department of Defense missions launched from the site, but none occurred due to the cancellation of all launches from Vandenberg.
Kennedy Space Center [ edit ]
The Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has a single 15,000-foot (4,600 m) concrete runway, 15/33.[2] It is designated Runway 15 or 33, depending on the direction of use. The first landing at the SLF was for mission STS-41B in 1984; landings were suspended at the site following brake damage and a blown tire during the STS-51D landing in 1985,[3] and resumed in 1990. 78 space shuttle missions landed at Kennedy Space Center.[4]
Runway Surface material Missions landed[5] Runway 15 Concrete STS-41B, 51A, 51C, 39, 43, 51, 63, 71, 72, 79, 82, 86, 89, 91, 88, 96, 101, 106, 97, 102, 104, 105, 108, 121, 116, 118, 122, 123, 124, 119, 127, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135 Runway 33 Concrete STS-41G, 51D, 38, 45, 50, 46, 47, 52, 54, 56, 57, 61, 60, 62, 65, 70, 69, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 94, 85, 87, 90, 95, 93, 103, 99, 109, 110, 112, 113, 115, 120, 129, 132
Edwards Air Force Base [ edit ]
Edwards Air Force Base in California was the site of the first Space Shuttle landing, and became a back-up site to the prime landing location, the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Several runways are arrayed on the dry lakebed at Rogers Dry Lake,[6] and there are also concrete runways. Space shuttle landings on the lake bed took place on Runways 05/23, 15/33 and 17/35. Of the concrete strips, the main Runway 04/22 was utilized. During the renovation of 04/22, a temporary runway (with the same designation) was constructed parallel to it and used for one landing (STS-126).[7] 54 Space Shuttle missions, as well as all five free flights of Space Shuttle Enterprise, landed on Edwards Air Force Base runways.[8]
Runway Surface material Missions landed[5] Runway 05 Dry lakebed STS-44 Runway 23 Dry lakebed STS-1, 2, 51G, 51F, 51I, 51J, 34, 36 Runway 15 Dry lakebed Enterprise ALT Free Flight No. 3, STS-7 Runway 33 Dry lakebed STS-37 Runway 17 Dry lakebed Enterprise ALT Free Flight No. 1, No. 2, No. 4, STS-9, 41C, 41D, 51B, 61A, 26, 27, 28 Runway 35 Dry lakebed (none) Runway 04 Concrete Enterprise ALT Free Flight No. 5, STS-33, 64 Runway 22 Concrete STS-4, 5, 6, 8, 61B, 61C, 29, 30, 32, 31, 41, 35, 40, 48, 42, 49, 53, 55, 58, 59, 68, 66, 67, 76, 92, 98, 100, 111, 114, 117, 125, 128 Runway 04 (Temporary) Asphalt STS-126
White Sands [ edit ]
Columbia (STS-3) landing on Northrop Strip at White Sands Space Harbor, 30 March 1982 (STS-3) landing on Northrop Strip at White Sands Space Harbor, 30 March 1982
White Sands Space Harbor at White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico was an emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle and was used as a backup when the runways at Edwards Air Force Base and the Kennedy Space Center were unavailable. Two 35,000 feet (11,000 m) runways and a 12,800-foot (3,900 m) runway were available for landings on the dry lake bed.[9] One mission, STS-3, used Runway 17 for a landing due to flooding at its originally planned landing site, Edwards Air Force Base.
Runway Surface material Missions landed[10] Runway 17 Dry lakebed STS-3
Transoceanic Abort Landing Sites [ edit ]
In the event of an abort during launch, NASA had several international locations designated as Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites. The sites included Lajes Air Base in Terceira island, Azores, Portugal, Zaragoza Air Base in Spain, Morón Air Base in Spain, and Istres Air Base in France.[11] All sites have runways of sufficient length to support the landing of a Space Shuttle, and included personnel from NASA as well as equipment to aid a space shuttle landing.[12] Zaragoza Air Base features Runway 30L with a length of 12,109 ft (3,691 m);[13] Morón Air Base features an 11,800 ft (3,600 m) runway;[14] and Istres Air Base features Runway 33 with a length of 12,303 ft (3,750 m).[15] Former TAL sites include Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory; Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany; Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco (1988–2002);[16] Casablanca, Morocco (up to 1986);[16] Banjul International Airport, The Gambia (1987–2002);[17] Dakar, Senegal; Rota, Spain; and Kano, Nigeria.[18] Had a TAL situation arisen during a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Hao and Easter Islands in the Pacific Ocean would have been the TAL sites.[19][20]
RAF Fairford was the only Transoceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK. As well as having a sufficiently long runway for a Shuttle landing (the runway is 3 km long), Fairford also had NASA-trained fire and medical crews stationed on the base.[21]
East Coast Abort Landing Sites [ edit ]
In certain launch abort situations where the mission profile supports a trajectory for such a landing, runways on the East Coast of the United States and Canada could have been used for an East Coast Abort Landing (ECAL) situation. The following sites could have been used for an ECAL:[22] Miami International Airport, Miami, Florida; Plattsburgh International Airport, Plattsburgh, New York, Francis S. Gabreski Airport, Westhampton Beach, New York; Atlantic City International Airport, New Jersey; Myrtle Beach International Airport, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Wilmington International Airport, North Carolina[23] Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina; Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia; Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; Bangor International Airport, Maine; Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts; Bradley International Airport, Connecticut; Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts; Pease Air National Guard Base, Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Halifax Stanfield International Airport, Enfield, Nova Scotia; Stephenville International Airport, Stephenville, Newfoundland; CFB Goose Bay, Labrador; Gander International Airport, Gander, Newfoundland, St. John's International Airport, St. Johns, Newfoundland;[24][25] Loring Air Force Base, Limestone, Maine. Griffiss International Airport[26][better source needed] Rome, NY U.S.A.
Vandenberg Air Force Base [ edit ]
Space Shuttle missions to be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California were planned to conclude with a landing at Runway 12/30[27] at the site.[28] The runway was lengthened to support shuttle landings.[29] The first landing at Vandenberg was planned for mission STS-62-A, which was scheduled for launch in July 1986, but canceled in the wake of the STS-51-L accident.[30] No space shuttle operations or landings ever occurred at the site.[31]
Other sites [ edit ]
The joint use civilian/military Lincoln Airport/Lincoln Air National Guard Base in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA was designated as an alternate landing site for its unusually and extremely long main runway (12,900 ft. (3,932 m) runway with 1000 ft. over-runs on each end, totaling almost 15,000 ft. length) and low air traffic, both commercial and military.[32][33][34] No space shuttle landing ever occurred there. The Amílcar Cabral International Airport on the island of Sal, Cape Verde, was another designated emergency landing site. Runway 01/19 at Amílcar Cabral International Airport is 10,735 ft long and is paved. No Space Shuttle landing occurred here either. Also Gran Canaria Airport was used as a back-up site.
See also [ edit ]On the night of Sept. 11, 2015, Michael Picard stood near the site of a police DUI checkpoint in West Hartford, CT, with a handwritten sign reading, “Cops Ahead: Keep Calm and Remain Silent.” Picard regularly protested DUI checkpoints, as he believed they violated the Fourth Amendment and were a waste of money.
Picard was such a regular fixture at police checkpoints that an employee of the Hartford Police Department informed the Connecticut State Police that Picard would very likely be present on Sept. 11, and that he was harmless despite lawfully carrying a handgun.
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That night, however, three state police officers detained Picard, seized his camera and inadvertently recorded themselves fabricating charges against Picard to justify the stop. Prosecutors dropped the charges—creating a public disturbance and negligent use of the highway—in July.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Connecticut alleges the three officers—Patrick Torneo, John Jacobi, and John Barone—fabricated the criminal charges against Picard because, as Barone said on the recording, “Gotta cover our ass.” The ACLU claims the officers violated Picard’s First Amendment rights to protest government activity and to record in a public space, as well as his Fourth Amendment right against warrantless seizure of his property.
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The Connecticut State Police declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.
"Gotta cover our ass.”
Dan Barrett, the ACLU of Connecticut’s legal director, told me the case was a watershed for police accountability because it provides concrete evidence for how much reality can differ from official police accounts. “As we’ve seen over the last 18 months with the proliferation of recording devices, encounters with police go quite differently than how police themselves describe the encounters,” |
’m glad that so many other people love the Merc with a Mouth too. But it was bizarre to see that there was WAY more Deadpool costumes than Spider-Man, Wolverine, or even Batman.
The thing about a Comic Con is that it’s pretty damn crazy all on its own. Just as a concept. Think about it… Celebrities and comic book creators, along with filmmakers, other artists, and vendors, set up their booths so that you can walk by and stare at them and pay to take your picture with them or pay them to sign your stuff. Sound like a zoo…? Because, at times, it kind of feels like one.
How do you plan to go next year?
I’ll definitely go all 3 days again, for sure. There’s plenty of great stuff to check out and the panels and Q&A’s are really fun and interesting. I will definitely plan out my weekend better next year though. There were some logistic issues for me and my wife. Having 3 kids makes it difficult to fully take in everything there is to do. There are panels and events that they just aren’t going to be able to sit still through and as a result there were some that I unfortunately missed.
A couple pieces of advice that I’d give to anyone going to Nashville Comic Con next year (or any con, at any time) are:photo by: Mike Yoder
A study recently commissioned by Haskell Indian Nations University aims to assign a dollar figure to the school’s contribution to Lawrence and the area.
Haskell’s annual economic impact amounts to a total of $23.1 million in gross regional product, according to an analysis of the university’s economic impact and return on investment of education, completed in December and shared this month at Haskell’s spring board of regents meeting.
“Haskell creates value from multiple perspectives,” authors of the study concluded. “The university serves a range of industries in Douglas County, supports local businesses, and benefits society nationwide from an expanded economy and improved quality of life.”
Haskell is a federal university, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, and must adhere to federal protocols for many of its operations.
Haskell officials and regents in the past year have stated goals including growing partnerships with the local community, finding nonfederal revenue streams such as private donors and doing more business with local contractors.
photo by: Mike Yoder
“All of our major services have to be contracted through a pretty rigorous and time-consuming process,” Haskell President Venida Chenault said. “As a result of that, a lot of our current contracts aren’t being bid out to the local Lawrence community, which we would like to change, and the state, which we would like to change.”
Chenault said it’s hoped that the new economic analysis will help show that Haskell makes a significant financial impact on Lawrence and Douglas County and that “the investment in Haskell is a wise investment.”
Results of the analysis are based on student and financial data for fiscal year 2013-14, according to the study. It was completed by Economic Modeling Specialists International, an economic data company affiliated with CareerBuilder.
The study analyzed the economic impact of operations spending, student spending and alumni.
Key findings, from the cited year, that led to the calculation of $23.1 million in gross regional product contribution:
• Haskell employed 149 full- and part-time faculty and staff, 83 percent of whom lived in Douglas County. The university’s total payroll was $12.3 million, much of which was spent in the county on living expenses.
• The university spent $12.3 million to cover its expenses for facilities, professional services and supplies.
• About 88 percent of Haskell students came from outside the county. While attending the university, relocated students spend $7.2 million on groceries, rent, transportation and other living expenses.
• Thousands of Haskell alumni are employed in Douglas County, contributing to increased output of the businesses employing them and spending money at other businesses.
The study also offered an analysis of return on investment to students, taxpayers and society.
In return for their investment to attend Haskell, students — 931 for-credit students were served in the cited year — will receive a stream of higher future wages that will continue to grow, leading to an average rate of return for students of 19.1 percent, according to the study.
Benefits to taxpayers consist primarily of taxes the government will collect from added income created by Haskell students, according to the study.
Society also benefits financially from Haskell, through alumni applying skills they learned there to earn more money, according to the study. Society also saves on health, crime and unemployment costs because education is correlated with improved lifestyles.
Britt Crum-Cano, economic development director for the city of Lawrence, said the city does depend financially on its institutions of higher education, such as Kansas University and Haskell.
“If you look at how many people they employ and the percentage of the population that they make up, those have to have some impacts,” she said.
“They bring in a lot of students to add to our population, so it’s just common sense those students are going to be spending and bringing dollars into the community.”Dublin City Council has said the water situation in Dublin is still critical despite heavy rain over the past week.
The council said ten continuous days of rain are needed to bring reservoirs up to the required level.
The threat of water restrictions has receded in the short term, but the council said that did not mean things were back to normal.
City Engineer Michael Philips said there are 115 days of water left compared to 156 days this time last year.
He appealed to the public to continue to conserve water by not watering lawns, using watering cans instead of a hose, and using washing machines and dishwashers with a full load.
Met Éireann has said double the amount of rain normally expected to fall for a week in June fell in Dublin last week.
Over 23mm of rain fell last week and another 24mm are expected to fall over the coming days.The mere word “provider” can send a shiver down your spine. This is especially true as you contemplate an abstract concept that only developers truly understand. The word is really only a fancy word for adapter or translator.
A PowerShell provider translates a storage system into a concept familiar to developers and non-developers alike, a disk drive. PowerShell comes with a few providers built in, which you can display with the get-PSProvider cmdlet. You will see provider names for stores that you are already familiar with in Windows. In addition, you can also see which built-in drives are accessed by which provider. Besides the C drive, which is listed under the FileSystemProvider, the rest of these “drives” are not actual drives. Many are stores that Windows administrators are familiar with.
Navigating a FileSystem Drive
All the drives have a similar structure:
They all have a root or entry point into the drive, also known as the parent.
They can all have children.
The type of children varies by provider. Typically, there are two types of children, container children and endpoint children.
The simplest example is a filesystem drive. It has a root and the drive or mount point itself. It can have a container child/directory or an endpoint child/file. You navigate the file system using the cd alias, the set-location cmdlet to move between folders, and the dir alias or the get-childitem cmdlet to list the files.
How Do Providers Help Me?
The providers create that translation between the storage system and “disk drive” but it also provides a common set of cmdlets and aliases to access them. For example, I am going to try to change directories (cd) from my C:\temp folder into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM part of the registry. I am going to try to list its contents using dir.
Wow. This works but why? It is because the registry provider provides that interface between the registry and the registry appearing like a drive inside PowerShell. Therefore, the SAME cmdlets or aliases can be used to navigate any of the “drives” that have a provider to translate for them.
Different Providers — Same Cmdlets
Not only do the navigation cmdlets work for all the drives, but the cmdlets to query, create, modify, and delete items are the same within each drive. I have hinted at the syntax by using the word item. The get-item, get-childitem, new-item, set-item, and remove-item cmdlets allow item manipulation under any of the drives. For example, I created a new file item, new registry item, and new alias item all using the new-item cmdlet.
In the first example, new-item file.txt creates a file object. In the second example, new-item HKCU:/test creates a new subkey that is named test. In the third example, new-item fails because the provider for alias requires a value along with the path. It needs the alias itself and it needs a value. The cmdlet needs to run when the alias is used.
Same Cmdlet — Different Behaviors
In prior versions of PowerShell, new-item required a type parameter. Using the example of a new-item to create a file, new-item file.txt would have prompted for a type of directory or file. In later versions of PowerShell, the type defaults to file. If you need to specify a type, you can specify file, directory, symboliclink, or a few other types. When using new-item to create a registry subkey, the itemtype is to denote a registry value type, such as DWORD or STRING. For a new alias, the ItemType parameter is not even used. If I specify an itemtype of blah, the parameter is ignored. It all depends on what the provider requires or allows.
Actions Not Supported
Some cmdlets do not make sense in the context of a certain provider. For this reason, some cmdlets will return errors stating that the provider does not support the action or other descriptive error when you run it. For example, get-itemproperty makes sense in the context of a file. Files have many properties, such as create and modify date, read-only, and hidden switches. Get-ItemProperty makes less sense in the context of a registry subkey but it returns the child items. It also returns some provider information about the subkey. Running Get-ItemProperty against the alias drive will return an error that the iPropertyCmdletProvider interface is not supported. Therefore, providers may not always support every one of the cmdlets.
Take Time to Explore
The important concept to grasp here is that providers translate between something unfamiliar, a distinct data layout, and something familiar, a disk drive layout. This translation is also shown in a set of cmdlets used to access the familiar layout, *-item and *-itemproperty cmdlets. Required parameter cmdlets vary by provider and not every provider has an interface for every cmdlet. Take the time to explore and experiment with these cmdlets. As a result, you can become more familiar with the similarities and differences among the providers. Become familiar with these cmdlets and you will be able to retrieve the information you seek.Bill Eye, an award-winning brewer who became a part owner at
when it opened in the spring of 2012, has resigned as brewmaster. Eye specialized in brewing German-style lagers and gained attention at Dry Dock Brewing when the Aurora company won a series of Great American Beer Festival medals in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Continue Reading
See also: The brewers at Prost and the Sandlot will team up on a new German-style lager
He left Dry Dock in late 2011 to follow his dream of owning a German-style brewery. " This is what I have wanted to do for ten years," he said then.
Eye didn't want to comment Monday on his reasons for leaving Prost, or on what he plans to do next, confirming only that he had left the brewery. Part of the reason he said he didn't want to comment is because he is still a part owner.
Fellow Prost brewer Ashleigh Carter, who Eye trained and recruited from Dry Dock, also confirmed that she is no longer employed at the brewery, but says it wasn't her choice.
When Prost opened, its goal was to brew and sell only German-style beers, including pilsners, hefeweizens and dunkels - an unusual strategy for a craft brewer at a time when the industry is experiencing a Renaissance based on big, bold or unusual beers.
Eye has five business partners at Prost -- including Brauns on Blake owner Troy Johnston.
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's Beer Man on Twitter at @ColoBeerMan and on Facebook at Colo BeerManBut to suggest that the failures of the last three seasons are a product of simple human error is to absolve the environment that allowed the human to err. It is like suggesting that the bulk of the Phillies' offensive struggles should be blamed on a first baseman with a.682 OPS and a $25 million annual salary instead of a general manager who decided that it was a good move to sign him to a 5-year, $125 million contract extension 2 years before the expiration date of his existing contract. That is not an argument that the first baseman should remain in the starting lineup. But the logic of our aforementioned chorus suggests that removing the first baseman without removing the person responsible for his presence will merely lead to a future in which the overpaid, underperforming player is not named Ryan Howard. And if that logic is valid, then we must extend it to the person responsible for the presence of the underperforming general manager. Thus, we arrive at the president's office, and the ownership group responsible for Montgomery's presence there.I was recently digging through old forum posts on various websites when I came across a photo of what was clearly a barn find Shelby Daytona Coupe. There wasn’t any information about it or a link, but it looked so incredible I decided I had to do some digging to see what I could find out about it. I eventually tracked the photos back to the Nevada Shelby Club, where I discovered that the photo was of the Missing Daytona Coupe. This story originally broke back in 2001, but I thought it was so interesting that I had to post it for anyone that missed it back then, those who might have forgotten about it or for those that were wondering what ended up happening with it.
The story behind this Shelby is almost as an incredible as the car itself is. Shelby’s Cobra was quite the force in racing, but they just couldn’t take on the best Ferrari had to offer. They had the power and handling but lacked the aerodynamics to achieve the kind of speeds the Ferraris could. So, Shelby set out to building 6 coupes with the help of Peter Brock. The one you see here is car CSX2287, the very first one built. It was the only one that was built entirely by Shelby, the other 5 were built in Italy.
After dominating in the 1965 racing season, CSX2287 set a couple land speed records at the Salt Flats and was then retired. In late ’65, it was sold to the founder of Russkits, a slot-car manufacturer for $4,500. A year later, it traded hands, this time to Phil Spector for around $12k. Spector drove it on the streets for a while, but it proved to be too uncomfortable for street use. He eventually sold it to his bodyguard, George Brand, for just $1,000. And this is where the story begins to get interesting. No one knows why or exactly when, but as some point in the early ’70s, Brand gave the car to his daughter, Donna O’Hara.
Calling O’Hara eccentric might be an understatement. A close childhood friend got the opportunity to drive it on a handful of occasions, but shortly after taking ownership of this Coupe, she put it into storage. No one knows why she took it off the road, but clearly, she didn’t want people to know she owned this history car. It didn’t take long for the rumors to start as to what happened to this Shelby. Some claimed that it had been destroyed, while others that Carroll Shelby had it hidden away somewhere. In reality, Donna had it hidden in a storage unit in Southern California, left to deteriorate.
There were many Shelby collectors that tracked Donna down to see if she still had the car and if so if she would sell it. Every time someone came knocking on her door, she would deny its very existence. Even Carroll Shelby approached her about buying it, and like usual, she denied owning it and told him to move along. That didn’t stop serious collectors from continuing their pursuit of CSX2287. For whatever reason, Donna decided life wasn’t worth living, even after receiving some serious cash offers for the car. On October 22, 2000, Donna apparently lit herself on fire. With her passing, ownership of the car came into question and a legal battle between Donna’s parents, her childhood friend and Phil Spector (who claimed to have never sold it to Brand) ensued.
After a lengthy legal battle, it was decided the car legally belonged to Donna’s friend, Kurt Goss. Her mother had already sold the car to a neurosurgeon for $4 million, so she had to pay Goss $800k as part of the settlement, taking up much of what was left of the money. Talk about a strange and dramatic story. The only bright side, if there is one, is that the lost Cobra is no long hidden from the world. Today you can see this incredible car at the Simeone Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.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.
The events this week in the Mahabad area of Iran’s Western Azerbaijan province cast light on the difficult situation faced by one of the region’s least-noticed minorities – the Kurds of Iran.
The apparent attempt by an intelligence officer in Mahabad to rape an Iranian-Kurdish hotel worker, 25-year-old Farinaz Khosrawani, and the latter’s subsequent suicide by jumping from a fourth-floor window, led to furious protests by Kurds in both Mahabad and beyond.
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The hotel was burned by protesters; authorities responded heavy-handedly, using rubber bullets and tear gas.There is currently a media and social media blackout from the area, but word-of-mouth reports suggest the situation remains tense.Soran Khedri, a former official of the Iranian-Kurdish Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) organization, told The Jerusalem Post that at least one demonstrator has died, and that in the last 48 hours, PJAK guerrillas had attacked an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps checkpoint in the area, killing two IRGC personnel.The Kurds of Iraq and Syria have become highly significant and visible players on the regional stage over the last decade. Turkey’s Kurds, of course, have long been noted internationally – because of the insurgency of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) against a succession of governments in Ankara.But the Kurds of Iran have been the most silent of Kurdish populations.Numbering around 8 million in total, they are mainly resident in the Kordestan province of western Iran (adjoining Iraqi Kurdistan), one of the country’s most impoverished regions; Kurdish populations are also to be found in Western Azerbaijan, Ilam and Kermanshah. Unemployment in Kordestan Province stands at 28 percent; there is little local industry.The Iranian Kurds were not always politically silent.Mahabad was the location of the short-lived Mahabad Republic – the only example of full Kurdish sovereignty in the 20th century. The republic was declared in January 1946, and destroyed by the Iranians in December of that year.But under the Islamic Republic, the Kurds have faced repression of the most severe kind. A largescale revolt against the new regime, led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (PDKI), was crushed with great severity in the period immediately following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The IRGC killed over 10,000 Kurds as it fought to destroy the nascent Kurdish independence movement; the insurgency was largely defeated by 1983.The suppression of any hint of Kurdish separatism has remained in place ever since. Education in Kurdish remains forbidden; any sign of attempts at political organization is ruthlessly suppressed by the Revolutionary Guards.The hostility of the Iranian regime to the slightest hint of separatism derives not solely or mainly from ethnic tensions between Persians and Kurds. Even the most modest Kurdish demands for greater local autonomy raise the specter for the regime of ethnic separatism. Iran is a divided society ethnically, with only 49 percent of the population consisting of ethnic Persians; the rest are a mixture of Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds and Arabs.Thus, the brutal and total repression of Kurdish demands is an indication not of the regime’s strength, but of its potential weakness. Tehran fears that were the demands of one minority ethnicity to be accommodated – even partially – this would risk opening the floodgates for other demands.In 2004, a new Iranian Kurdish insurgency began.This was led by PJAK, PKK’s franchise among the Iranian Kurds. From the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan, PJAK sought to strike at the Iranian authorities while its cadres worked among the population, seeking to build clandestine support.A shaky, on/off cease-fire has persisted between PJAK and the Iranian authorities since 2011, after a large-scale incursion by the IRGC into Iraqi Kurdistan led to fierce battles. But PJAK remains armed and deployed along the border, able to exploit any breakdown of regime control in the Kurdish areas.Alongside PJAK, the PDKI remains active, as do a number of parties claiming the mantle of the Komala Movement, a once-influential leftist force among the Iranian Kurds.Severe repression, divided politics and a long period of apparent quiescence were followed by sudden, unexpected anger precipitated by an unforeseen event. This is what is currently taking place in Iranian Kurdistan; it sounds, in all particulars, a familiar story in the Middle East of the last half-decade.So, are the events in Mahabad a prelude to some larger movement or unrest among the Iranian Kurds? An Iranian-Kurdish lawyer with good connections in the Mahabad area told the Post that the current wave of acrimony looked set to “ebb away.” He noted that the protests “in support of Mahabad spread only to a few other cities, like Sardasht and Mariwan.”Nevertheless, he also asserted that the protests were an indicator of “vast anti-regime sentiments” among Iran’s Kurdish population.As of now, the Mahabad situation appears to have been contained by the Iranian authorities, yet the events are an indication of the inner fragility of the Iranian regime. Even as Tehran invests in spreading its influence across the region, Mahabad is a reminder that its position at home is by no means secure, or consolidated.Rather, it rules over large swathes of the Iranian population by force and coercion alone. It is therefore vulnerable to internal subversion – and the more it spreads its assets thinly, by involvement in ever-more regional arenas, the fewer resources it will have available for dealing with internal unrest.Rodi Hevian, a Kurdish journalist at the online Kurdish Daily News, likened the Mahabad events to the short-lived uprising by Syrian Kurds in the city of al-Qamishli in 2004. Though quickly (and bloodily) repressed by the Assad regime, the Qamishli events were in retrospect a first tremor for what was to come in Syria.“It could also be a wake-up call for the Iranian regime interfering in Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” Hevian told the Post, “namely, gaining ground in other countries can lead to losing ground at home.”Of course, for the Iranians to begin paying a price of this kind, it is necessary that the Iranian Kurds and other minorities begin to receive the attention and support of regional enemies of Iran, and of the West.For this to happen, in turn, there needs to be a recognition of the urgent necessity of containing and turning back Iranian regional ambitions; no such awareness currently exists in Western capitals.Following June 30 – at the conclusion of Tehran’s nuclear agreement with the P5+1 world powers – the pressure on the Iranians may be vastly reduced. Abandonment of sanctions would enable the regime to begin to channel greater resources to areas of instability, and to seek to buy off discontent.Still, in Middle Eastern capitals, both the Iranian threat and the Iranian vulnerability do not go unnoticed.The mullahs and the IRGC are not all-powerful; the tremor in Mahabad indeed reveals just how notably shallow their rule is.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Starting next week, longtime listeners of WABE-FM (90.1) should expect less Bach and Brahms and more Beltline and Kasim.
On Jan. 12, Atlanta’s oldest public radio station will politely sweep classical music to a digital channel and roll out more news, arts, and culture programming. Station officials have begun that ambitious push by hiring a news director with a big-public radio pedigree and spending more than $500,000 to hire nearly a dozen reporters. Let the competition begin.
The unprecedented expansion of on-air offerings is the first counter-punch to Georgia Public Broadcasting's entry into Atlanta's public radio realm. Though WABE officials say the changes are part of a long-planned strategic shift, hundreds of internal emails obtained by Creative Loafing show that the 66-year-old station has the state-backed broadcaster on its mind — and big plans for 2015.
On May 6, the day GPB announced the WRAS deal, a barrage of consultants, staffers from other public radio institutions, and other supporters offered support and services to WABE management. GPB’s now-former Chief Operating Officer Bob Olive emailed WABE COO John Weatherford with an offer to talk about the deal. Former GPB news director Susanna Capelouto, who left in 2011 to work for CNN Radio, sent Weatherford a message to discuss the deal’s implications. Weatherford fired off several emails to the station’s contacts with National Public Radio, American Public Media, and Public Radio International.
“Were you aware of this?” Weatherford wrote in multiple emails to those WABE content providers. He further inquired, “Should(n’t we already have) talk(ed)?”
Mac Holladay, one board member overseeing WABE, described GPB’s deal as both a “frontal assault” and a “direct attack.” In an email to WABE CEO Milton Clipper, board member Charles E. Taylor feared that GPB would “kill” WABE in daytime news programing.
“We were too late to the party,” Taylor wrote.
“Never panic and always keep your pants on!” Clipper replied, adding that station officials would need to accelerate the rollout of their strategic plan.
Following the WRAS deal announcement, numerous WABE listeners wrote to station officials urging them to remain committed to classical music, despite a continuing national trend to drop such programming in favor of news. Others sought clarification about WABE’s role in the deal. Some sustaining members called and emailed station officials asking to immediately cancel their membership, mistakenly thinking that WABE was affiliated with GPB.
WABE officials several days later responded with a post, titled “WABE Stays the Course,” that pledged to “continue to provide the high quality news, arts and cultural programming that listeners have come to rely on” from the station. It also explained how GPB was a separate, unaffiliated organization.
WABE management that month watched how people negatively responded to the GPB deal, emailing each other excerpts from comment sections and noting calls to boycott the state media network. They also asked WABE listeners for their thoughts about the deal — and whether they preferred listening to news or classical music. Based on the survey results, officials concluded in a report that shifting away from classical music to more news programming would have a greater most long-term benefit for the station.
Station officials slowly took steps to respond to GPB, which had set the ambitious goal of poaching at least 15 percent of WABE’s audience within one year, according to WABE Director of Radio Production David Barasoain. WABE board member Andrew Feiler urged station officials to accelerate plans with “more sweeping change than was previously envisioned.”
In an email to Weatherford, a fundraising consultant began discussing “counter-moves” including the expansion of news programming, looking into exclusive radio syndication partnerships, and branding initiatives distinguishing the station from its new competition. WABE’s COO requested an internal report outlining “worst, best, and middle”-case scenarios for how WRAS would impact the station’s membership levels.
GPB debuted on WRAS at the end of June. WABE’s board, following multiple committee meetings to discuss the station’s response, published an open letter in early July that lambasted GPB execs for unnecessarily duplicating nationally syndicated programming already available to local listeners, its wasteful use of taxpayer dollars, and the silencing of diverse student programming on WRAS. They urged station officials to cancel the deal altogether or alter its plans significantly to complement WABE’s mission. GPB Board Chairman Michael McDougald replied in another letter saying that the state media network was “responding to the high demand we have heard for years.”
WABE station officials then ramped up efforts leading to its eventual programming shift. They agreed to pay local nonprofit consultant Pam Sugarman $8,000 to help implement WABE’s strategic plan over the course of 2014. Several people from other news outlets — Global Atlanta’s Kiplyn Primus, longtime Atlanta journalist Maria Saporta, and ArtsATL’s Cathy Fox — all reached out to WABE about potential collaborations.
Meanwhile, Weatherford began interviewing candidates to permanently lead its newsroom, including John Haas, a seven-year “Marketplace” veteran who had edited WABE reporter segments for national broadcasts. In his cover letter, he pledged to help “transform the station as GPB enters the Atlanta market.” WABE offered Haas the position in early August. He formally started his new role in late September. Longtime WABE journalist Charles Edwards, who became the station’s interim news director in February 2013, left two months ago to join Atlanta-based public relations firm Jackson Spalding.
In September, WABE Chief Financial Officer Tina Arbes finalized the station’s financial plans for the 2015 fiscal year. Public Broadcasting Atlanta, WABE’s parent organization, would operate with a $13.5 million budget that came with goals to nearly double sustaining membership revenue while maintaining ad rates despite having a new direct competitor. The station would invest $561,000 into a new initiative that calls for the creation of 13 additional positions, according to Arbes.
WABE management during the fall held meetings to finalize the newsroom expansion and discuss how to announce the changes. Haas visited with KPCC-FM (89.3) officials and staffers to learn more about the California station’s operations and past expansion plans, which included a capital campaign to fund new reporter positions. Weatherford, stressing the immediate need to hire more than a half-dozen new staffers, told Haas that WABE should explore a similar model once the programming changes took place.
Officials wanted listeners to view the lineup changes as a further commitment to local news, arts, and culture coverage — not a move made in response to GPB. They also hoped to promote to the programming shift as a positive move for classical music fans by giving the genre more overall airtime. Before the station issued a press release trumpeting the change, CL reported in a Nov. 6 story that “Second Cup Concerts” and “City Café” would no longer be available on WABE’s primary broadcast. The news prompted backlash from some of the station’s devout classical music fans.
“Guys, I thought our message was that these changes had been in the works for a long time and were driven by our strategy and not by GPB’s actions,” Feiler wrote in an email asking about the CL story. “… The message here is inconsistent with the messaging strategy as I understood it.”
Officials followed the announcement by distributing an internal document that explained to staffers how the changes to WABE would be “investing in what listeners want most” while ensuring that classical music “will continue to have a place” with the station. The document also emphasizes that WABE’s changes did not come in response to GPB and addresses the future of Reitzes.
“We hope Lois will continue to be with WABE for years to come,” the document says. “Lois plays a key role in our new plan.”
Since then, WABE has hired new reporters (Amy Kiley, Molly Samuel, Tasnim Shamma), promoted at least one freelancer to a full-time staff position, and bolstered its stable of freelancers. New local contributors most notably include Capelouto as a part-time freelancer and Saporta as a weekly guest contributor. In the coming weeks, officials are expected to hire several more reporters, including two journalists for the overnight shift.
After months of planning, WABE listeners will be able to hear more local news than at any point since the station’s inception in the late 1940s. Current “Morning Edition” host Steve Goss will be on the air for an additional hour, Reitzes will debut a two-hour arts and culture show, and local “All Things Considered” host Denis O’Hayer and producer Rose Scott will commandeer a two-hour afternoon slot for a “newsmagazine” program featuring in-depth analysis and long-form reporting.
Much like GPB’s Atlanta debut forced an influential independent institution off the air, WABE’s next phase also has consequences. The sounds of classical music that once defined WABE’s airwaves throughout late mornings and early afternoons will be available only on the station’s digital WABE: Classics subchannel.
Those changes, which are probably unpopular with older, deep-pocketed classical music fans, could undermine the station’s lofty membership goals. But with GPB nipping at its heels, WABE has finally doubled down on news. Though officials at both stations are quick to note that most major metro markets have two healthy stations, the upcoming year could decide whether that holds true in Atlanta. As a station manager from WBUR-FM (90.9), one of two public radio stations in Boston, told Weatherford on the day GPB’s WRAS deal became public: “Welcome to the jungle.”"This medal has brought success to Vitali and me. It has become the basis of our professional success and key that opened a lot of doors for us. Our dream has become a reality. And thanks to the funds that were paid for the medal by the benefactor, we will also [help] the dreams of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. On behalf of these children, their parents and teachers, I thank you for the wellbeing of the people," Wladimir said.
The Klitschko brothers held a charitable auction in Kiev, Ukraine. Wladimir Klitschko, the WBO/IBO/IBF/WBA heavyweight champion, auctioned off his 1996 Olympic gold medal, which a buyer bid $1 million dollars to win. However, immediately after the sale the buyer returned the medal to Wladimir as a token of respect, because he wants the medal to remain in the Klitschko family. Wladimir was moved by the buyer's unbelievable gesture.
[QUOTE=AssasinKing;11951942]Nice of Wlad Klitschko....and even more the man who paid the 1mil to charity and gave him his medal back[/QUOTE] My first thought is that both guys are crazy then I realized I'm a normal person compared to both guys.
Nice of Wlad Klitschko....and even more the man who paid the 1mil to charity and gave him his medal back
[QUOTE=Own3d;11951246]Wlad obviously didn't think that much of it or he would have donated money instead of auctioning it.[/QUOTE] You would negatively spin this wouldn't you? What a hater. You probably hate him because he's Ukrainian or something.
[QUOTE=Medved;11950724][IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/35002z4.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Exactly, lol. That was epic.
[QUOTE=Scrubber;11951785]what great role models the Klitchkos are in sports and in life. They are just what an athlete and champion is supposed to represent in life. Clean cut intelligent well educated well versed and complete gentlemen. No tattoos marring these…Nick Fetty | July 1, 2014
Heavy precipitation and severe storms have caused flash floods, power outages, and other issues as approximately 2.5 inches of rain fell in Iowa City Monday afternoon.
The series of storms – known as a “derecho” – also produced gusts as high as 64 miles per hour which contributed to power loss for thousands in the Iowa City-Coralville area. As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, the Iowa River in Iowa City stood at 22.39 feet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday that it would increase the Coralville Reservoir’s outflow from 7,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 10,000 cfs beginning Tuesday. Efforts have been made to protect various University of Iowa buildings, including the flood-prone Mayflower Residence Hall on North Dubuque Street.
The severe weather has also impacted other parts of the state such as near Fairfax, where a building collapse has caused one death. Search efforts are currently underway for a Cedar Rapids teenager who is missing after being swept into a storm sewer while several were injured during a Cedar Rapids Kernels game last night. Hail ravaged western parts of the state while heavy winds and possible tornadoes hit central Iowa.
Governor Branstad has issued a disaster proclamation for several central and eastern Iowa counties including Adair, Cedar, Guthrie, Jones, and Linn.
For more information about flooding across the state, check out the Iowa Flood Information System.The Immigration Minister has defended efforts to get New Zealand job seekers into the regions, saying the government needs to look at why they are not taking up available work.
Labour Party leader Andrew Little told Morning Report today the government should make getting young New Zealanders into work a priority, and reduce the number of work visas issued for labouring jobs.
Prime Minister John Key has admitted high immigration is putting a strain on the country's infrastructure, but said the government would continue to bring in large numbers to fill jobs given the difficulties of getting beneficiaries into seasonal work. Orchardists and grape growers have backed up Mr Key's comments.
Mr Little said Labour was happy with the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme |
Salinas sent you her manuscript.
From Correspondence, 1932-1960: Albert Camus & Jean Grenier. Annotated by Marguerite Dobrenn. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2003. p. 131.
FURTHER READING
Camus as playwright rather than philosopher.
The State of Siege and the limits of destruction.The college football season will put an end to the slow sprawl of the summer sports season Thursday night when sixteen games involving Division 1 FBS teams kick off starting at 7:00pm. Virginia fans will behold the start of the Bronco Mendenhall era on Saturday at 3:30, when the Cavaliers take the field at Scott Stadium to face the Richmond Spiders. The beginning of football season marks the grand opening of the college sports season. Sure, there’s a soft opening when the soccer teams kick things off in late August, but the return of college football Saturdays is the true grand opening with fireworks and motorcycles jumping over fountains. From the time college sports departed our consciousness in June, the world has become quite a bit stranger, and college football is a perfect companion for a world that seems to be slowly devolving into a Stanley Kubrick film.
Consider trying to explain the entire collegiate gridiron enterprise to an outsider. The teams are chartered and run by educational institutions. The coaches are the highest paid employees at these institutions, despite their job having absolutely nothing to do with the core mission of their employer. The programs at the top of sport rake in millions of dollars, and the programs not at the top would gladly sell any number of academic buildings to join them. The players that are on the playing field are compensated with an education that may or may not be worthless depending on how much their chosen school values their academic integrity.
The fans are, for the most part, completely deranged. They stand in parking lots socializing hours before the game is scheduled to start. They burn the better part of the weekend on internet forums rehashing in excruciating detail the game they all just watched. They obsess over the college decisions of teenagers, only to wish ill on said teenager if they fail to live up to the impossible hopes set for them in the first fifteen minutes of his first game. They harbor rivalries with a bloodlust usually reserved for Viking raiders. Poor Paul Ryan discovered as much when he tried to unite his Republican troops in Cleveland by likening it to Texas A&M fans that would surely root for Texas in a national title game. The next day he doubled down by asking if NC State fans would support UNC in a championship game.
Stay in the shallows of DC, Congressman. You know nothing of the insanity that lurks in these depths.
If we set out to design an intermediate step between the Friday night small town tradition of high school football and the bright lights of the NFL, it would take the most twisted mind to come up with something remotely resembling what we have – and yet here we are. College football is the intersection of a pastime that metastasized into a monstrous industry and a higher education system in the throes of a severe identity crisis. It’s the greatest monument to inertia ever created. It’s a cute puppy that you brought home, only it’s grown up into a grizzly bear and it wants to sleep in your bed.
It is in this sea of madness that Bronco Mendenhall now embarks at the helm of the Virginia football team. His charge is clear: Win without cutting corners. He’s put on a master class in the offseason of managing expectations without casting a pall of gloom over a program that had more than its fair share of the stuff. For a fanbase that had gotten used to fundamental breakdowns, seeing Mendenhall’s incremental focus on doing things correctly and parceling rewards out accordingly has been a welcome breath of fresh air. That the head coach walked into the role and immediately recognized that his first job was to rebuild the mental fortitude in his players was heartening. The prior coaching staff always seemed to be harried, overwhelmed by the task in front of them. Mendenhall and his staff have been calm and confident – the perfect tone for Virginia at this point.
Once the ball goes into the air, however, the talk is over and the results emerge. Many a promising offseason has given way to panic before Labor Day. The Cavaliers are in for bumps this year. The roster is thin at key positions. The team’s talent on paper is outclassed by most of the rest of the ACC. In-state recruiting has atrophied to the point where the top Virginia high school players barely glance in the general direction of Charlottesville before packing the car and heading down I-95. None of these things can be fixed in 8 months.
Tony Bennett won half his games in his first two years at Virginia, but in retrospect something was clear in those first two seasons. The man knew what he was doing. When the craziness of college football season gives way to the madness of basketball in January, let us hope that we have drawn a similar conclusion regarding Mendenhall.
This sport may be run by a horde of hopelessly corrupt thieves in suits, its administration riddled with inconsistencies, and its unhealthy prominence frequently reveals the absolute worst of human nature, but there’s nothing else like it in this country of ours, and the season is over before you know it. Enjoy it, Virginia fans.Pythons are not venomous and generally no threat to humans A gang brandishing a snake as a 'weapon' attacked a 14-year-old boy with a 4ft (1.2m) python, forcing the reptile to bite the teenager's arm. Police suspect the attack, in Bradley Stoke, South Gloucestershire, may have had a racist element to it and officers are appealing for witnesses. The boy was pinned to the floor on Saturday afternoon, as one gang member forced the green python to attack. Two youths aged 16 and 17, both boys, are being questioned. The teenager was taken to Frenchay Hospital for checks. Ambush predators Police and the RSPCA are now investigating the incident, which took place at about 1500 BST. Paramedics who attended the scene were left baffled by the injury and called Bristol Zoo for advice. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. A spokesman for Great Western Ambulance service (GWAS) said: "Ambulance staff consulted Google and Bristol Zoo experts after a teenager was attacked by a group of youths." The spokesman added that the group forced the snake to bite the boy on the arm, leaving two puncture wounds. Pythons are ambush predators which rely on crushing their prey, and are not venomous. GWAS incident support officer Michael Howells, who was at the scene, said: "Although the patient was suffering breathing difficulties after the attack, this was probably due to panic rather than a reaction to the bite. I would probably be panicky if that happened to me." An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said: "The teenager had been subject to racist comments and was then reportedly held down as a snake was held in front of him, which bit his right arm. "The boy was taken to Frenchay Hospital with breathing problems, where he was treated for the injury to his arm. "Police would like to hear from anyone who was in Merryweather Close at the time of the incident."
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionNorthern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster has hit out at John McDonnell's "horrific" praise for the IRA in the past.
The Shadow Chancellor once called for members of the Republican terror group who died during the Troubles to be "honoured".
Speaking in 2003, he said: "It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table."
He has since apologised, claiming he had merely been trying to keep the peace process on track.
Mr McDonnell has also been accused of telling a meeting in London in 1989 that the "ballot, the bullet and the bomb" should be used to unite Ireland. His spokesman has said he has "no recollection" of making the remarks.
At a fringe event at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, DUP leader Ms Foster - who held talks with Theresa May this morning - said she did not have "any relationship with Jeremy Corbyn".
She added: "I certainly don't have any relationship with his Chancellor either, who has made some horrific comments in the past about Northern Ireland and I don't know how that will work in the future.
"Obviously some of my parliamentary colleagues are here, I leave it up to them to say how they work with the Labour party.
"But the Labour party has transformed in a way that I think is very regrettable for the people of the United Kingdom and it will be a long time before there's a Labour government in place again."
BREXIT
Ms Foster also took a swipe at John Major and Tony Blair for their "ill-advised" attempt to persuade voters in Northern Ireland to reject Brexit.
The pair made a joint appearance in Northern Ireland shortly before the 23 June referendum warning that a vote to leave would "jeapordise the unity" of the UK and put Northern Ireland's future at risk.
The first minister said: "Whoever advised John Major and Tony Blair to come to our second city in Londonderry and make that speech, it was very, very bad advice.
"I certainly know that speaking to a lot of people, particularly unionists, they were outraged by their visit. They came along and said the peace process was going to be ripped apart by the very fact that we were leaving the European Union institutions. I've always said that we haven't left Europe, we have left the European Union institutions.
"To suggest that somehow people like myself and others who have worked for so many years to have a political process in Northern Ireland, that all of a sudden because we decided as a nation to leave the European Union that the peace process was going to fall apart, clearly did not have an understanding of what people were doing in Northern Ireland.
"For two people who were closely involved in Northern Ireland, it was hugely disappointing."
PACT
Ms Foster also dropped a huge hint that her party's eight MPs will give their support to the Conservatives in knife-edge Commons votes, helping to increase the Government's slim majority.
She said the DUP would back Theresa May over Brexit and her plans to expand grammar schools, and would work with the Conservatives in other areas as well.
"I have said I will do whatever is in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland," Ms Foster said. "That has always been my mantra and if that means working closely with the Government, so be it.
"It's not a small 'p' pact. What we're doing is what's right for Northern Ireland, talking to the Government and making sure the Prime Minister is aware of what the issues are in terms of Northern Ireland."Justice was sometimes meted out in an arbitrary and indiscriminate fashion, or so it seemed in October 1899 when Fred Mason was given a five-year sentence to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Jewelry and “trinkets” belonging to a white man, J. M. Golledge, were apparently found in Fred’s possession. He claimed the actual thief was a man named George Carpenter however he pleaded guilty to burglary. He was probably hoping that, given his youth, Judge Townsend of Chickasha, Indian Territory, would be lenient. Clearly Fred misjudged the judge.
Fred arrived at Leavenworth on October 9, 1899. He was 16-years-old, 5 foot 6 inches tall and weighed 130 pounds. Born in Texas, Fred had no education and left home at the age of 12. Prior to prison he worked as a hotel waiter and a bootblack.
During his year and a half stay at Leavenworth he was put into solitary confinement 11 times for talking (which was never allowed), laughing, using foul language, marching out of step and loafing when he was supposed to be working. Given that Leavenworth housed some of the hardest criminals in America, it’s impossible not to wonder if Fred’s tendency to break the rules wasn’t actually a desperate attempt to get himself removed from the rest of the inmate population and, consequently, out of harm’s way.
Fred’s last stay in solitary lasted almost a month, from December 19, 1900, to January 17, 1901. It’s likely that shortly after he got out of solitary he was moved to the hospital because Fred had a serious case of tuberculosis. In fact it’s almost certain that at times when the guards claimed he was avoiding his tasks he was actually too weak to work.
On April 6, 1901, Fred Mason died at the Leavenworth Prison Hospital. His cause of death was listed as “tabes mesenterica,” which, in layman’s terms, means he literally wasted away. An autopsy found that tuberculosis lesions were spread throughout his abdomen — he had probably been unable to eat for weeks, maybe months. His heart was described as “small and flabby” and his aortic valve was narrowed, probably also a result of his tuberculosis.
The Leavenworth warden, Robert W. McClaughry, told Fred’s mother that her son suffered shortness of breath and had gone deaf before he died. Perhaps trying to ease a mother’s grief over the loss of her only son, he also noted that Fred “did not suffer much pain.” McClaughry had arrived at Leavenworth just three months before Fred Mason became an inmate. A reformer in the field of penal correction, the 60-year-old McClaughry believed that prisons could work to improve their inmate’s lives, not simply punish them. He also introduced Bertillon’s system of cataloging suspects and criminals into the United States and it’s likely that McClaughry initiated the process of taking inmate photos at Leavenworth.
McClaughry was writing to Fred’s mother, in part, because he needed to know what the family wanted done with the body. Rutha Mason wrote back, thanking McClaughry for letting her know right away that her only son had died and for his “kindness to Fred.” She wanted to know if Fred had left any final words for his family. McClaughry wrote back to say that he had been unconscious for three days prior to his death and had been unable to speak.
The Mason family was too poor to afford to have their son’s body returned to Texas, so his mother requested that prison officials “bury Freddie there.” She mentioned that she had made every effort possible to get him a pardon but had been unsuccessful. The warden reassured her that her son’s grave would be marked with a “neat headstone, so that if any time his friends desire to remove his remains, they can be identified and obtained.”
Currently Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary maintains a cemetery for prisoners but it is not accessible to the public nor does it contain any headstones.
Featured photo: Fred Mason, Leavenworth Penitentiary Inmate Photograph, 1899. Collection of NARA-Kansas city.← Sidebar
The Russian Imperial Army was the land army of the Russian Empire. Since the second half of the 19th century, the army was formed on the basis of conscription.
The entire male population was subject to compulsory military service from the age of 21. The term of active service in the land army was 6 years, in the Navy – 7 years.
In 1898, the Russian Imperial Army was the largest army in Europe, and therefore in the world. In peacetime, it had 946 thousand people (0.84% of the population of the country), in time of war, its size increased to 2,729 thousand.
The following unique photos taken at the end of the 19th century show various kinds of troops of the Russian army – great variety of uniforms, small details, faces of the people living at that time.
The second part of unique photos of the Russian Imperial Army
Tags: Russian Empire
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If the UFC gets its wish, the winner of that heavyweight fight, which pits No. 5 ranked Travis Browne against No. 6 ranked Josh Barnett, will meet No. 2 ranked Fabricio Werdum in a fight that could determine who will face UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez when he returns from shoulder surgery in late 2014.
Browne (15-1-1) was matched up against Barnett (33-6) after his come from behind win over Alistair Overeem at UFC Fight Night 26. Early in that fight it looked like Browne was not going to make it out of the first round.
Overeem had Browne against the cage, delivering several knees to the body that dropped Browne to the mat. With Browne on his hands and knees against the fence, Overeem proceeded to tee off with rights to Browne's head, looking to finish the fight. As Browne covered up attempting to defend the blows, referee Mario Yamasaki leaned in looking for a sign as whether the fight should continue. During the Countdown to UFC 168, Browne described what happened next, "All of a sudden a big, huge feeling of disappointment came over me when I thought about my kids, and thinking about their dad losing like that off of body shots. It's like there's no way their dad is going to lose like this."
Shortly after that epiphany, Browne was able to regain his feet while Overeem continued to throw shots to Browne's head. When Browne fully regained his feet, he landed a combination that provided separation from Overeem. Browne was able to take advantage of the space his striking afforded, landing a front kick that put Overeem down, where Browne pounced and finished the fight with punches.
The knockout at 4:08 of the first round earned Browne his fourth fight night bonus in eight UFC bouts, and second consecutive Knockout of the Night award.
Browne's inspiration during the Overeem fight, his two sons, Kaleo and Keawe are the reason he is gunning for a win over Barnett and eventual UFC gold, "I want to give my kids the opportunities that I didn't (have), that's all," said the 31-year-old contender.
UFC 168 takes place on December 28 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV.INDEPENDENCE, Ohio - LeBron James said "I feel good" and declared himself active for the Cavaliers' season opener Tuesday against Chicago.
James, who practiced for the first time Sunday after nearly two weeks off following an anti-inflammatory injection in his back, wanted to see how he recovered from that workout before making any final declarations.
Following the Cavs' practice Monday, James declared "I'm ready to go" and said "nope" when asked if he ever truly doubted he'd play against the Bulls.
Cleveland coach David Blatt said there wouldn't be any specific minutes restriction on James, but "we'll be cautious, and careful, and not overplay him."
James' status for the season opener - he's yet to miss one as he enters his 13th year - turned into a song and dance over the past several days with Blatt stating "absolutely" that his star player would be ready early last week.
James told the Northeast Ohio Media Group Friday he wouldn't "put all my eggs in one basket" to play in the opener, and expressed similar caution in a group interview that day.
This is the second time in 10 months James took about two weeks off after receiving an injection his ailing back. The last time he did it, in January, the results were stellar when he returned.
James' last game before his two-week hiatus last season was Dec. 28. In the two weeks before he sat down to formally rest and rehabilitate back and knee strains, he averaged 24.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 7.8 assists while shooting 48.2 percent from the field.
He scored 34.9 percent of his points from the paint in those two weeks. Keep that in mind.
When James returned following the injection, on Jan. 13 in Phoenix, he averaged 30.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 6.3 assists over the next seven games. His shooting percentage jumped to 51.7 percent, and, most telling, he scored 45.3 percent of his points inside the lane.
Additionally, there was an eye test James was failing before he went out and passed with flying colors upon his return. He was quicker, dunking more often, getting more lift on his jump shot. And he was more aggressive getting into the key - his scoring and rebounding numbers are proof.
James' two weeks out of practice this time was a little different, he was more active working and shooting on the side, but he and the Cavs are counting on him to return with a similar burst.
But how long will it last? James' numbers from Jan. 13 through the end of the season, were close to what they were from the start of the season through Dec. 28. He finished averaging 25.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 7.4 assists.
The sorest spots for James from a year ago were his shooting percentage (48.8 percent) and turnovers (3.9 per game). It was the first time since 2007 that James experienced a dip in his shooting and the turnovers were a career high.
James reiterated what he told the Northeast Ohio Media Group last week, that some of his dips in production during the regular season should be attributed to a lack of comfort on a new team.
He won't have that problem when the Cavs take the floor in Chicago. Cleveland, of course, enters as the defending Eastern Conference champion with expectations of a repeat.Polish flags, white pride symbols and ski masks were obligatory in the streets of Warsaw on Monday afternoon. Fascists, nationalists and football ultras assembled for what looked like one of the largest far-right demonstrations to ever grace Europe's streets, with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people in attendance – up from last year's comparatively meagre 20,000. The police reinforced the Polish capital with thousands of officers, but the nationalists still managed to attack and torch the symbols of everything they hate: gays, lefties and Russians.
The march on November the 11th – like the one last year and the year before that – was a celebration of Polish Independence Day. It's organised by two far-right groups, The National Radical Camp – which takes its name and logo from a fascist, pre-war Polish party – and the All Polish Youth, which describes itself as a nationalist-Catholic organisation and fears that homosexuality might one day destroy the Polish Republic.
If the increasing numbers of neo-Nazis weren't enough to scare anti-fascists, gays, liberals, socialists and basically anyone who isn't a racist homophobe out of the city centre, the march surely was. Whoever planned the route clearly made sure it would touch on nearly everything that gets violent neo-Nazis all riled up.
For instance, the mob had only been marching for a few minutes when the more violent contingent – dozens of participants in masks – crashed through the line of stewards and stormed into a side street that houses a former clinic now being squatted by anarchists and anti-fascists. As was expected, the marchers quickly got to hurling pyrotechnics, stones and bottles at the building. The squatters responded by chucking miscellaneous objects at the crowd from the roof of the building. "If we hadn't defended ourselves, we might be dead now," one of the squatters told me the day after.
With the crowd in a boisterous enough mood to attack a bunch of well prepared squatters, I didn't hold out much hope for this rainbow, a monument to diversity – and, being a rainbow, associated with LGBT rights – made of paper flowers. Since it was erected two years ago, vandals have burned it down four times. The last reconstruction ended only last Friday.
Maybe they'd just walk by and leave it alone, I hoped.
Nope.
As the flames licked their way up the monument, I wondered if the next reconstruction should maybe involve a slightly less flammable material than paper.
People shouted: "God, honour and fatherland!" as the rainbow burned. Which was a convenient way to remind onlookers than the torching of the monument to tolerance was just as much about nationalism as it was about homophobia.
With the monument burned to ash, the demonstration began to approach the Russian embassy. As Polish nationalists haven't forgiven Russia for the Soviet occupation yet, rioters took the opportunity to dispose of their remaining pyrotechnics and set fire to the porter's lodge.
According to the Russian ambassador to Poland, there has only been one comparable attack on a Russian embassy in recent years – in Libya. The Russian foreign ministry demanded an official apology from the Polish government, and yesterday they got it.
Shortly after the attack on the embassy, the demonstration was officially disbanded by the Warsaw City administration. But I'm guessing – judging by the all the fire and destruction – the marchers went home satisfied.
By the end of the day there were 72 arrested demonstrators and 12 wounded policemen. But more importantly, the march and the increasing numbers it attracts every year demonstrates the worrying shift of attitudes throughout Europe. If being right wing is your bag, then be right wing. But setting fire to symbols of the LGBT community and trying to beat people up for living in abandoned buildings goes beyond politics and firmly into the realm of far-right extremism.
More Polish fascists:
Poland's Football Fascists Want to Fight You in the Forest
I Dodged Bullets at a Polish Fascists' Riot PartyDonald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE is slated to make an appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox News Wednesday night even as he plans to skip Thursday night's debate moderated by the cable network.
Trump's spokeswoman confirmed to The Hill that the presidential contender would make an appearance on O'Reilly's show, a day before the debate.
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The businessman has claimed unfair treatment from the network and has gone after host Megyn Kelly, calling her biased. His White House campaign has said he will host a competing event Thursday night.1. Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock in Safety Last! (1923)
2. Charlie Chaplin roller-skating in a department store in Modern Times (1936)
3. Colleen Moore's eye trick in Ella Cinders (1926)
4. Mary Pickford kisses herself on the cheek in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)
5. Douglas Fairbanks slides down a sail in The Black Pirate (1926)
6. Buster Keaton rides over a broken bridge in Sherlock Jr. (1924)
7. Jesus heals some lepers in Ben-Hur (1925)
When you can’t rely on a computer to improve (or fake) a movie scene, you gotta improvise. And back in the days of silent films, filmmakers were really, really good at coming up with creative ways to cook up special effects. It was a master class of using specific camera angles, splicing together shots, using glass matte paintings, and twisting perspectives to make things look as realistic as possible. Silent Movie GIFs is an excellent resource that reveals how things used to be done in the past. He detailed a lot of famous examples in a wonderful post here. It’s a fun read for anyone.Whenwas made, it wasn't feasible to insert a fake background using rear projection or a green screen, so they used a trick of perspective. The set was built at the right height for Lloyd's climb, but on the roof of a building across the street. As Lloyd climbed higher, the set was moved to taller buildings.A good example of the classic movie making technique of glass matte painting. Part of the background was painted on a piece of glass, which was placed in front of the camera.The two halves of her face were filmed separately, using a matte shot. Basically, a piece of glass with half the frame painted black was placed in front of the camera, so only one side the film was exposed. The film was then wound back, the glass was switched for one with black on the other side. The key was to avoid having either the camera or the Moore's face shift in position while shooting, or the effect would be ruined.Seeing two Mary Pickfords in the same shot wasn't anything new for audiences, it was also done in Stella Maris three years prior. Decades earlier, Georges Méliès had figured out how to appear multiple times in one shot by using mattes and double exposure. But in a normal double exposure, the actor can't move from one part of the frame to another without ruining the effect.Famed cinematographer Charles Rosher achieved the effect of having Pickford move behind her own face by having a very detailed silhouette of Pickford painted on glass, and using a metal frame that prevented the camera from moving. The three-second shot took 15 hours of work to get right.The method for achieving this much copied shot was figured out by Fairbanks's brother Robert, an engineer. The camera and the sail were both placed at an angle. Fairbanks's knife was connected to a hidden pulley and counterweight. Airplane propellers were used to make the sails billow.Another matte shot. The bottom of the frame was blacked out, lining up with the top of the bridge, and Keaton was filmed riding while the bridge was still intact. The footage of the trucks was filmed separately with part of the bridge removed. Getting the timing right must have been tough.The part at the end isn't a camera trick, Keaton actually did that.Karl Struss, another famous cinematographer, developed a technique using a colour filter to achieve this effect. When the filter was adjusted, the women's leper makeup was no longer visible on film. Struss used the same technique, in reverse, for the famous transformation scene in(1931).(via Sploid/GizmodoIf you measure America’s well-being by the nation’s overall wealth, these are the best days ever.
But does it feel that way? Obviously not. Disaffected working- and middle-class voters just sent a bomb-thrower at the White House, to dismantle institutions they feel are failing. Economic alienation fuels white supremacists who feel everybody’s getting ahead but them. Roughly 10 million working-age men who ought to be in the labor force are sitting at home instead. An astonishing 60% of Americans feel the nation is on the wrong track.
What, exactly, is the problem? How can the nation be so rich, yet so torn? It starts with the concentration of all that wealth, which resides with a smaller portion of the population than it has in decades. Consumers also feel more jittery about the economy than they used to, revealing long-lasting scars from the housing bust and financial meltdown nearly a decade ago. Government policies haven’t helped much, with many Americans convinced Washington has made the middle class worse off, not better off, while further enriching a ruling class that needs the money least.
[See how much it takes to be rich in America these days.]
First, the good news. The high-flying stock market, combined with a steady recovery in home prices during the last several years, has pushed total household net worth in the United States to about $95 trillion — nearly $30 trillion more than before the last recession began in 2007. As a percentage of disposable income, household net worth just hit a new peak, which means that wealth in the United States relative to the size of the population is now at the highest level on record. We’re rich!
Household net worth as a percentage of disposable income. More
Or rather, a few of us are rich. Bank of America Merrill Lynch points out that, like income, wealth in the United States is held by a declining percentage of the population. In 1992, 54% of all financial wealth was held by the top 10% of earners; today 63% is. The latest numbers from Gallup show that just 52% of Americans own stocks — the lowest percentage on record — down from 65% in 2007.
Home equity is a larger source of wealth for many middle-class families than financial assets, but the trend here is discouraging, too. According to BAML data, the top 10% of earners now control 30% of household wealth, up from 25% in 1992. The homeownership rate, normally around 65%, peaked at 69.2% in 2004, during the housing boom, then bottomed out at 63.4% in 2015, as millions foreclosed or found themselves locked out of the housing market by tight credit or affordability problems. The homeownership rate has only recently begun to tick back up.
More evidence the rich are getting richer. More
The bottom-line story is a familiar one: The rich are getting richer, with the middle and lower classes missing out on most of the gains. Widespread frustration with a backsliding middle class is one of the forces that helped Donald Trump win the presidency last year. And now, the same phenomenon is hamstringing the very economy Trump has vowed to shake from the doldrums. While job creation has been strong, wages are rising slowly, consumers remain reluctant to spend and growth is stuck around 2% per year, a solid percentage point short of the robust growth rates of the 1980s and ‘90s.
The rich don’t spend based on market performance
BAML links growing wealth inequality with relatively weak consumer spending — which would normally be stronger at such high levels of overall wealth. The reason it’s not is that affluent people enjoying most of the wealth gains are less likely to spend the extra money than lower-income folks on a budget. The “wealth effect” is supposed to make consumers more optimistic and willing to spend when their home equity rises or the value of their investing or retirement portfolio goes up. But since the wealthy generally have everything they want, they’re less likely to splurge based on the direction of the stock or housing market. And lower-income people aren’t going to spend more if they don’t feel wealthier.We are proud to share that two spotted hyenas have been introduced to the Kilimanjaro Safaris savanna at Disney’s Animal Kingdom! The hyenas were first introduced to the savanna last week and appear to enjoy their new home.
Because the area is so new to the duo, they have only been out for short periods of time so far. Their time on the savanna will increase as the days go by.
If you watched Disney’s The Lion King, you will remember the villainous hyenas. The hyenas were the bullies of the savanna, often confronting Simba and his friends.
In reality, hyenas are an incredibly interesting and powerful species, and I can guarantee you they are not all villains.
Groups of Hyenas are referred to as clans. The clans sometimes come together to hunt and defend their territory, but most activities are done solo or in small groups. In the wild, they hunt their own food and – contrary to public opinion – do not often scavenge another animal’s meal.
The ranking of hyenas’ social structure and clans are also very important to a hyena’s way of life. Females are the leaders of the clans, with the lowest-ranking female ranking above the highest-ranking male. The low-ranking males will often be found on the outskirts of the clan and only participate in hunting or fights.
Although hyenas are doing better than many species in the wild, because of their wide range and large population, they are still facing a population decline. Loss of habitat is a significant threat, as well as local communities treating them as pests and hunters poaching them.
By having hyenas at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, we hope to show our Guests that the misconceptions about this species are not true. These animals deserve our consideration, and I’m confident you will enjoy learning more about them.
Visit DisneyAnimals.com to learn more about some of the animals at the Walt Disney World Resort.To mark the print release of Apocalypse World 2e the creator, Vincent Baker, has just released a very fancy looking new playbook - The Landfall Marine. Quoting from the playbook text:
50 years ago, the enemies of humanity unleashed a psychic weapon that destroyed all
hope for the future. Anticipating the attack and its outcome, and leaving billions to
suffer and die, a clandestine military project rushed to evacuate Earth. They built secret
orbital stations and expanded the hidden Mars base into a functional colony. Their
grandchildren—you—grew up dreaming of blue skies and blue seas that no longer exist.
Today, the mission to reclaim Earth begins.
I'd like to run a campaign of AW2e using the new playbook! The playbook drastically changes the focus of the game with the Reclamation mission taking centre stage. The pdf describes this in great detail providing the MC (me!) with plenty of useful threats and other rules to flesh out the Reclamation mission.
Of course the Landfall marine will not be alone and the other three players will play more "normal" AW playbooks. How will the Landfall marine interact with a Hardholder, a Hocus and a Chopper with their vicious biker gang? What will the marine do when they need medical attention from a kind Angel? I have no idea and that's why we're going to play to find out.
I've included two topics for discussion below - one for players to express a general interest and one for players to express an interest in playing the Landfall marine itself. Sticking with the standard one playbook type per player we can only have one Landfall marine!
Also please note this is a GMT+1 (UK) Timezeone game. Players from anywhere are welcome but please be aware of any time differences. The current start date is purely provisional and can be changed.
http://apocalypse-world.com/AW2ELandfallMarine.pdfWhen it comes to a new invention or idea, you can bet that there will be a patent for it at some point. While you would think patents would be reserved for things like the Playstation Move controller or the Kinect, they actually boil down to much simpler things. Game mechanics that you assume were open for just any company to use are actually the property of single companies.
And the owners of those intellectual properties can actually be very surprising. You wouldn't expect a company like Nintendo to hold the rights to an insanity meter in their games |
Russia by shifting the resources focus from terrorist threats and US war zones abroad.
Russia is now being targeted in a new light with increased numbers of clandestine CIA operatives and the beefing up of National Security Agency (NSA) cyberespionage capabilities, officials told the publication, admitting that Russia’s reemergence on the world stage had caught the US spy network by surprise. They said that US intelligence capabilities “continued to atrophy” against the alleged Russian threat.
While things are not yet back to the Cold War era, during which some 40 percent of intelligence resources were focused on the Soviet Union, US spy agencies “are playing catch-up big time” with Russia, a senior US intelligence official told the daily. However, the terrorism threat, according to sources, remains the top priority for American intelligence services.
Tensions between Washington and Moscow soured after the February 2014 coup in Kiev and Russia’s subsequent reunification with Crimea. Despite US and European Union sanctions, which were imposed after violence in eastern Ukraine and intensified following the Crimean referendum, Russia continued to extend its hand of cooperation, especially in dealing with international security issues in Syria, Iran, and Yemen.
The officials admitted that better intelligence on Russia is an “urgent priority,” as the sources confirmed being taken by surprise by the events in Ukraine and in Syria, as well as by the latest series of hacks targeting the US Democrats which without any proof has been pinned on Russian government-backed hackers.
READ MORE: ‘Russia hacked RNC’: Republican lawmaker ‘misspoke’ at CNN
A number of top-level officials have confirmed their impotence in dealing with what they view as the Russian threat.
Read more
“The failure to understand Putin’s plans and intentions has been the largest intelligence failure since 9/11,” the publication quoted Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who admitted that US intel has struggled to anticipate Moscow’s moves.
“These should have been red flags,” Nunes said, “but we continue to get it wrong.”
“The Intelligence Community continues to maintain its focus and deep expertise on Russia, which has enabled us to understand Putin’s evolving worldview. The IC allocates resources directed against Russia commensurate with this evolving threat,” said Timothy Barrett, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. has admitted last year that his analysts cannot understand or anticipate Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. Clapper called Putin an “impulsive and opportunistic” president who is not guided by consistent strategic aims
“What his long-term plan is, I’m not sure he has one,” Clapper told CNN.“I think he is kind of winging this day to day.”Hotel of the Arts Days Inn & Suites of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, recently announced that customers can now pay using digital currency for any hotel services. It is the first and only hotel in Midwest that has so far adopted a Bitcoin payment system.
Shortly after the announcement one of the workers at the hotel shared some details on /r/Bitcoin. He said that after a discussion of the idea the owner decided to jump right in and adopt crypto-currency.
“Since its inception, the Hotel of the Arts has been innovative, and highly customer-focused. From our free downtown shuttle, to our boutique and welcoming decor, the Hotel of the Arts strives to offer Milwaukee something new, affordable, and convenient”, said Patrick Prabhu, General Manager of the hotel.
The Hotel of the Arts is conveniently located on the northwest boarder of downtown Milwaukee, in a district which combines art, business and community. Moreover, visitors can receive suggestions of Wisconsin area attractions and city sightseeing in the hotel.
The Hotel of the Arts wouldn’t be a “hotel of the arts” without its paintings and artworks displayed on the hotel walls.
Owners at the Hotel of the Arts Days Inn believe in benefits of using crypto-currency. They decided to use Coinbase for transactions and offer a 10% discount for customers who pay via Bitcoin.
“Accepting Bitcoin was a no-brainer. We want to make the purchasing process easy and quick for all customers. Some patrons prefer to use Bitcoin, and we are happy to offer them this convenience. This secure platform is revolutionary, and we personally believe in its future and hope to play a part in its success,” added Praghu.
The owners of the hotel also mention the main features of Bitcoin for customers who choose it as a payment method, like identity protection and zero transaction fees.
So, if you are heading down to Wisconsin, Hotel of the Arts Days Inn & Suites might be the place for you to stay.The identity of the mysterious Gold Lacquer singer from MBC’s “King of Mask Singer” has finally been revealed after six weeks and two victories, and she couldn’t hold back her tears at the unending – and much-deserved – praise from the celebrity panel.
On the May 10 episode of “King of Mask Singer,” Gold Lacquer sings “Sad Fate” by Nami, but unfortunately isn’t able to get a third win within her grasp.
In the end, when her mask is removed, she gets an incredible response from the panel.
You can watch the unveiling of Gold Lacquer’s identity here:
“She’s definitely not an idol,” they had said, when asked who they think the singer is.
Finally able to speak, letting her voice be heard, f(x)’s Luna says, “I can finally say it.. I thought that if I wore this mask on stage, it would be freeing. I thought I’d be able to show everyone all the performances I’ve ever wanted to do. But I had no idea it would be this hard to express emotion with just my voice. Through ‘King of Mask Singer,’ I’ve really learned and grown a lot. I’m just really happy.”
Later at the panel’s unending praise, and Shin Bong Sun‘s simple comment of “Thank you so much for singing amazing songs for us until now,” Luna is unable to hold back her tears, and is unable to speak for some time. Shin Bong Sun continues, “We watched her sing for six weeks; they were truly the best performances. We’re so thankful.” Kim Gu Ra, wanting to make her laugh, says, “Ask Lee Soo Man to buy you something delicious.”
“King of Mask Singer” reveals Luna’s interview from when she first joined the show, where she explains that she has stage fright when she is alone, and that forgetting lyrics is a big fear of hers.
She definitely proves, and then some, that she’s more than capable of amazing solo performances! Watch her performance from the May 10 episode of “King of Mask Singer” here:
Along with Luna, singers who removed their masks on this latest episode include BTOB’s Yook Sungjae and Secret’s Song Ji Eun.
Source (1)
See also:
“King of Mask Singer” Gold Lacquer Reveals Difficulty of Keeping Identity a SecretRecently I introduced the new header mozilla/PodOperations.h to mfbt, moving its contents out of SpiderMonkey so for general use. This header makes various operations on memory for objects easier and safer.
The problem
Often in C or C++ one might want to set the contents of an object to zero — perhaps to initialize it:
mMetrics = new gfxFont::Metrics; ::memset(mMetrics, 0, sizeof(*mMetrics));
Or perhaps the same might need to be done for a range of objects:
memset(mTreeData.Elements(), 0, mTreeData.Length() * sizeof(mTreeData[0]));
Or perhaps one might want to set the contents of an object to those of another object:
memcpy(&e, buf, sizeof(e));
Or perhaps a range of objects must be copied:
memcpy(to + aOffset, aBuffer, aLength * sizeof(PRUnichar));
Or perhaps a range of objects must be memory-equivalence-compared:
return memcmp(k->chars(), l->chars(), k->length() * sizeof(jschar)) == 0;
What do all these cases have in common? They all require using a sizeof() operation.
The problem
C and C++, as low-level languages very much focused on the actual memory, place great importance in the size of an object. Programmers often think much less about sizes. It’s pretty easy to write code without having to think about memory. But some cases require it, and because it doesn’t happen regularly, it’s easy to make mistakes. Even experienced programmers can screw it up if they don’t think carefully.
This is particularly likely for operations on arrays of objects. If the object’s size isn’t 1, forgetting a sizeof means an array of objects might not be completely cleared, copied, or compared. This has led to Mozilla security bugs in the past. (Although, the best I can find now is bug 688877, which doesn’t use quite the same operations, and can’t be solved with these methods, but which demonstrates the same sort of issue.)
The solution
Using the prodigious magic of C++ templates, the new mfbt/PodOperations.h abstracts away the sizeof in all the above examples, implements bounds-checking assertions as appropriate, and is type-safe (doesn’t require implicit casts to void* ).
Zeroing PodZero(T* t) : set the contents of *t to 0 PodZero(T* t, size_t count) : set the contents of count elements starting at t to 0 PodArrayZero(T (&t)[N]) : set the contents of the array t (with a compile-time size) to 0
Assigning PodAssign(T* dst, const T* src) : set the contents of *dst to *src — locations can’t overlap (no self-assignments)
Copying PodCopy(T* dst, const T* src, size_t count) : copy count elements starting at src to dst — ranges can’t overlap
Comparison PodEqual(const T* one, const T* two, size_t len) : true or false indicating whether len elements at one are memory-identical to len elements at two
Random questions
Why “Pod”?
POD is a C++ term of art abbreviation for “plain old data”. A type that’s plain old data is, roughly: a built-in type; a pointer or enum that’s represented like a built-in type; a user-defined class without any virtual methods or inheritance or user-defined constructors or destructors (including in any of its base classes), whose non- static members are themselves plain old data; or an array of a type that’s plain old data. (There are a couple other restrictions that don’t matter here and would take too long to explain anyway.)
One implication of a type being POD is that (systemic interactions aside) you can copy an object of that type using memcpy. The file and method names simply play on that. Arguably it’s not the best, clearest term in the world — especially as these methods aren’t restricted to POD types. (One intended use is for initializing classes that are non-POD, where the initial state is fully-zeroed.) But it roughly gets the job done, no better names quickly spring to mind, and renaming would have been pain without much gain.
What are all these “optimizations” in these methods?
When these operations were added to SpiderMonkey a few years ago, various people (principally Luke, if I remember right) benchmarked these operations when used in various places in SpiderMonkey. It turned out that “trivial” uses of memcmp, &c. wouldn’t always be optimally compiled by the compiler to fast, SIMD -optimizable loops. Thus we introduced special cases. Newer compilers may do better, such that we have less need for the optimizations. But the worst that happens with them is slightly slower code — not correctness bugs. If you have real-world data (inchoate fears don’t count 🙂 ) showing these optimizations aren’t needed now, file a bug and we can adapt them as needed.New Delhi: The Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro will go on sale for the first time in India today, with sales starting at 12 pm IST via Flipkart, Mi.com, and Mi Home stores, in the company’s Black Friday Sale.
The newly launched smartphone will soon be made available via Mi Preferred Partner stores and Mi Stores across the country said the company.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro price in India starts at Rs. 13,999 for the 4GB RAM/ 64GB inbuilt storage variant, and goes up to Rs. 15,999 for the 6GB RAM/ 64GB inbuilt storage variant.
However, on its first day of sales, called the Black Friday Sale by the company, the smartphone will have a Rs. 1,000 discount, bringing its price down to Rs. 12,999 and Rs. 14,999 for the two variants, correspondingly.
Xiaomi is dual-SIM (Nano), dual-4G VoLTE Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro runs MIUI 10 on top of Android 8.1 Oreo, and sports a 6.26-inch full-HD+ (1080×2280 pixels) IPS LCD panel with a 19:9 aspect ratio, 2.5D curved glass, Corning Gorilla Glass protection, and a maximum brightness of 500 nits.
WATCH:
(Video Credit: Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro Review | A Worthy Successor?)
The handset is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 SoC, coupled with an Adreno 509 GPU, 4GB/ 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 64GB of onboard storage. Storage is expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB), though you will lose access to one of the SIM cards.
Also on the Black Friday Sale, HDFC Bank is offering an Rs. 500 instant discount for Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro buyers using its credit/ debit cards or opting for an EMI transaction.
Other launch offers include Rs. 2,400 Jio Cashback on customers opting for an Rs. 299 plan (giving them 24 Rs. 100 vouchers). Jio subscribers will also have the option to get double data benefits on 4 recharges of Rs. 198 and plans, on-device activation until June 2019. Jio overall is offering up to 6TB of data.Around six learner drivers a day are getting penalty points for driving unaccompanied, new figures suggest.
The Irish Examiner reports that more than 3,000 learner drivers have been caught driving alone since changes introduced in December 2014.
Almost 900 drivers have been penalised in the first four months of this year.
More than 1,500 learner drivers have also been given penalty points for failing to display their L-plate.
Under current rules, learner drivers must be accompanied by a passenger who has held a full licence for a continuous period of two years.
Unaccompanied drivers face receiving two penalty points (or four on conviction) as well as an €80 fine.
The Examiner also reports that 148 novice drivers received penalty points for failing to display their N-plates - which newly qualified drivers must display for two years after gaining their full licence.
Earlier this month, motorists who use mobile phones while driving were being warned of a major clampdown by gardaí.
An average of 76 people per day were detected using a phone while driving last year.Following in the risqué footsteps of HBO’s “Hung” and Showtime’s “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” HBO has a show in the works about the pornography business. “Entourage” and “Boardwalk Empire” executive producers Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson are working with controversial writer James Frey — whose next book is titled “The Final Testament of the Holy Bible” — on a one-hour drama that will use both legit actors and real porn performers. The plot will focus on a giant video company under siege from Internet competitors and a girl from the Midwest whose boyfriend convinces her to move to Los Angeles to become a star. Reached by Page Six, Frey, who’s writing the pilot, said, “We’re going to make a sprawling epic about the porn business in LA. We’re going to tell the type of stories no one else has told before, and go places no one has gone before.” Very private places, we imagine.Polish stocks and bonds continued to fall Thursday in the wake of the government’s announcement of detailed plans to shake up state pensions as it tries to cut debt.
Poland said it would nationalize sovereign bonds held by privately managed local pension funds in order to cut public debt, confirming plans it first announced in June.
The government also said it would no longer force Poles to pay a portion of their tax money into private pension fund companies, a move likely to diminish the funds’ role as the largest stock-market investors in the country.
The announcement of details of Poland’s plan for the pension system sent shockwaves through the Polish financial markets. The blue-chip WIG20 index closed 2.5% lower on the day on Wednesday before losing another 4.6% on Thursday as investors expect the private fund companies to eventually have to sell down shares in listed companies. The yield on 10-year bonds jumped above 4.8% on Thursday from some 4.55% before the cabinet went public with the plan.New Zealand hooker Issac Luke has been linked with a stunning move to the Warriors next season and is set to seek a release from South Sydney.
Luke, who played for the Kiwis in last Sunday's 26-12 defeat of Australia, is believed to have told Rabbitohs officials he wants to return to New Zealand for family reasons and talks with the Warriors are so advanced a deal could be announced in days.
Proud New Zealander: Issac Luke leads the haka after the Kiwis beat Australia on Sunday. Credit:Getty Images
It is understood the NRL premiers won't stand in Luke's way given his service to Souths since joining the club from Canterbury in 2007.
The signing of Luke would be a massive boost for the Warriors after recently snaring Sydney Roosters fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and represents the biggest recruitment coup for the club since luring Steve Price and Ruben Wiki across the Tasman in 2005.As promised last time, I will cover examples of discrete and continuous probability distributions.
Top: Discrete Probability
Middle: Continuous Probability
Bottom: Disjointed Probability
Disjointed won't be covered in this course.
Discrete Probability Model (example):
15-19 20-24 25-34 35-44 Alone 0.001 0.011 0.031 0.030 With Spouse 0.001 0.023 0.155 0.216 With others 0.169 0.132 0.142 0.089
The following table represents the probabilities of people of certain age groups living alone, living with a spouse, or living with at least one person who is not a spouse.
Because there is a finite amount of categories which has a non-zero probability of occurring, this is considered to be a discrete probability model. Then again, I am assuming that it is a probability model. Remember from the first lecture that, in order for a model to be a true probability model or statistical model, all of the probabilities must add to exactly 1 (also called "unity", because 100% is the entire set) and each individual probability must be no less than zero and no more than 1. The latter condition is easy to check. Since all of these numbers are positive, none of them are less than zero. Since all of them have a zero in the 1's place in the number, all of them have a probability less than one.
As far as the first criterion, it's still easy, but it's pretty tedious. Just add all of the numbers together. Putting all of the numbers through a calculator yields a value of one. Since it all equals 1, it does meet the first criterion for it being a probability model.
Now if we wanted to find the probability of living alone, regardless of age, we would just add all of the probabilities in the "Alone" row, or 0.001+0.011+0.031+0.030=0.073. To convert this to a percent is merely a matter of multiplying by 100, or 0.073*100%=7.3%. There is a 7.3% probability of an individual between the ages of 15 and 44 of living alone, regardless of which age range in which that person belongs. The same concept applies to finding the total probability of living with a spouse, and living with non-spouse people.
For an E of a person being 25-34 OR a person living alone OR a person living with “others”, find P(E). This is given by 0.001+0.011+0.031+0.030+0.169+0.132+0.142+0.089+0.155=0.760. Each entry is only counted once, and since 0.031 was counted under the category of living alone AND 0.142 was counted under living with others, neither is counted under the category of the age range of 25-34.
As a side note, pay careful attention to the conditional words “AND” and “OR”; they have drastically different meanings in statistics than they do in common language. The statement “Someone can be male OR female” has a different meaning than the statement “Someone can be male AND female.” The latter is a subset of the prior. The statement “Someone can be male OR female” means either a male or a female or both. The statement “Someone can be male AND female” means only both.Check your cell phone contract, and you might come across the following turn of phrase: "We do not sell your personal information." Some version of that phrase is in nearly every carrier Terms of Service, and divides the world’s data into two camps: the kind that personally identifies you and the kind that doesn’t. Your phone, your address, and your social security number all fall into the first camp: if Verizon’s caught trading them, they’ve got a lawsuit on their hands. Your zip code and your birthday, on the other hand, are fair game.
That 'anonymized' data turns into a record of everywhere you've been
Here’s where it gets interesting: the second kind of data also includes your location, determined by the nearest cell tower whenever your phone checks in with the network, providing roughly a hundred data points each day. It’s the same data law enforcement uses if they’ve got a warrant out — but it belongs to the carriers, and as long as your "personal" data is stripped out, they’re allowed to sell the anonymized data to whoever they want. AT&T is already testing the data trade with its Adworks Lab, and they're not alone. Verizon's Precision Market Insights program claims to be able to build a detailed demographic breakdown of everyone in a stadium on a given night — a feat that would be impossible without anonymized data-mashing.
The problem is, the data may not be anonymous after all. Last week, a group of MIT data scientists found a way to work back to 95 percent of the people in a European carrier’s data set from just four new location data points. Those could be Foursquare posts, geolocated tweets, or items on a credit card slip. If someone's got four of those hits, along with a batch of anonymized data from the carriers, it's enough to single you out. Suddenly, that "anonymized" data turns into a detailed record of everywhere you've been.
This kind of re-identification has happened before. In the mid-1990s, when a Massachusets state group released a crop of anonymized medical records, a data scientist named Latanya Sweeney was able to re-identify them by comparing them to local voter rolls — and responded by mailing the governor a full copy of his private medical history. As detailed by Paul Ohm, she later proved just a birthdate, zip code and gender is enough to identify 87 percent of the population, and knowing where someone is makes them even easier to ID. "Location pins you down a hell of a lot," said Lee Tien, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "To know you're in a particular city, even if it's a big city like San Francisco, that ruled out most of the world right there."
All that’s left is a little math, but this is the kind of math that gets you in trouble. To a lawyer, running this algorithm counts as a data breach, which states have harsh laws about. Once you cross from "anonymous" to "personal" data, you'll face a world of ugly consequences if anyone finds out. But to a data scientist, it's as simple as connecting the dots.
The tradeoff between privacy and utility is taking place behind closed doors
For the most part, the carriers have protected themselves by aggregating the data, never letting partners see all the data at the same time — but it’s an imperfect solution at best. If the algorithm is weak, data scientists can often work back to single users through subtraction, and in other cases, the result is only to chop the data into less manageable chunks. That makes re-identification harder, but it doesn't make it impossible.
A banner for Verizon's Precision Market Insight program
Most worrying of all, the tradeoff between privacy and utility is taking place behind closed doors. The strength of the de-identification tools is usually specified in the contract between the carrier and whoever they’re selling to (leaks are bad business, after all), but there are no third-party specifications to live up to. Unlike encryption, where public audits and white-hat attacks are accepted as a gold standard of security, nobody's ever put these aggregation algorithms to the test. And each step taken to preserve privacy makes the data less useful to the businesses who are footing the bill. If a business did want to work back to personal data, there would be little to stop them.
Already, some apps have gotten in on the data-trading game
For many companies, there are little to no regulations to abide by. GPS companies and software makers aren’t bound by the same FCC regulations that hamper carrier data, so they can sell whatever they like. GPS manufacturers like TomTom have been selling their more-accurate GPS data to traffic analysts for years. The maps on Windows Phone were built from that data, acquired through a partnership with Nokia's Navteq. (Apple and Google have been harvesting the same data to beef up their traffic-monitoring programs.) At the moment, most app makers are more interested in getting bought by larger companies than potentially sketchy revenue sources like data trading — but it may not always be that way. Already, some apps have gotten in on the data-trading game, and as the mobile data market matures, it may become an increasingly common way of turning a profit.
Information doesn't come in discrete droplets anymore
One company we talked to, Airsage, has contracted for mobility data for a third of the country's phone users. That's billions of data points, about a terabyte of information each day, mapped for traffic info and market research. (Because of its contract, Airsage can't name the carriers that send them data, but there's reason to believe Verizon is one of them.) Of all the data traders involved in this story, only Airsage was willing to go into detail on their aggregation practices. They limit population queries to a minimum of eight people, broken out by census block. When we asked Verizon, they said they had "technical, procedural and administrative safeguards in place," and declined to elaborate. AT&T Adworks did not respond to requests for comment.
There’s a reason they don’t want to talk about it. It’s hard to design an airtight data system, and even harder to talk about it in a reassuring way. It’s unsettling to realize how much data we leave behind, and how eager companies are to scoop it up and sell it off. The usual reassurance is that it isn’t "personal" data, as if we’re protected by ignoring certain droplets of data — the identifiable kind, the SSN, the address. But information doesn’t come in discrete droplets anymore. Today, it's more like a flood: always flowing, changing, and combining in inconvenient ways. Location data, in particular, may be so informative that it can never be truly private. As Tien put it, "you have to be pretty clever if you’re going to stop it."A New York-based startup called EnGoPlanet has installed four streetlights in a plaza off the Las Vegas Strip that are powered exclusively by solar and kinetic energy. The installations aren't mere streetlights though—they also power a variety of environmental monitors, support video surveillance, and, for the masses, offer USB ports for device charging.
The streetlights are topped by a solar panel crest, and have “kinetic tiles” on the ground below them. These panels reportedly can generate 4 to 8 watts from people walking on them, depending on the pressure of the step. The renewable energy is then collected by a battery for use at night. The solar-plus-kinetic energy design is useful on those rare Vegas days without too much sun—as long as there is still plenty of foot traffic.
The four streetlights have a host of sensors that collect information, and details on what kind of information is collected are sparse. In EnGoPlanet’s promotional video, a quick slide lists the streetlights’ additional capabilities: environmental monitoring, air quality monitoring, video surveillance, and the ever-vague “smart analytics.” If the bright side of progress is more environmentally-friendly streetlights, the dark side is that as you replace those old analog streetlights you get the addition of video surveillance from a private company.
The streetlights also double as Wi-Fi hotspots. According to Clean Technica the color of the LED lighting can be changed with the season or for a local event.17 years, 34 seasons, and 500 episodes. That is how long Survivor has been on the air. With their two seasons a year pace, they have passed the Simpsons in terms of number of seasons in a series. That is a show that has been on the air since 1989. That’s incredible! Even if the audience eventually leveled off, Survivor has been a very consistent source of ratings for CBS since its heyday. Is there any end in sight for the show?
The Simpsons have had their chance to parody the show in that time.
Here’s what we know: relative to sitcoms or procedurals, Survivor is a very cheap show to film and produce. Not having to pay a cast for each episode outside of the grand prize and stipends is one of the biggest reasons why. Like Big Brother, Survivor is an easy show for CBS to trot out with its consistent ratings and low level production costs. As long as the show keeps bringing people back to their screen, the show will have its say as to when it wants to end.
Throughout the years, Survivor has also kept itself fresh by changing up its format. It has incited some criticism from fans who want to keep the show as pure as possible to its original seasons but it has also helped bring in some fresh eyes. Compare it to a show like American Idol that eventually lost a lot of steam because it never really transformed outside of placing more emphasis on judges and guest stars than the contestants. Once upon a time, American Idol would destroy Survivor in terms of ratings but in 2015, it was cancelled. There have since been plans to bring the show back but it won’t have the pull that Survivor has maintained throughout the years.
Thinking about American Idol some more, another thing that has kept Survivor so popular is its distinctness. Shows like the X-Factor, America’s Got Talent and the Voice all came along and took a piece of the market pie that American Idol had cornered. While Big Brother has a similar “competition” style reality show and shares some fans with Survivor, they are ultimately fairly different in both aesthetics and gameplay. There is no replacement for Survivor if you want to see a television competition in that style.
Simply looking at the most recent season, Survivor: Game Changers, one can see that ratings have gone down. Kaoh Rong a calendar year ago was pulling about 10 million people in on average. Game Changers averaged about 8, never crossing the 9 million people mark. The decline in numbers might be cause for concern if it wasn’t a nearly universal phenomenon for cable shows. Consider that despite losing nearly two million average viewers over the course of a year, Game Changers still ranked first in its timeslot and totaled more viewers over the course of the season than a show like Modern Family.
I’m sure a certain percentage were tuning in to see Malcolm again.
In terms of finding new talent each season, the show appears to be getting better with age. For a while during the 20s, it seemed like casting was struggling to put together strong casts. Since around the time of Survivor: Cagayan, the show has really done an excellent job in finding people that know how to bring it on a television screen. They still receive applicants in the thousands and that isn’t even mentioning the people they can go out and recruit. Under their casting director, Lynne Spillman, the character part of Survivor appears to be in good hands.
As of now, two more seasons are guaranteed. In fact, season 36 should be finishing up their filming within the next couple days. At this point, it’s become fairly obvious that CBS is willing to keep the show on the air for as long as production is willing to go out and film. Since Mark Burnett has been mostly out of the picture for many years now, a lot of the onus falls on the shoulders of Jeff Probst.
Jeff has been with the show since day one and has been a producer since around Survivor: Tocantins. Nobody has given more of their time and efforts into keeping the show fresh in the eyes of everybody. While it may seem like there’s a picture of Jeff Probst aging in somebody’s attic, he is actually getting older season by season. He turns 56 this year with 36 seasons filmed under his belt. The traditional answer for when the show will end has been whenever Jeff doesn’t feel like doing it anymore.NASA is currently in the middle of building its next big rocket, the Space Launch System, which the agency hopes to use to send people into deep space and on to Mars someday. But before it can do all that, the SLS has to prove itself in the form of a test flight. That mission — scheduled for 2018 — will take NASA's uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the far side of the Moon. Toting the Orion may be the primary goal of the trip, but the SLS will have some extra room for other technologies — so it's going to take up to 13 small satellites along for the ride.
The SLS will have some extra room for other technologies
NASA announced today what seven of those miniaturized satellites — called CubeSats — will look like. CubeSats are a type of research satellite, usually not much heavier than a couple pounds, that are fairly easy to build for space-based science and exploration. Since the test flight will take the Orion close to the Moon, many of the probes are designed to do close-up analysis of the lunar surface. A CubeSat called SkyFire will do a flyby of the Moon, collecting data with onboard sensors. And a satellite called the Lunar Flashlight will use a laser to map water ice at the lunar south pole.
An artist rendering of the Lunar Flashlight. (NASA)
A couple of the CubeSats will be tasked with learning more about the deep space environment. A Near-Earth Asteroid Scout will visit and study an asteroid that's in Earth's neighborhood. And a satellite called the BioSentinel will carry yeast cells into space, to give researchers a better understanding of how deep space radiation affects living organisms. This knowledge will be particularly helpful if NASA wants to send humans to the Red Planet; astronauts will have to pass through a lot of radiation-filled space to get there, and NASA needs to know how that exposure will affect the human body.
The SLS still has room for more payloads on its test flight. Three of the remaining satellites will come from international space partners, and an additional three will be decided through NASA's Cube Quest Challenge — a competition that challenges participants to design and create their own space-worthy CubeSats.
With the announcement of these satellites, the first planned flight of the SLS is starting to take shape — though it's still two years away. But beyond that flight, the SLS's future is blurry. The first crewed flight of the rocket is scheduled for no later than 2023, though NASA says it is working toward a launch date of 2021. NASA was also recently given more money to accelerate production of a second version of the rocket, which may complicate the SLS's upcoming mission timeline.An elderly couple on their way home from Taranaki's Americarna festival have suffered horrific injuries in a crash caused by a tourist driver.
Auckland couple Anne and Martin, who are both in their 70s and whose family requested their surname not be used to protect loved ones from knowing the full extent of their injuries, were driving their 1939 Chevrolet Master Deluxe coupe north on State Highway 31 near Otorohanga on Sunday morning when an American driver suddenly turned in front of them.
They had no time to stop and slammed into the tourist's car.
Anne suffered a fractured spine, broken nose, six broken ribs and needed 10 stitches in her eyebrows, while Martin's front teeth were smashed upward into his skull. Their injuries were particularly bad because the classic car did not have seatbelts or airbags.
The 75-year-old American tourist and his passenger had been in the country just two days and were heading from Auckland to Waitomo Caves, using a GPS to navigate. They suffered only minor injuries.
The Auckland couple's son, Warren, said it was another instance of a tourist driver causing a crash, reinforcing the need for better education about New Zealand roads before they got behind the wheel. America's user-friendly roads were vastly different to New Zealand's, he said.
"I'm not happy with tourists coming and being able to rent and drive a car without being given the appropriate skills to drive here."
Warren said the American driver and his companion, who were Vietnam veterans, were far from negligent.
"I feel a degree of sadness for them, their holiday has been ruined," he said.
"Clearly they were not equipped to deal with driving on our side of the road and our open road conditions.
"Unfortunately they've taken out a precious historic car and almost my parents."
The latest crash comes on the back of a spate of tourist-related road crashes around the country.
These include one involving Frenchman Stephane Yuan Mazerat, 29, who admitted three charges of dangerous driving causing injury after a crash at Awakino on January 5.
Five overseas drivers appeared in Otago courts last week facing charges related to causing death and injury on southern roads.
The American tourist pleaded guilty in the Hamilton District Court yesterday to two counts of careless driving causing injury and will be sentenced later this month. Warren said his parents were still in a bad way |
claim is an egregious misreading of the bylaws. Discussions continue regarding the details of referendum implementation.
Moreover, while the APA's policy is in the process of changing, the organizational and policy conditions—the culture that allowed the APA to advocate for years in support of psychologist participation in detainee interrogations—have not changed. Activists are focused upon several additional steps to bring about a rejuvenation of their association and their professions.
There is a strong campaign afoot to elect one of the activists as APA President to make sure the new policy is firmly implemented and backed by the organization, as well as to push other efforts making human rights and social justice more central within the profession of psychology. Steven Reisner, a New York psychologist is running an active campaign. In the first nomination phase of the campaign, he received the highest number of votes among the five winning candidates. Passage of the referendum should provide an even stronger boost to his campaign. Ballots go out to the APA membership this October and are due back November 15.
APA members have been deeply disturbed by another prior action of the Association. In 2002, its ethics committee placed a clause in the ethics code, allowing laws, regulations, and government orders to override professional ethics. These members are concerned that the clause provides an offensive loophole that is a variation on the Nuremberg defense – "I was just following orders" – into the ethics code.
The APA Council of Representatives called on the ethics committee to address this problem in 2005. Despite these instructions, the association has resisted clarifying this clause by adding a phrase as simple as "except when violating fundamental human rights". Other disturbing 2002 modifications to the APA ethics code weakened protections for research participants, such as removing a requirement for informed consent from participants "where otherwise permitted by law or federal or institutional regulations." Such a clause could, for example, allow experimentation on detainees without their permission, a disturbing violation of professional guidelines and international agreements.
Activist psychologists and their allies also are pushing for accountability for past abuses by psychologists. While some psychologists, including APA members, have been documented to have participated in abuses likely constituting torture, the APA ethics committee has consistently stalled action against or refused to open cases against these psychologists. This needs to stop.
Another form of accountability is a ‘setting right’ of the historical record. Given the known facts regarding psychologists and their roles in detainee abuse, and given the extensive denial of these facta and their significance by APA leadership, it is critical to create a detailed public record of the contributions of psychologists to the dark side over the last seven years. It is imperative that a Psychologist Truth Commission be created that will examine all materials, existing in the public record or available through investigation, and construct such a permanent record. Also necessary is a careful examination of the many other organizational, ethical, and policy issues that allowed the psychological profession and its major professional organization to become complicit in detainee abuse over the last seven years. Clinical psychologists often encourage their clients to face harsh truths. It is similarly necessary for our profession to face these somewhat cold and difficult realities. Only this will prevent us from recreating this sad episode in our profession's history when the next national or international crisis hits.
The implications of passage of the referendum extend beyond the APA and psychology. The referendum will put additional pressure on the DoD to remove psychologists from their roles aiding interrogations and behavior management. It will also create additional pressure for the development of a mental health system for detainees that is completely isolated from chain of command pressures. While the DoD is not necessarily bound by APA policy, it generally follows professional ethics policies; to do otherwise could make its efforts to recruit and retain psychologists and other professionals substantially more difficult. The implications for the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program are less certain, given the secrecy under which that program is conducted. Yet, even there, the APA referendum will increase pressure for a new administration and Congress to shut down the program."
Finally, passage of the referendum is being heralded by the wider public as a sign of an impending rejection by U.S. citizens of the "dark side" which has taken over so much of our government and country in recent years. This feeling was expressed by the conservative commentator, anti-torture activist, and blogger Andrew Sullivan who headlined his posting on the referendum's passage with "Know Hope." Congratulatory emails from around the world have indicated that many find hope in our psychologist colleagues' rejection of the dark side. "Finally, good news from the U.S." one email said. These correspondents join us in hoping that this rejection of official torture and abuse will be followed by a wholesale rejection from the American public and government.
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Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He maintains the Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice web site and the Psyche, Science, and Society blog. He is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations leading the struggle to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations.
Brad Olson is an applied social and community psychologist at Northwestern University in the School of Education and Social Policy. He is former president of the APA Divisions for Social Justice (DSJ), a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, a steering committee member of withholdAPAdues, and a co-sponsor of the recently passed APA referendum.
© Scoop MediaThis is how the Amendment One question will appear on the ballot:
[__] For [__] Against
Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized by this State.
The state already doesn't "recognize" same-sex unions. That apparently isn't a strong enough statement for North Carolina lawmakers.
These segregation-riffing ads—tagged "On May 8th, make history. Don't repeat it."— are via Every1Against1.
They argue that Amendment One "aims to turn all unmarried couples — whether same-sex or opposite-sex — into second-class citizens unworthy of basic dignity and fair treatment."
According to Wikipedia, after a similar constitutional amendment was passed in Ohio, several courts ruled that domestic violence protections did not apply to unmarried couples and cases were dismissed.
Read more about Amendment One on Wikipedia.
Ad agency: The Variable, Winston-Salem.United States President Barack Obama visits a classroom at Powell Elementary School in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, March 4, 2014. He will later give remarks on the FY 2015 budget. Credit: Ron Sachs / Pool via CNP President Barack Obama pretends to be helped to his feet by the students in the classroom he visited at Powell Elementary School on March 4, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (credit: Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A bill that passed the Assembly with unanimous bipartisan support Thursday encourages California schools to teach students about the racial significance of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The Assembly approved AB1912 with a 71-0 vote and no debate or discussion. It now heads to the state Senate.
The bill by Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, asks state education officials to include Obama’s election in history and social studies standards laying out what students are expected to learn.
High school history students already learn about recent presidents. But Holden says lessons about Obama also should focus on what his election meant for racial equality and civil rights.
He said on the Assembly floor that the 2008 election “should not just be a mere footnote within textbooks, but rather focus on the significance of Americans overcoming our nation’s past and acknowledging that Americans are moving in the right direction.”
The bill says the election was a “historic step in the effort towards equality in the United States” and that previous elections in the nation involved intimidation and physical violence that prevented millions of African-Americans from voting. It also commends Obama for his work as a community organizer who registered voters after he graduated from Harvard Law School.
The state Board of Education is expected to update academic standards during the 2015-16 school year and does not have to follow lawmakers’ recommendations. Textbooks could be updated within five years, likely after Obama leaves office.
The state hasn’t updated its guidelines for teaching social studies classes since 2005. A 2009 effort was cancelled because of limited money.
The state education department must first finish guidelines for schools to implement rigorous new expectations for math and language arts under Common Core State Standards before addressing social studies.
(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)InDev Patch notes: Patch 6.0a July 07, 2016, 07:02:55 am
LATEST - Patch 6.0a - Titles and local banking
The general trend of this patch is to secure the early days economy and make crafters valuable.
It is our belief that the Darkfall franchise has historically let crafters down by never giving them enough tools to truly impact the world like combat minded players can.
Our objectives are to make all economy related actions meaningful in the grand scheme of things, and finally let players that enjoy playing the market enjoy themselves.
By doing so, these players will provide the glue that binds the economy, making combat minded players lives less tedious.
The win-win scenario provided by the division of labor.
Title system and crafting changes:
With this patch we introduce the title system with a first set of 48 titles.
The goal of this initial wave of titles is to setup the crafting titles and enough combat related titles to make it a difficult choice for the general population.
While established clans will remain self reliant and are not impacted much by this change, for most players this lowers the percentage of potential crafters from 100% of characters down to a very valuable minority.
This release is comprised of all the framework/code changes, and once secured, more changes will follow.
General title mechanics:
- You can select titles by clicking the "titles" button in the main menu.
- You can have 5 titles at a time. Make your selection and click apply to activate them.
- Titles level over real time once activated.
- The underlying skills and abilities still need to be leveled.
- For InDev it will take around 1h to max out, it will be 2 months post-release.
- When a title is deactivated, it will lose 10 levels for combat titles, 100 for industry titles.
- When a title is deactivated, it will lose levels over real time at the same speed as it would gain it.
- Titles are split in 4 categories:
- Physical, one per weapon type.Exclude magical titles.
- Magical, one per magic school. Exclude physical titles.
- Industry, crafting and gathering.
- General, various utility titles.
- The warrior and scholar titles are exceptions, they exclude their own categories as well.
- There is a "Combo" title that can allow the use of one excluded title.
Crafting title mechanics and crafting changes:
- Passive benefits of Industry titles are linear:
- Crafting titles will passively increase the durability of produced items.
- Harvesting titles will increase the speed and efficiency of gathering.
- Skinning will increase in speed and have better odds.
- Crafting titles will unlock recipes in a frontloaded way.
- You cannot craft anything without a title.
- Enchanting items will be unlocked 15 title levels after the base recipe unlock.
- All qualities are unlocked at once, but still require an enchanting level.
- Skills with a mastery:
- R00 Skill lvl 1 =>Title lvl 1 (instant)
- R10 Skill lvl 25 =>Title lvl 5 (3 days)
- R20 Skill lvl 50 =>Title lvl 10 (6 days)
- R30 Skill lvl 75 =>Title lvl 20 (12 days)
- R40 Mas lvl 1 =>Title lvl 30 (18 days)
- R50 Mas lvl 25 =>Title lvl 40 (24 days)
- R60 Mas lvl 50 =>Title lvl 50 (30 days)
- R70 Mas lvl 75 =>Title lvl 65 (39 days)
- R80 Mas lvl 100 => title lvl 85 (51 days)
- Skills without a mastery: (smelting/woodcutting/taming)
- Skill lvl 1 => Title lvl 1 (instant)
- Skill lvl 25 => Title lvl 10 (6 days)
- Skill lvl 50 => Title lvl 20 (12 days)
- Skill lvl 75 => Title lvl 30 (18 days)
- Skill lvl 100=> Tiltel lvl 40 (24 days)
- Advanced skills: (shipbuilding/construction/artillery)
- Skill lvl 1 => Title lvl 1 (instant)
- Skill lvl 25 => Title lvl 20 (12 days)
- Skill lvl 50 => Title lvl 40 (24 days)
- Skill lvl 75 => Title lvl 55 (33 days)
- Skill lvl 100=> Tiltel lvl 70 (42 days)
- You will still need to level each underlying crafting skill, including enchanting.
- Deactivating an Industry title resets its title level, but does not impact the underlying skills.
- Artillery and Warhulk construction are now merged in a single skill unlocked by the Artillery title.
- Jewelsmithing is temporarily removed, to be reworked sooner rather than later.
- Blood craft and shade craft are removed.
- More crafting related changes are to come in the short term.
Combat title mechanics:
- Combat titles are split in magical and physical categories that oppose each other.
- They provide passive buffs that grow linearly over title level.
- They have flat drawbacks that are instant on activation.
- When a combat title is deactivated:
- It loses 10 levels instantly.
- It loses all benefits instantly.
- All skills the title unlocked become locked again.
- You still need to level the underlying skills.
- Deactivating a title does not impact the underlying skills level.
- You can still use all schools and weapon types, even without the title.
- Melee weapon titles bonuses are:
- +6% damage
- +6% attack speed
- +6% stamina efficiency
- Unlocks active abilities:
- power attack => Title lvl 5 (3 days)
- whirlwind => Title lvl 15 (9 days)
- seize => Title lvl 25 (15 days)
- Magic school titles bonuses are:
- +6% damage/magnitude
- +6% casting speed
- +6% spell cost reduction
- +20% spell duration
- Unlocks signature spells:
- One at Title lvl 5 (3 days)
- One at Title lvl 25 (15 days)
- To compensate these bonuses and maintain time to kill:
- Overall damage/magnitude formula has been reduced by 13.3%.
- Overall attack/casting speed formula has been reduced by 10%.
- Individual spell tweaks and moving around will come in the short term.
Local Banking and Global Gold Account:
Local banking is perhaps the most defining feature of Darkfall: New Dawn.
Combined with crafting titles and other changes, it will create the foundation for an healthy economy and a more convenient game.
Details:
- All banks in the world are now separate inventories.
- This is also true for clan vaults.
- For technical reasons, and to play it safe with persistence, individual local banks are limited and we set an overall cap of items.
- Individual banks: 2000 items per bank. 6000 items overall.
- Clan banks: 4000 items per bank. 12000 items per bank
- Once we monitor how it behaves, we'll decide on a final amount.
- Individuals have a gold account:
- Adding gold to the account costs a 10% commission fee.
- The gold can then be withdrawn at any bank in the world.
- The gold can be used to purchase or pay fees in marketplaces.
- Clans also have a global gold account:
- Adding gold to the account costs a 10% commission fee.
- VCP rewards for the clan go in the account without fees.
- The gold can be withdrawn by captains and up at any bank.
- War declaration costs are taken from the clan's account.
- When a holding is lost through a siege:
- The inventories of members of the owner clan and its allies go in a retrieval vault.
- The content of the retrieval vault can be withdrawn only in one go.
- That content can only be retrieved in nearby banks.
- When access to a bank is loss in any other way, the content remains there until access is restored.
Disclaimer:
For the sake of the transition and testing, some aspects of the mechanics are altered!
In specifics, the retrieval vaults will not be restricted by distance or forced to be an all or nothing withdraw.
When you first log in after the patch, you'll get extra options on all banks with your old global bank and clan vault available in the retrieve vault.
You will be able to withdraw individual items rather than be forced to retrieve all.
Additionally, upon losing holdings there will not be any restriction either, so that we can test the stability of the recovery feature.
Runestones can still work too so that you can test things around the world.
Loot table apocalypse:
Following the trend of other changes within this patch, the loot table apocalypse is an overall reduction of all things craftable from loot to leave more room to crafters.
Another goal is also to reduce potential sources of gold inflation to give it more value as a trading medium.
Now that this is done, we can build upon a stable foundation and add interest to various underused monster alongside crafting evolutions.
Details:
- Removed the daily loot cap that caused high loot first kills.
- Monsters no longer have raging loot tables.
- Gold drops have been reduced across the board:
- Removed from:
- Most high end monsters.
- Non-humanoid monsters.
- Low civilization monsters.
- Reduced in most other cases.
- Kept to be a gold hotspots on some monsters.
- All craftable items have been removed from monster loot, unless needed for a quest.
- Removed jewelry and gems from monster drops.
- Monster specific armors and some rare enchanted weapons have been kept.
Disclaimer: In the interim, craftable items in NPCs have not been touched so that newcomers can still find some basic gear until InDev ends.
At release, only r0 weapons will remain.
Other changes:
- All inventory windows in game can now be resized.
- Newbie protection changed to 20 hours.
- Starter weapons no longer have weight.
- The potential top speed of displacement effects has been reduced by 20%.
- Quest markers now follow traditional! and? conventions.
- Listing slots for marketplaces increased from 25 to 100.
- "You are no more engaged in a PvE Fight" is no more a thing.
- Greatclubs now level at the same speed as other weapons.
- Obad and Nerghum should no longer be respawn traps.
- The cost of praying has increased to 1000 + 500 x times prayed.
- Holdings upkeep has doubled:
- 5040 per day for cities.
- 2016 per day for hamlets.
- War declarations costs have been divided by 2.
- But the minimum has increased from 10 000g to 20 000g.
Patch 6.0a:
- Error 1062 should no longer occur. If you still have an issue, please contact us by private message.
- Items losing attributes/enchants in banks upon re-logging should no longer occur.
- Title fixes:
- Armor Master title was bugged and is now fixed, it will also show in your stat window. Test it again.
- Warrior and Veteran Brawler impact all physical skills, not just melee.
- Some description clarifications.
- Digging has been fixed.
- Goblin axe drops have been increased.
- Goblin HP have been lowered to reflect the reduction of base damage.
- Pressing F on clan banks should now have the expected results.
- Clan vault access rights are back to captain.
-? buttons on windows will now work, even after disabling the tutorial.
- Free trial has been activated with x3 leveling speed.
Last Edit : February 01, 2018, 08:12:40 am by Ub3rgames
: February 01, 2018, 08:12:40 am by Ub3rgames 114 Likes
The Darkfall: New Dawn Dev Team.US software firm Kaseya plans to create up to 130 new jobs in Dublin following a €19 million investment from the State-backed Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (Isif).
The company, which develops management software for “mid-market” enterprises, said the investment was part of a wider funding round that will see it raise over €38 million.
Kaseya, which is owned by global software investor Insight, said it plans to add up to 130 new staff to its existing Dublin-based operations, which already employ roughly 30 people.
It also plans to launch a collaboration programme with several third-level universities and institutes of technology here, which will include a wide range of internship opportunities and support for computer science courses.
“Ireland is a great place to continue to develop our industry-leading software solutions,” Kaseya chief executive Kaseya Fred Voccola said.
“Our contribution to Ireland’s vibrant, dynamic software sector will help to bolster the country’s growing reputation as an IT leader, while creating significant additional value for our investors,” he added.
Isif said the investment was aimed at filling an existing funding gap for established and growing Irish software businesses.
“This investment promises a significant economic impact. It will bring high-quality software jobs and further cement Ireland as the destination of choice for global software companies seeking an EU presence,” head of private equity at Isif Fergal McAleavey said.
“We are confident that Kaseya will deliver a strong commercial return on our investment to complement our economic impact objectives,” he added, noting the transaction further strengthens the fund’s relationship with Insight.The White House has announced the nomination of MIT’s Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of engineering systems, as NASA’s deputy administrator, the space agency’s No. 2 leadership position. Newman’s appointment will require approval by the U.S. Senate.
Newman, who has been on the MIT faculty since 1993, is director of MIT’s Technology and Policy Program and MIT Portugal Program, a faculty member in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and a Margaret McVicar Faculty Fellow.
Newman earned her BS from the University of Notre Dame in 1986, followed by three graduate degrees from MIT: two SM degrees, in aeronautics and astronautics and in technology and policy, in 1989, and a PhD in aerospace biomedical engineering, in 1992. She is the author of “Interactive Aerospace Engineering and Design” (McGraw-Hill, 2002), an introductory engineering textbook, and more than 200 papers presented in journals and at refereed conferences.
Newman’s research has included the development of a radical new spacesuit design that is tighter-fitting and would afford much greater mobility and lighter weight than today’s bulky pressure suits. She has focused on quantifying astronaut performance in space, including computer modeling of the dynamics of human motion in microgravity conditions. Newman has also developed exercise countermeasures, serving as principal investigator for three spaceflight experiments, and specializes in understanding partial-gravity locomotion for future planetary exploration. Her development of patented, wearable compression suits has also led her into research on assistive technologies for people with locomotion impairment.
“It’s very exciting, and an enormous honor,” Newman says of her nomination as NASA’s deputy administrator. “Aerospace engineering, of course, is my passion. Maybe I’ve been training for this my whole life!”
Newman says that NASA has “a clear vision” aligned with goals set by the Obama administration, with Mars as the destination in its long-term strategic plan. While the space program may draw most of the agency’s public attention, NASA’s research in aeronautics is no less significant, she says, and has produced “significant aviation advancements.”
The deputy administrator’s specific duties, Newman says, include NASA’s legislative and intergovernmental affairs; communications; the Mission Support Directorate; and international relationships, including the multinational partnership that manages the International Space Station. In addition, the post oversees educational programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
Helping to spur the interest of young people in space, and in engineering in general, will be “a privilege,” Newman says. “I’d like to change the conversation with kids about what it means to be an engineer” — which she calls “the best job in the world, where you get to solve really challenging and extraordinary problems in the service of humankind.”
Newman and her partner Guillermo Trotti, an architect and designer, completed a round-the-world sailing voyage on their boat in 2003. The two are now live-in housemasters at MIT’s Baker House, an undergraduate residence hall.
Newman says she is eager for the challenges of her new job: “I love NASA’s portfolio, and what it’s tasked to do for the nation: pushing the boundaries and leading in aeronautics and space — aircraft, space, planetary and earth sciences, exploration, technology development, and education. I look forward to doing the best work I can, to applying myself 100 percent, to learning a lot, and to advancing our national aerospace goals.”By Junfeng Yang | Sarvar Dhillon
In a previous blog post, we discussed the importance of monitoring your app’s performance. This time, we’ll show you exactly how to go about doing this. We’ve spoken with several developer teams from some of the most popular apps in the world, including WeChat and Yahoo News Digest, about the best practices towards building fluid apps. From our own experiences and our talks with these leading developers, we’ve found that the most important practice in building great apps is establishing a performance optimization process:
The optimization process
It’s important to continuously measure your app’s performance to detect when your app underperforms. Once a performance issue is detected, you should focus your energy on finding the root of the issue. This diagnosis may require even more measurements and detailed performance data, trapping you in what we like to call the “measure-analyze loop” for a while. Even after you track down the root cause of the issue, just fixing the sluggish code is not enough. You have to re-evaluate your app’s metrics to ensure your fix has worked. This means more measurements.
Measure
There are two performance metrics that most affect user experience (UX). First, we’ll focus on response time: how long it takes your app to respond to a user action (like starting your app, viewing a news article, loading a contact list, or checking a Facebook page). Ideally, your application responds quickly in all of these scenarios, helping you build a better, more engaging UX.
One crucial (and unique) case of response time is start time. App startup is the first experience a user has with an app, and first impressions have never been more important. In fact, one Compuware study found that 79% of users would retry a problematic app only once or twice before deleting it.
Here are some recommendations from we here at NimbleApp, who have had years of experience with software performance and optimization.
We suggest that your application take no more than 2 seconds at startup, as this is the median start time users expect. For those familiar with web performance, 47% of users expect a page to load within 2 seconds or less, and users have even less patience for mobile apps, which they tend to use in a hurry and on-the-go.
Recommendation 1: limit app startup to 2 seconds
The second important metric is smoothness. While it is great to have a short overall response time, responses themselves must also be smooth, with minimal “lag.” Users are very good at detecting temporal lags, which means even small stutters can reflect poorly on your app’s UX. On average, humans can detect lag as short as 22ms, and a fourth of the population can perceive lag between 2ms and 16ms – thus the standard 60 frames per second (FPS) refresh rate.
To understand smoothness, you can collect your app’s FPS and frame timing data. However, keep in mind that this data doesn’t tell you the source of your app’s performance issues, which means it can’t help identify the methods that cause your app to lag.
In Android, the UI thread (your app’s main thread of execution) is the only thread that can update the UI. To maintain a 60 FPS refresh rate, the UI thread must finish drawing each frame in ~16ms. If any method call in the UI thread runs for longer than this time, your app has to miss a frame, generating a temporal lag. What’s even worse is that during this period, your app is not responsive to any user actions because the UI thread is stuck within a method call.
In practice, it’s nearly impossible to ensure that each and every method call in the UI thread lasts shorter than 16ms. A threshold of 32ms, equivalent to two dropped frames, is more realistic. We call methods that exceed this threshold (those that take over 32ms to execute) hung methods because they cause an app to appear to “hang.” Eliminating all hung methods goes a long way towards making your app appear smoother, providing a better overall user experience.
Recommendation 2: eliminate hung methods
Okay, great. It’s important to measure metrics relevant to the UX, but how often should we be measuring these metrics? Per build? Per daily build? Before each release? In production?! You should measure whenever you get the chance - the more often you track your software’s metrics, the earlier you can detect and respond to performance issues. The Yahoo team we spoke with profiles their app’s performance before each release, and the WeChat team profiles their app per daily build.
Recommendation 3: measure as often as you can
Analyze
The key to optimizing your software is to be aware of a common set of performance issues and systematically remove them from your code. In our analysis of performance issues in apps with over 5M downloads, we saw that developers often use constructs that are fast on desktops but significantly slower on wimpier mobile hardware. For instance, method ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream() takes ~7ms on a MacBook Air for a JAR with 3K resources, while it takes ~1700ms on a Nexus 7 2013 for an APK with 3K resources. It turns out that Android’s implementation of getResourceAsStream does a whole lot of extra work the first time it’s called, indexing all resources in the APK file, verifying the certificate of the APK file, and parsing its manifest. Operations like these are very CPU intensive, causing extensive app slowdown - getResourceAsStream slows down the Walgreens app by 1.7 seconds. At NimbleDroid, we’ve compiled a list of methods to avoid in your android app. You can check it out here.
Recommendation 4: know a set of common issues
Sometimes performance issues stem from the 3rd-party SDKs you use, not your code. These issues can be especially hard to track down. Consider org.joda.time, a popular time library for Java. You’ve probably used it in your prior Java projects. It turns out that creating just one org.joda.time.DateTime() object during your app’s startup causes a significant slowdown - the Yahoo Fantasy Sports app saw a performance drop of 2 seconds. This is because org.joda.time.DateTime() uses getResourceAsStream() to load timezone data from the APK file.
Recommendation 5: avoid surprises in 3rd-party SDKs
Optimize
Fixing sluggish code can be a nightmarish process. There are hundreds of processes that can cause apps to grind to a halt, and rooting out the source of this slowdown can be a task that takes weeks of development time. Nonetheless, there are some general fixing guidelines. You can either make code run faster using more efficient data representations, algorithms, and implementations or (in the case that you can’t directly fix the code because you’re using an SDK) you can invoke the code in a background thread so it doesn’t hang in your UI. Following these guidelines can go a long way towards making your app more efficient, creating a product users will love.
Where You Can Get Help
While this performance optimization process helps make your app fluid, it often requires valuable time and a little bit magic to carry out. This is exactly why we’re working to bring Android devs fast, powerful optimization and profiling tools, so that you guys can focus on what you do best: bringing users an amazing product.ESPN college football reporter Andrea Adelson explains why Jim McElwain is not bothered by Jim Harbaugh's attempts to recruit talent out of Florida with satellite practices. (2:34)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Not every Southeastern Conference coach is condemning Michigan and Jim Harbaugh for spending spring break in the Sunshine State.
Florida's Jim McElwain, who probably had as much to lose as anyone, as the Wolverines practiced just a few hours south of Gainesville and squarely in the Gators' recruiting footprint, actually praised Harbaugh for "pressing the envelopes."
Jim McElwain doesn't have a problem with Jim Harbaugh bringing his team to Florida. AP Images/Phil Sandlin
"I kind of look it as more power to him," McElwain said Tuesday, the day before the Gators opened spring practice. "It's totally legal. He's not doing anything that's illegal. He's pressing the envelopes. He's putting their name in the paper every day. And, you know, that's cool. I mean, I'd come to Florida, too.
"There are great players here, right? There's a reason every school in the country comes here and recruits. So I think for them it's trying to gain an edge and give them an opportunity to practice in great weather. I don't plan on taking ours to Michigan. I'm all for what he's doing."
Michigan spent spring break at IMG Academy, a one-of-a-kind trip that might never be allowed again in college football. Harbaugh's traveling road show drew the ire of the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference, and the NCAA president sounded less than thrilled with the trip.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and ACC commissioner John Swofford said that kind of trip should be banned because it falls during spring break, when players usually are off. NCAA President Mark Emmert questioned whether the trip was in the spirit of the current movement toward giving players more time off and said the question over whether Harbaugh and other coaches can make trips like this in the future is a matter before the NCAA's football oversight committee.
Michigan paid IMG Academy to use its facilities for the week and used its 5,000-seat stadium for the final practice.
Nearly every SEC coach has weighed in on the topic. Arkansas' Bret Bielema and Tennessee's Butch Jones joked about attending Michigan's open practice. Georgia's Kirby Smart said Harbaugh is "obviously trying to gain a competitive advantage," and Mississippi's Hugh Freeze questioned the move by saying he's "not sure how a college coach can be on a high school campus during a quiet [recruiting] period."
Alabama's Nick Saban has been among the most vocal.
"If we're all going to travel all over the country to have satellite camps, you know, how ridiculous is that?" Saban said. "We're not allowed to go to all-star games, but now we're going to have satellite camps all over the country. It doesn't really make sense."
McElwain, who was admittedly embarrassed by his team's 41-7 loss to Michigan in the Citrus Bowl in January, stayed out of the fray.
He said he held out-of-town practices while coaching at Eastern Washington and at Montana State. But he has no plans for the Gators to work outside of Gainesville.
"I know the administration would hate to see the budget cost," McElwain said. "So I'm not asking for it."In episode 183 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author David Brin.
About David:
David Brin is a scientist, best-selling author and tech-futurist. His novels include Earth, The Postman (filmed in 1997) and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. A leading commentator and speaker on modern trends, his nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s newest novel EXISTENCE explores the ultimate question: billions of planets are ripe for life. So where is Everybody? David’s main thread: how will we shape the days and years ahead — and how will tomorrow shape us?
Links:
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Featuring original music by John Anealio
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Like this: Like Loading...Women representing the Lesbian Herstory Archives march in the 2007 New York City LGBTQ Pride March. Photo via Flickr user istolethetv
This June, the media spent more time reporting on the Pulse nightclub massacre than any other LGBTQ hate crime in American history. This makes sense, given it was both the deadliest mass shooting and deadliest assault on the gay community in our nation's history. But beyond those and other aspects for which the tragedy stands alone, it will come to be defined by another singular feature: It was the first of its kind whose coverage will be archived by mainstream historical institutions, like libraries and private historical collections. Because until the turn of the century, gay people have had to maintain their own archives—and the history of how LGBTQ citizens came to value and preserve their own history was a story, much like that of gay liberation itself, of many hard-fought battles to be won.
The sheer volume of coverage produced was not due solely to the massacre's scale. Until Pulse, in which 49 were shot dead, the deadliest American LGBTQ hate crime was a 1973 arson attack on UpStairs Lounge, a New Orleans gay bar in which 32 died during services for the Metropolitan Community Church, a chapter of the first-ever gay church in the United States. But that assault saw little mainstream news coverage at the time, due to homophobia and an unwillingness to report on LGBTQ lives.
Violence against gay people is nothing new, but the mainstream reporting of such incidents is—and the subsequent preservation of the stories of their victims and perpetrators.
Throughout history, it's been up to queer people to document their own history. As I show in my book, Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation, historical archives—libraries, both academic and public, and private institutions that make it their mission to hold and properly preserve historical artifacts—have traditionally refused to preserve the records of LGBTQ people. When they did, homosexuality appeared in card catalogs under derogatory subjects like deviance, criminality, and medical disorder.
As a result, LGBTQ people have come to recognize that documenting their past is an inextricable part of the gay liberation movement. Beyond political protests and pride parades, a quieter, more somber effort has taken root among them to report on, collect |
any other young generation in decades.
This generation sees unionization and activism as a possible solution to their employment issues, and tend to perk up when government is addressing their concerns, Ashton said.
She pointed to initiatives like Vancouver’s Don't Have $1 Million movement, which brought attention to the city’s housing affordability issues and demanded action, as the kind of energy the party could build on.
“What I’m seeing from millennials is this emergence of a collective experience and the need for comprehensive, collective action,” she said. “People are connecting the dots in a way we haven’t seen before.”
Don’t Fear the Leapers! So Says NDP’s New National Director read more
Last week The Tyee spoke to the NDP’s new national director Robert Fox, who said the party doesn’t court activists and social movements enough.
Fox said the party “needs to ensure that we are supporting them as they take on issues between elections.”
Ashton said that’s an approach she was excited to hear endorsed.
“Young people are looking to political leaders to help them bring about change,” she said.
However, Ashton said, grasping millennials’ concerns takes more than lip service.
She said though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the Minister of Youth, his government has focused heavily on the middle class instead of the working class, which many millennials consider themselves to be a part of.
“The reality of millennials is grim,” she said. “A selfie or a Buzzfeed video is not going to cut it.”By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News, Belfast
Almost 300 planets have now been found outside our Solar System
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun. Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought. And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them. The St Andrews researcher said this planetary system, and others like it, could host terrestrial planets like Earth. It was just a matter of time before such worlds were detected, he explained. Dr Dominik told BBC News: "We found a system with two planets that take the roles of Jupiter and Saturn in our Solar System. These two planets have a similar mass ratio and similar orbital radius and a similar orbital period. "It looks like this may have formed in a similar way to our Solar System. And if this is the case, it looks like [our] Solar System cannot be unique in the Universe. There should be other similar systems out there which could host terrestrial planets." Dr Dominik presented his work at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast. Ultimate goal The newfound planetary system, which orbits the star OGLE-2006-BLG-109L, is more compact than our own and is about five thousand light-years away. Although nearly 300 extrasolar planets have been identified, astronomers have consistently failed to find planetary systems which resemble our own. Dr Dominik said only 10% of systems discovered so far are known to host more than one planet. But he explained that all the techniques currently used to find exoplanets were strongly biased towards detecting gas giant planets orbiting at short distances from their parent stars. The OGLE planets were found using a technique called gravitational micro-lensing, in which light from the faraway planets is bent and magnified by the gravity of a foreground object, in this case a another star. "It's a kind of scaled-down version of our Solar System. The star the planets are orbiting is half as massive as the Sun and they orbit half as distant to their host star as Jupiter and Saturn orbit around the Sun," said Dr Dominik. He said that the ultimate goal for exoplanet researchers was to find habitable Earth-like and Mars-like planets. This aim was achievable, he said, because technology was improving all the time. "I think it will happen quite soon," he said, adding: "Micro-lensing can already go below Earth mass and it has detected more massive planets in the habitable zone. So in the next few years, we will see something really exciting." Dr Dominik said there was competition between teams of astronomers using micro-lensing and those who favoured the transit technique, which seeks to detect new planets when, from our point of view, they pass directly in front of the parent star they are orbiting. The planet blocks a tiny fraction of the star's light, causing the star to periodically dim. But he added that there was little chance to detect Earth-like worlds in OGLE-2006-BLG-109L because the system was too distant for current techniques to resolve planets the size of our own. Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
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StumbleUpon What are these?A Giant is up for an award, and as always, you, the Giants fan, should go spam votes for him so that he wins. This time it's Jeremy Affeldt!
The people putting this on are called All Sports United, and if you want to be "fair" or some crap, you can go to this link and read all about all of the other nominated athletes. But I don't know why you would do that. There's a player on a team you root for who is nominated. Isn't that way better than Nadia Comaneci?
Affleldt, of course, is nominated for his work with Generation Alive, an organization that fights hunger and is trying to end human trafficking. If he wins, then Generation Alive will receive almost $100,000 in goods and services, which isn't as good as getting more than $100,000 in cash, but is still very good.
If you're stlil not convinced to vote for him, I would like to remind you that Jeremy Affeldt is a World Series hero. How many World Series has Bill Belichick won? None. None is less than three. Checkmate.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.
As the nation marks the first anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, the children of Sderot and the Gaza periphery are still dealing with the conflict’s aftermath.
Some 40 percent of the children in Sderot suffer from symptoms of anxiety, fear and PTSD, according to a recent study.
Even during wartime, the level of PTSD among children nationwide hovers is somewhere between 7 and 10 percent, Prof. Ruth Pat- Horenczyk explained.Pat-Horenczyk, director of the child and adolescent clinical services unit at the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, at Herzog Memorial Hospital in the capital, discussed her research and understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.“The ongoing situation in Sderot causes PTSD at a rate three or four times greater than that of the rest of the country,” she said.Identifying signs of PTSD is not easy, Pat-Horenczyk. Many parents think and hope that the irregular patterns of behavior that characterize the disorder will fade over time. A professional knowledgeable of children’s development is needed to accurately diagnose the problem, she said.“Children don’t always say things verbally. They don’t always speak about their fears directly. They show it through behavior and their developmental progress,” the psychologist explained.One of the first signs of the disorder is regression, with sufferers reverting to behaviors suitable for a younger child. A toilet-trained youngster may have accidents, use a bottle or a diaper, or start talking like a younger child.Other manifestations can include fears that did not exist before – even if they are not directly related to a triggering event, such as the war – separation anxiety that did not exist before, trouble sleeping and anger issues.“What’s important, first and foremost, is to notice if there is a change in the child’s behavior,” she explained.Other signs can include quieter children speaking out more, outgoing children becoming more introverted, and children playing in a way that shows a preoccupation with the conflict – such as constantly acting out red alerts and hiding from rockets.Other signs can be the development of new fears, shying away from trying new things, increased difficulties in school, or trouble falling asleep at night.Pat-Horenczyk emphasized that to understand the disorder, there needs to be sensitivity to the child’s developmental stage, as at each stage the symptoms will manifest differently.“Schoolchildren have a lot of complaints about pain and somatic pain. They have trouble saying that they are afraid so they speak about it in hidden ways,” she said.Teenagers are more likely to act out in dangerous ways, she said.Although some children are more verbal than others at any stage in their development, there are basic gender differences.“Generally, girls talk more about their anxieties, fears and feelings. Boys tend to show it more through behavioral problems, intensity and aggression – functional problems.”Some children display their fears and anxieties in more indirect ways, such as dreaming about the war, or fears that did not exist before.Some fear using the toilet or taking a shower because of the possibility that a red alert will sound and they will have to run to a bomb shelter.Others link specific places with red alerts, such as the child who did not want to visit her grandmother because during one visit there was a red alert and the place itself now causes anxiety.According to Pat-Horenczyk’s research, the younger the child, the more vulnerable he is to the influence of his parents.“If the situation affects the parents and the mother is depressed or post-traumatic herself, this strongly affects the child,” she explained. A parent who is dealing with her own trauma and anxiety is less capable of calming down her child who is suffering.This is why a lot of the treatment given is to the parents, to help them learn to deal with their own anxieties and fears, and then equip them with the tools to help their children.The programs give the parents tools to use the fear felt by themselves and their children in a constructive way. Playing and having fun is an important part of the process of dealing with the anxiety caused by living near the Gaza Strip.Despite the high levels of anxiety, fear and PTSD among children in Sderot and the Gaza periphery, most of the children and the parents deal with the situation with resilience, according to Pat-Horenczyk – “even the most difficult situations.”Studies conducted in the area over the past 10 years prove the point.“Resilience is the most common reaction. Even among those in the worst situations,” she said.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>In his meeting with Nematollah Emamzadeh in Tehran on Monday evening, Larijani touched upon cultural and historical affinities between Iran and Tajikistan and stressed the need to further promote friendly relations in all spheres, parliamentary areas in particular.
"Promoting political and parliamentary relations will play an effective role in boosting cooperation between Iran and Tajikistan," he noted.
The Tajik envoy, for his part, voiced his country's willingness to enhance relations with the Islamic Republic in all fields, saying that given the two nations' capacities and capabilities, serious efforts should be made to promote bilateral trade and cooperation.
During his visit to Karoon 3 and 4 dams in southwest of Iran back in March, Emamzadeh had hailed Iran's active role in the reconstruction and development of Tajikistan, especially in resolving the Central Asian country's power shortage.
"By building two hydroelectric power plants with a capacity of 120 MW in Tajikistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran has removed part of the country's power shortage," he said at the time.Even as President Bashar al-Assad has made sweeping advances across parts of his country, the Syrian Support Group (SSG) has been riven by internal divisions and struggled to raise funds.
The group had been considered a potential game-changer whose money-raising abilities would equip the rebels with much-needed modern weapons.
But instead of using a unique US licence to funnel funds to the opposition, the group has spent months pursuing a fruitless dash to make millions of dollars from Syrian oil.
One former staff member has alleged that the leadership had become "obsessed" with landing a jackpot oil deal and lost sight of its core mission to back the rebels.
The head of the SSG in Washington resigned last month after the group failed to gain real traction with US officials and its London operation is under threat of closure after falling foul of the Government.
The Foreign Office has demanded the group repay thousands of pounds from a grant after determining that some of the money was improperly spent.
Over the past few months, Mr Assad has made major advances regaining control over key rebel towns and cities including most of Homs, all of Qusayr and was reported yesterday to be advancing on the Aleppo suburbs.
His success has come as well-armed radical Islamist groups have turned on the more moderate mainstream opposition rebels who have complained of being starved of weapons.
The West had hoped the SSG, founded in the US in December 2011, would channel support to these moderate elements within the Syrian uprising and in May last year it was granted a coveted Treasury licence allowing it to skirt American sanctions on the country.
But private donations dried up after the US State Department warned the SSG that its funds could not be used for weapons. Instead according to David Falt, a whistleblower who served as SSG's European government affairs director, the group turned its efforts from fundraising to pursuing large and controversial oil deals under the leadership of Brian Sayers, a former Nato official.
Mr Falt has revealed internal emails between Mr Sayers and others, containing proposals to raise money by selling rights to Syrian oil output.
"Brian and some others were obsessed with the oil. The idea they could raise hundreds of millions from the sale of the oil came to dominate the work of the SSG to the point no real attention was paid to the nature of the conflict," said Mr Falt.
Syria's oil is a deeply sensitive issue for opposition figures determined to avoid the taint of corruption and undue Western influence that any deal would provoke.
Walid Saffour, the Syrian opposition's political representative in London, said there was no authority for any branch of the anti-Assad coalition to sell oil rights or grab resources before the collapse of the regime and its replacement by a new government.
Mazen Asbashi, the president of SSG who is now trying to restructure the organisation, said the group's board was eventually forced to pull the plug on the oil proposals after becoming uncomfortable with the activities of Mr Sayers.
"There were early preliminary discussions but they were never pursued in any serious way," Mr Asbashi said. "The oil-related issues are complex and our organisation is focused on facilitating non-lethal support to the Syrian Military Council."
Members of the board claimed that they ordered Mr Sayers to call off the proposals. "He was way out in front of where we were comfortable," said one board member who accused Mr Sayers of "freelancing".
But Mr Sayers said both the board and Gen Selim Idris, the head of the Syrian Military Council (SMC), were supportive of the idea of using oil money to help fund the rebellion. "There was no disagreement on the principles of that issue and the notion that somehow I was overreaching is absolutely false," he said.
As the discussions were continuing, Gen Idris sought Western backing for an attack on the jihadist groups that controlled the oilfields. "When we have a well-armed battalion and you send it to the oilfields, others will see this is a central force protecting national resources and not a specific group taking over to sell oil," he told the Financial Times.
A spokesman for Gen Idris did not return calls from The Daily Telegraph seeking comment on SSG's activities.
The SSG has maintained lobbying operations in Washington and London but has secured just two small-scale government contracts in 14 months.
One of those contracts provoked an objection by the Foreign Office over the use of a British grant to establish an office overlooking Hyde Park for Mr Saffour. The office was on the same floor as Cherie Blair's consultancy firm, Omnia Strategy. The SSG's European arm, founded by Mr Sayers and a veteran Whitehall lobbyist with ties to the oil industry, Andrew Gifford, has since been asked to reimburse the Foreign Office for parts of the grant.
Mr Saffour told The Daily Telegraph that he had been forced to move out of his office and had not yet found new premises. "Unfortunately the SSG was unable to carry on renting the office for a lack of funds, he said. "I never asked them where the money came from."
The Foreign Office said it was not currently providing support for Mr Saffour and had recovered furniture and other equipment from the office. A spokesman said it would rigorously examine future use of its resources.
The SSG has seen its bids for more contracts from the Foreign Office slip into "abeyance," according to Donald Maclaren, a former British ambassador to Georgia who works for SSG.
Mr Asbashi said the future of the European operation was under discussion and would not rule out closure. He admitted the SSG has never had more that $200,000 in its accounts. "We're struggling to keep the lights on," said one board member.As we emit more carbon dioxide, the oceans will become more acidic. That will be bad for sealife—but it may also speed the rate of global warming
Reinhard Dirscherl via Getty Images Bleaches corals off the coast of Indonesia. Ocean acidification could have disastrous impacts on sealife—and the climate
Given that they cover 70% of the Earth’s surface—and provide about 90% of the planet’s habitable space by volume—the oceans tend to get short shrift when it comes to climate change. The leaked draft of the forthcoming coming new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted the atmospheric warming we’re likely to see, the rate of ice loss in the Arctic and the unprecedented (at least within the last 22,000 years) rate of increase of concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. But when it came to the oceans, press reports only focused on how warming would cause sea levels to rise, severely inconveniencing those of us who live on land.
Some of that ignorance is due to the out of sight, out of mind nature of the underwater world—a place human beings have only seen about 5% of. But it has more to do with the relative paucity of data on how climate change might impact the ocean. It’s not that scientists don’t think it matters—the reaction of the oceans to increased levels of CO2 will have an enormous effect on how global warming impacts the rest of us—it’s that there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty around the subject.
(MORE: Shifting Baselines: Why the Environment Is Even Worse Off Than You Think)
But here’s one thing they do know: oceans are absorbing a large portion of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere—in fact, oceans are the largest single carbon sink in the world, dwarfing the absorbing abilities of the Amazon rainforest. But the more CO2 the oceans absorb, the more acidic they become on a relative scale, because some of the carbon reacts within the water to form carbonic acid. This is a slow-moving process—it’s not as if the oceans are suddenly going to become made of hydrochloric acid. But as two new studies published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change shows, acidification will make the oceans much less hospitable to many forms of marine life—and acidification may actually to serve to amplify overall warming.
The first study, by the German researchers Astrid Wittmann and Hans-O. Portner, is a meta-analysis looking at the specific effects rising acid levels are likely to have on specific categories of ocean life: corals, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans and fishes. Every category is projected to respond poorly to acidification, which isn’t that surprising—pH, which describes the relative acidity of a material, is about as basic a function of the underlying chemistry of life as you can get. (Lower pH indicates more acidity.) Rapid changes—and the ocean is acidifying rapidly, at least on a geological time scale—will be difficult for many species to adapt to.
Corals are likely to have the toughest time. The invertebrate species secretes calcium carbonate to make the rocky coastal reefs that form the basis of the most productive—and beautiful—ecosystems in the oceans. More acidic oceans will interfere with the ability of corals to form those reefs. Some coral have already shown the ability to adapt to lower pH levels, but combined with direct ocean warming—which can lead to coral bleaching, killing off whole reefs—many scientists believe that corals could become virtually extinct by the end of the century if we don’t reduce carbon emissions.
(MORE: The Changing Sea: Squid Will Be Vulnerable to Ocean Acidification)
The Nature Climate Change study found that mollusks like oysters and squids will also struggle to adapt to acidification, though crustaceans like lobsters and crabs—which build lighter exoskeletons—seem likely to fare better. With fish it’s harder to know, though those species that live among coral reefs could be in trouble should the coral disappear. But ultimately, as the authors point out, “all considered groups are impacted negatively, albeit differently, even by moderate ocean acidification.” No one gets out untouched.
The other Nature Climate Change study—by American, German and British researchers—looked at the effects that ocean acidification could have on atmospheric warming. It turns out there may be some feedback—the researchers found that as the pH of the oceans dropped, it would result in lower concentrations of the biogenic sulfur compound dimethylsulphide (DMS). Why does that matter? Marine emissions of DMS are the largest natural source of atmospheric sulfur. (Manmade sources of sulfur include the burning of coal.)
Sulfur, in the form of sulfur dioxide, isn’t a greenhouse gas. But higher levels of sulfur in the atmosphere can reduce the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface, causing a cooling effect. (In the aftermath of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which threw millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, average global temperatures the two years fell by about 0.5 C.) If acidification decreases marine emissions of sulfur, it could cause an increase in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface, speeding up warming—which is exactly what the Nature Climate Change study predicts. It’s one more surprise that the oceans have in store for us.
MORE: Why Warming Oceans Could Mean Dwindling FishA FROZEN toy shortage has triggered tantrums and an inflated online black market, with all things Elsa and Anna sold out across the country.
Parents are paying hundreds of dollars importing much-wanted merchandise from the film Frozen to appease obsessed youngsters
The Disney animated movie follows the story of two princess sisters in an icy winter fairytale that has captured hearts across the globe.
Official stock is so limited in Australia the toys are being sold on eBay at exorbitant prices, with dolls fetching as much as $1000, dress- up costumes from $174 to $530 and a pin featuring the characters listed for $445.
Balgowlah dad Michael Procter has been crowned father of the year by his daughters Angalina, 6, and Aurora, 4, after he snagged two Elsa dolls while on holiday in the US last week — but even that was a challenge.
Sales assistants at a US Disney store rationed one doll per person and he had to rope in a friend to buy the second doll and a stranger to buy a third doll for a friend.
“I didn’t think I’d be such a superstar, but they absolutely love them and have played with them every day,” he said
media_camera Happy campers: Michael Proctor and his daughters Aurora and Angalina. Picture: Jeremy Piper
Lindfield mum Olivia Chung spent a month looking for an Elsa outfit her daughter could wear to a Frozen-themed birthday party, and resorted to commissioning a dressmaker to make one.
“It’s insane,” she said.
Disney Australia’s marketing director Kate Kavanagh said, while all Frozen dolls and merchandise were sold out nationally, more stock was expected in July.
“The results have been extraordinary,” she said. “When something like this is such a surprise hit and there’s such demand for consumer products, it’s rare we have enough.
“The good news is products will start flowing back into stores in July.”
A Target spokesman said the retailer had 18,000 Elsa, Anna and Olaf dolls on order for July.
Co-founder of costumes.com.au Nathan Huppatz said the online retailer would stock Frozen merchandise in June, with thousands of parents pre-ordering.
“We’ve never seen demand for a toy like this before,” he said.Advertisement
Images: Shinji Nishimoto BRAIN RECONSTRUCTION: Segments of Hollywood movie trailers [top row] are shown to subjects while their brain activity is measured using fMRI. Then the images are reconstructed [bottom row] from the brain activity itself. Click on the image to enlarge.
At the end of last year, IBM predicted that by 2017 limited forms of mind reading would “no longer [be] science fiction.” Along similar lines, though, in 1933 Nikola Tesla said he would soon be able to photograph people’s thoughts.
Is IBM going to be equally wrong?
Maybe not. Surveying leading neurotech experts has turned up some support—albeit limited and carefully qualified—for the company’s prediction. And oddly enough, one reason is that Tesla’s prediction is—in very limited ways as well—coming true too.
Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to produce rough representations of images as actually seen by a subject’s visual cortex.
First, researchers created computer models of fMRI signals from each subject’s visual cortex while the subject watched Hollywood movie trailers. Then the scientists recorded visual cortex activity during a second set of clips. They then simulated what the brain “saw” during the second set by running their models on some 5000 hours of online video clips to isolate snippets of images and motions that most closely matched the visual cortex’s activity in each moment.
Lars Kai Hansen, professor of cognitive systems at the Technical University of Denmark, in Copenhagen, says his field has undergone dramatic change over the past 15 years. “I see no reason to doubt that...algorithms will allow us to speak ‘brain’ in much more detail than we can now,” he says.
That said, no one expects cutting-edge scientific laboratories, let alone consumer technology, to be able to decode the brain’s activities in any way that could enable actual mind reading. It’s more that scientists have learned the first few phrases in a very complex language. Worse, the phrases rarely have a fixed meaning and don’t combine to form sentences in a straightforward way.
Geraint Rees, director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, has been looking for the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone. “Is looking at red plus drinking a glass of wine equivalent to the sum of looking at red and, separately, drinking a glass of wine? Or is there some kind of nonlinear interaction? We don’t know the rules of those combinations.”
Moreover, says Chris Frith, emeritus professor at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, no one has figured out how to read an individual neuron without opening up a skull and attaching a tiny wire to it. Instead, he says, fMRI reads the activity of clusters of hundreds of thousands of neurons. And even the best electroencephalogram (EEG) technology still can resolve only down to the level of hundreds of neurons.
That’s enough to do some useful work, though.
In 2009, an Australian company called Emotiv Systems released a commercial EEG unit called the EPOC. A US $299 fitted wireless headset, the EPOC reads faint neural signals through the device’s 14 scalp electrodes, which envelop the head like plastic tentacles. According to Emotiv’s website, the user’s computer—running Emotiv’s proprietary signal processing software—then translates Emotiv’s data stream into meaningful information about activity in various brain regions.
Scores of videos on YouTube show EPOC users training their brains to control a video game, keyboard, robot, or wheelchair. But this is a long way from—to steal Tesla’s term—thought photography. “Learning to control things using our brain activity is not the same as mind reading,” Frith says. “I agree that control via a brain is no longer science fiction. But it will not lead to thought monitoring.”
Ken Norman, principal investigator at Princeton’s Computational Memory Lab, says people should be “superskeptical” about any claims of mind-reading technology.
“Brain data is noisy,” Norman says. “The cognitive states we’re trying to detect are complicated. And we’re measuring all sorts of things in the brain that have nothing to do with the thought we want to decode.”
He adds, though, that devices like the EPOC could still find some amazing applications.
We can measure whether someone thinks they’re doing something right or wrong, how much effort they’re expending, their focus of attention, or their familiarity with an object, Norman says. “Most of the cleverness is going to come from people coming to grips with the limits of the technology and then being really smart about what sorts of applications you can make work with that signal.”Started in 2013, Saturday’s event marked five years of people coming to Elizabeth Park to slide their creations down the hill, knowing often that their hard work would unravel mid-slope. Competitors of all ages strapped on helmets (sometimes) and tried their luck
There is a long tradition of using art to break the silence around issues that are often dodged at Thanksgiving dinners. Participants in past years’ Hartford Art Sled Derby have done this, but in fewer numbers than in 2017.
“Rogue NASA” was among the political statement sleds this year. Another participant corrected “Alternate Facts” about where the first flight occurred, before “flying” his sled downhill.
The most elaborate of these was “The Wall,” a sled that included pro-immigrant chanting and sign-waving; spectators who were not previously clued in to the act began shouting along. At the bottom of the hill, once fully stopped, the riders seated inside the graffiti-covered wall dramatically tore it down.
Not all entries were political. There were sleds devoted to The Big Lebowski, Nicolas Cage, and Doctor Who. “The Knit Knight” featured chainmail armor made from yarn. A dragon boat sled, inspired by Hartford’s dragon boat races, earned the attention it received.
As always, there were some spectacular wipe-outs, including the collision of a cream sled with a coffee sled.
The Hartford Hot Several performed, as is the tradition, and elaborate trophies were awarded at the end of the fast-paced event.
Missed it? Mark your calendar for the weekend near Valentine’s Day next year.
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SaveSo, I saw Kick-Ass yesterday, and I thought I might want to blog about it, but I wasn’t sure if A) I could articulate just what I liked about it — because I did like it — and B) I wanted to open that can of worms. Now, I’ve committed to B in my own mind, so we’ll see if A comes together as I go along.
I went to see it mostly for the same reason a whole lot of people — including Roger Ebert, with whom I agree about 95% of the time — hated it: One of the main characters, Hit Girl, is a stone cold killer who calls victims cunts and motherfuckers, traits that would be soporifically old hat if not for their belonging, in this case, to an 11-year-old girl. (Also, a lot of people — though Ebert’s not one of them — seem a hell of a lot more upset by her language than by watching her eviscerate other human beings or be brutalized herself, which got my “Wow, this culture is fucked up” antennae wiggling.)
I was not disappointed. I loved that character, far more than I expected to, even. But I loved her while also recognizing that her approach to life was essentially sociopathic — and worse, that she was not that way naturally, but had been trained/brainwashed by her father (portrayed here as a basically sympathetic figure, further complicating matters) to kill without a hint of remorse or disgust — so if I thought about it too hard, I’d be torn between crying and vomiting.
Now, regular readers know I am not one to shy away from overthinking things, and I am a big supporter of Moff’s Law. (Short version: “If you really think people should just enjoy the movie without thinking about it, then why the fuck did you 1. click on the post in the first place, and 2. bother to leave a comment? If it bugs you so much, GO WATCH A GODDAMN FUNNY CAT VIDEO.”) So I am by no means suggesting that one should avoid any deeper analysis of Hit Girl. In fact, I’m about to do just that. But it’s a lot more complicated, for me, than simply saying the whole concept of her is beyond fucked-up and therefore represents a failure of art and/or entertainment. Because the fact that she made me feel squirmy and confused and inarticulate is one of the things I liked about the movie.
Before I proceed, I want to make a few things clear.
1) There will be spoilers. Big ones. I’ll put the bulk of this post behind a cut, but for dog’s sake, if you don’t want to be spoiled, go away now.
2) I am not approaching this as a big fan of comics or superhero movies in general, or Mark Millar (whose name I just had to look up again) in particular. In fact, as for Millar, here is what I know about him: 1) His work has been criticized for egregious race and gender fail by people I respect very much. 2) He wrote the comic on which the 2008 movie Wanted was based. I saw Wanted. And I would say Wanted was the most unpleasant, misogynistic, gratuitously violent, pointless piece of shit I’ve watched in the last five years, except I also saw Crank. So any enthusiasm I had going into this movie was categorically not Millar-related.
3) I do see a lot of movies that technically belong to various distinct genres but can all be loosely gathered under the umbrella of “Shit blows up and a lot of people die” — hence having seen both Wanted and Crank — and I like many of these movies. So if you just can’t stand cinematic violence, I don’t blame you and will even stipulate that you are probably a much better person than I am — but I guarantee you will hate Kick-Ass, and I will now gently suggest that there is probably no reason for you to finish reading this post. (And if you can’t stomach mentions of specific acts of cinematic violence, please stop reading now.)
4) I went into Kick-Ass expecting a Shit Blows Up And A Lot Of People Die movie with a sense of humor, not a comedy with incidental violence, which I’m pretty sure makes a big difference. And I read just enough about it before seeing it to know some of the violence would be beyond what I could tolerate, so I did what I always do: Closed my eyes as soon as I could see it coming. Which, if you’ve seen enough of these movies, you always can. Perhaps you haven’t seen a movie in the last fifteen years, in which case, let me explain: There is no such thing as implied violence anymore. In 2010, if you see a man in danger of getting some fingers lopped off, for instance, you cannot trust the filmmakers to cut away before it’s done (much less to forgo following through on the threat). If you hear bad guys describe a microwave oven large enough to treat lumber while they’re planning to extract information from a recalcitrant foe, you cannot assume that a short time later you will learn through exposition of said foe’s death and enjoy a few inn0cent seconds before it fully sinks in that “Ohhhh… Oh MY GOD.” In 2010, if you see a pair of bolt cutters or hear the words “industrial-size microwave,” you need to either brace yourself or close your eyes and try to pretend you’re back in the good old days, when mainstream movies left at least the goriest details to our imagination. (If you choose the latter strategy, as I do, the time to open your eyes again is a few seconds after the rest of the audience goes, “GEEYAAAAAAH!”)
(Note: I really wish filmmakers would quit trying to one-up the shock factor of the last hideously graphic movie, and that “torture porn” would remain a discrete genre I can confidently avoid, along with the people who actively enjoy it, instead of sneaking its way into every fucking thing short of romantic comedies and movies about singing animals. And there is a reasonable argument to be made that if I don’t like extreme violence, I should really quit spending money on movies like this. But that argument is beyond the scope of this post, which is already too long, and I haven’t even gotten near the point yet.)
5) Finally, in case all of the above and the R rating haven’t tipped you off, let me make this explicit: Kick-Ass is not remotely a children’s movie. As Women and Hollywood’s Melissa Silverstein put it, “If your kid wants to see it, say no.” Say no and mean it. Since I don’t watch TV the old-fashioned way, I haven’t seen ads for it and don’t know what the marketing’s like. It’s entirely possible they’re trying to sell this as a comedy and pretend Hit Girl is all about girl power rather than blood lust — in which case, shame on them. But if you take your kid to see this, thinking it’s just a superhero movie about a nerdy boy and a plucky tween girl who fights crime with her dad, because you didn’t notice the R rating and couldn’t be bothered to read even one review — just one, any one, would tip you off to the volume of violence and gore — I basically have no patience for your outrage.
With all that out of the way, I really liked Kick-Ass, and I fucking loved Hit Girl. It |
cover the XFL. He publicly denigrated the league throughout its existence and remains a vocal critic of the league and its premise.
In 2006, Costas returned to NFL studio hosting duties for NBC's new Sunday Night Football, hosting its pre-game show Football Night in America. Costas last hosted NFL telecasts for NBC in 1992 before being replaced in the studio by Jim Lampley and subsequently, Greg Gumbel. Before becoming the studio host for The NFL on NBC in 1984, Costas did play-by-play of NFL games with analyst Bob Trumpy.
Costas is nicknamed "Rapping Roberto" by New York City's Daily News sports media columnist Bob Raissman.[14] Al Michaels also called him "Rapping Roberto" during the telecast between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants on September 10, 2006, in response to Costas calling him "Alfalfa".[15]
National Hockey League [ edit ]
Costas hosted NBC's coverage of the 2008, 2009, and the 2010 NHL Winter Classic.[16] He was scheduled to host coverage of the 2011 event as well but, due to the game's postponement, Costas only hosted pre-game coverage before leaving to go to Seattle for his duties with NBC's NFL coverage the next night. He hosted the event in 2012 as well as a post-game edition of NHL Live on the NBC Sports Network.
Olympics (1988–2016) [ edit ]
Costas has frontlined many Olympics broadcasts for NBC. They include the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996, Sydney in 2000, Salt Lake City in 2002, Athens in 2004, Torino in 2006, Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010, London in 2012, Sochi in 2014 and Rio in 2016.[17] He discusses his work on the Olympic telecasts extensively in a book by Andrew Billings entitled Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television. A personal influence on Costas has been legendary ABC Sports broadcaster Jim McKay, who hosted many Olympics for ABC from the 1960s to the 1980s.[18]
During the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Opening Ceremonies, Costas's remarks on China's teams' possible drug use caused an uproar among the American Chinese and international communities. Thousands of dollars were raised to purchase ads in The Washington Post and Sunday The New York Times, featuring an image of the head of a statue of Apollo and reading: "Costas Poisoned Olympic Spirit, Public Protests NBC".[19][20] However, Costas' comments were made subsequent to the suspension of Chinese coach Zhou Ming after seven of his swimmers were caught using steroids in 1994. Further evidence of Chinese athletes' drug use came in 1997 when Australian authorities confiscated 13 vials of Somatropin, a human growth hormone, from the bag of Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan upon her arrival for the 1997 World Swimming Championships. At the World Championships, four Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance Triamterene, a diuretic used to dilute urine samples to mask the presence of anabolic steroids. Including these failed drug tests, 27 Chinese swimmers were caught using performance-enhancing drugs from 1990 through 1997; more than the rest of the world combined.[21]
Along with co-host Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer, Costas' commentary of the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies came under fierce criticism, with Costas being described as making "a series of jingoistic remarks, including a joke about Idi Amin when Uganda's team appeared"[22] and the combined commentary as being "ignorant" and "banal".[23][24][25]
Following the Olympics, Costas appeared on Conan O'Brien's talk show and jokingly criticized his employer for its decision to air a preview of the upcoming series Animal Practice over a performance by The Who during the London closing ceremonies. "So here is the balance NBC has to consider: The Who, 'Animal Practice.' Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend – monkey in a lab coat. I'm sure you'd be the first to attest, Conan, that when it comes to the tough calls, NBC usually gets 'em right," Costas said, alluding at the end to O'Brien's involvement in the 2010 Tonight Show conflict.[26]
An eye infection Costas had at the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics forced him, on February 11, 2014, to cede his Olympic hosting duties to Matt Lauer (four nights) and Meredith Vieira (two nights), the first time Costas had not done so at all since the 1998 Winter Olympics (as rights were not held by NBC).[27]
Thoroughbred racing [ edit ]
Starting in 2001, Costas co-hosted the Kentucky Derby.[28] In 2009, he hosted Bravo's coverage of the 2009 Kentucky Oaks.[29]
Departure from NBC Sports [ edit ]
On February 9, 2017, Costas announced during Today that he had begun the process of stepping down from his main on-air roles at NBC Sports, announcing in particular that he would cede his role as primetime host for NBC's Olympics coverage to Mike Tirico (who joined the network from ESPN in 2016), and that he would host Super Bowl LII as his final Super Bowl.[30] However, Costas ultimately dropped out of the coverage entirely.[31]
USA Today reported that he would similarly step down from Football Night in America in favor of Tirico. Costas explained that he was not outright retiring and expected to take on a role at NBC Sports similar to that of Tom Brokaw, being an occasional special correspondent to the division. He explained that his decision "opens up more time to do the things that I feel I'm most connected to; there will still be events, features, and interviews where I can make a significant contribution at NBC, but it will also leave more time for baseball (on MLB Network), and then, at some point down the road, I'll have a chance to do more of the long-form programming I enjoy." Costas told USA Today that his gradual retirement was planned in advance, and that he did not want to announce it during the 2016 Summer Olympics or the NFL season because it would be too disruptive, and joked that "I'm glad that Sochi wasn't the last one. You wouldn't want your pink-eye Olympics to be your last Olympics."[30][32]
Costas's final major on-air broadcast for NBC was hosting the 2018 Belmont Stakes, where Justify won the Triple Crown.[33]
On January 15, 2019, it was announced[1] that Costas had officially departed from NBC Sports after 40 years.
Talk show hosting [ edit ]
Costas hosted the syndicated radio program Costas Coast to Coast from 1986 to 1996, which was revived as Costas on the Radio. Costas on the Radio, which ended its three-year run on May 31, 2009, aired on 200 stations nationwide each weekend and syndicated by the Clear Channel owned Premiere Radio Networks. During that period, Costas also served as the imaging voice of Clear Channel-owned KLOU in St. Louis, Missouri, during that station's period as "My 103.3".[34] Like Later, Costas' radio shows have focused on a wide variety of topics and have not been limited to sports discussion.
Costas hosted Later with Bob Costas on NBC from 1988 until 1994. This late night show created by Dick Ebersol, coming on at 1:30 a.m. as the third program in NBC's nightly lineup after The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman, was something of a break from the typical TV talk show format of the era, featuring Costas and a single guest conversing for the entire half hour, without a band, opening monologue or studio audience. On several occasions, Costas held the guest over for multiple nights. The show was taped in GE Building's studios 3B or 8H at the Rockefeller Plaza, with Costas interviewing the guest for 45 minutes to an hour before turning the material over to editors who condensed it down to 22 minutes plus commercial breaks.[35] More popular guests were given two or three part interviews that ran consecutive nights. In August 1991, Mel Brooks became the only guest for four consecutive nights in the series' history. The program was critically acclaimed, and twice nominated for Emmy's during its 5 1⁄ 2 -year run, with Costas as host. It won the Emmy Award for Best Informational Series in 1993.
Costas decided to leave Later after six seasons, having grown tired of the commute to New York City from his home in St. Louis and wishing to lighten his workload in order to spend more time with his family. He also turned down an offer from David Letterman, who moved to CBS in 1995, to follow him there and become the first host of The Late Late Show, which was being developed by Letterman's company to air at 12:30 after the Late Show with David Letterman.[36]
In June 2005, Costas was named by CNN president Jonathan Klein as a regular substitute anchor for Larry King's Larry King Live for one year. Costas, as well as Klein, have said Costas was not trying out for King's position on a permanent basis. Nancy Grace was also named a regular substitute host for the show.[37] On August 18, 2005, Costas refused to host a Larry King Live broadcast where the subject was missing teenager Natalee Holloway. Costas said that because there were no new developments in the story, he felt it had no news value, and he was uncomfortable with television's drift in the direction of tabloid-type stories.[38]
Beginning in October 2011, Costas was a correspondent for Rock Center with Brian Williams. He gained acclaim for his November 2011 live interview of former Pennsylvania State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky concerning charges of sexual abuse of minors, in which Sandusky called in to deny the charges.[39]
Costas hosted a monthly talk show Costas Tonight on NBC Sports Network.[40]
HBO Sports [ edit ]
In 2001, Costas was hired by HBO to host a 12-week series called On the Record with Bob Costas.[41] On the Record with Bob Costas was similar to the format of the old Later program as they both concentrated on in-depth interviews. In 2005, On the Record with Bob Costas was revamped to become Costas Now, a monthly issue oriented sports program that occasionally employed a town hall style format.
In 2002, Costas began a stint as co-host of HBO's long-running series Inside the NFL. Costas remained host of Inside the NFL through the end of the 2007 NFL season. He hosted the show with Cris Collinsworth and former NFL legends Dan Marino and Cris Carter. The program aired each week during the NFL season.
Costas left HBO to sign with MLB Network in February 2009.
MLB Network [ edit ]
At the channel's launch on January 1, 2009, Costas hosted the premiere episode of All Time Games, a presentation of the recently discovered kinescope of Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. During the episode, he held a forum with Don Larsen, who pitched MLB's only postseason perfect game during that game, and Yogi Berra, who caught the game.
Costas joined the network full-time on February 3, 2009. He hosts a regular interview show titled MLB Network Studio 42 with Bob Costas as well as special programming and provides play-by-play for select live baseball game telecasts.[42] In 2017, Costas called Game 1 of the American League Division Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros on MLB Network. The Astros went on to win 8-2. Unfortunately, Costas and his color commentator Jim Kaat received criticism for their "bantering about minutia" and misidentification of plays. Costas also went on to become an internet meme after using the term the "sacks were juiced" to describe the bases being loaded.[43]
NFL Network [ edit ]
As aforementioned, Costas hosted Thursday Night Football on NBC and NFL Network in 2016 and 2017, having returned to broadcasting after a brief absence.
Other appearances [ edit ]
Costas provided significant contributions to the Ken Burns, PBS mini series Baseball as well as its follow-up The 10th Inning. He also appears in another PBS film, A Time for Champions, produced by St. Louis's Nine Network of Public Media.[44]
Interests [ edit ]
Love of baseball [ edit ]
Costas is a devoted baseball fan. He's been suggested as a potential commissioner and wrote Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball in 2000. For his 40th birthday, then Oakland Athletics manager Tony La Russa allowed Costas to manage the club during a spring training game. The first time Costas visited baseball legend Stan Musial's St. Louis eatery, he left a $3.31 tip on a ten dollar tab in homage to Musial's lifetime batting average (.331). Costas delivered the eulogy at Mickey Mantle's funeral. In eulogizing Mantle, Costas described the baseball legend as "a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic". Costas has even carried a 1958 Mickey Mantle baseball card in his wallet. Costas also delivered the eulogy for Musial after his death in early 2013.
Costas was outspoken about his disdain for Major League Baseball instituting a playoff wild card. Costas believed it diminishes the significance and drama of winning a divisional championship. He prefers a system in which winning the wild card puts a team at some sort of disadvantage, as opposed to an equal level with teams who outplayed them over a 162-game season. Or, as explained in his book Fair Ball, have only the three division winners in each league go to the postseason, with the team with the best record receiving a bye to the League Championship Series. Once, on the air on HBO's Inside the NFL, he mentioned that the NFL regular season counted for something, but baseball's was beginning to lose significance. With the advent of the second wild card, Costas has said he feels the format has improved, since there is now a greater premium placed on finishing first. He has suggested a further tweak: Make the wild card round a best two of three, instead of a single game, with all three games, if necessary, on the homefield of the wild card of the better record.
Costas serves as a member of the advisory board of the Baseball Assistance Team, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to helping former Major League, Minor League, and Negro League players through financial and medical difficulties.
Political views [ edit ]
On May 26, 2007, Costas discussed the presidency of George W. Bush on his radio show, stating he liked Bush personally, and had been optimistic about his presidency, but said the course of the Iraq war, and other mis-steps have led him to conclude Bush's presidency had "tragically failed" and considered it "overwhelmingly evident, even if you're a conservative Republican, if you're honest about it, this is a failed administration."[45] The following summer, Costas interviewed Bush during the president's appearance at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.[46]
Controversies [ edit ]
Gun culture controversy [ edit ]
During a segment on the Sunday Night Football halftime show on December 2, 2012, Costas paraphrased Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock in regard to Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide the day prior, stating that the United States' gun culture was causing more domestic disputes to result in death, and that it was likely Belcher and his girlfriend would not have died had he not possessed a gun.[47]
Critics interpreted his remarks as support for gun control, resulting in mostly negative reactions. Many (including former Republican Presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Herman Cain)[48] felt that Costas should not have used a program typically viewed as entertainment to publicize political views on sensitive topics, Lou Dobbs criticized his remarks for supporting the abolition of the Second Amendment by quoting a sports writer, while Andrew Levy remarked that he had been given a civics lecture by someone who had "gotten rich thanks in part to a sport that destroys men's bodies and brains."[49] However, liberal reporter Erik Wemple of The Washington Post praised Costas for speaking out for gun control on the broadcast, commenting that the incident's connection to the NFL provided him with an obligation to acknowledge the incident during the halftime show, stating that "the things that [NFL players] do affect the public beyond whether their teams cover the point spread. And few cases better exemplify that dynamic as powerfully as the Belcher incident."[50]
During the following week, Costas defended his remarks in an appearance on MSNBC's program The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, where he stated that the remarks were related to the country's gun culture, and not about gun control as critics had inferred. Costas did suggest that more regulation be placed on America's gun culture:[48]
Now, do I believe that we need more comprehensive and more sensible gun control legislation? Yes I do. That doesn't mean repeal the Second Amendment. That doesn't mean a prohibition on someone having a gun to protect their home and their family. It means sensible and more comprehensive gun control legislation. But even if you had that, you would still have the problem of what Jason Whitlock wrote about, and what I agree with. And that is a gun culture in this country.[48]
2014 Winter Olympics [ edit ]
During his coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Costas was criticized by some conservative members of the media, including Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck for supposedly praising Vladimir Putin's role in defusing tensions surrounding Syria, and Iran.[51] Several media commentators, including Bill O'Reilly and Bernard Goldberg, defended Costas' remarks as factually correct and pointed out that Costas had also voiced considerable criticism of both Russia and Putin while broadcasting from Sochi. During an interview on Fox News Goldberg said "... the idea that Costas somehow portrayed Vladimir Putin as a benign figure is ridiculous."[52][53] Costas defended himself on O'Reilly's broadcast on March 3, reiterating that he criticized Putin immediately preceding, and following, the statements that were questioned. O'Reilly then aired a portion of an Olympic commentary in which Costas was pointedly critical of the Russian leader. Costas also indicated that Senator John McCain, who had been among those who had initially criticized Costas, had called Costas to apologize after hearing the full segment in context.[54]
While visiting the University of Maryland in November 2017 for a roundtable discussion on various sports topics, Costas said that the sport of football was in a decline, with evidence mounting that it "destroys people's brains" and he wouldn't allow a son with athletic talent to play it.[55] Costas had been scheduled to work Super Bowl LII, his eighth as a host (despite stepping down from Football Night in America in favor of his successor Mike Tirico, Costas was to return while Tirico prepped to lead NBC's coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics, set to begin a few days later). However, the network announced shortly before the game that Liam McHugh would instead join Dan Patrick as a co-host, leading to speculation that NBC removed Costas from the NFL's biggest game over his comments. Costas originally denied such, stating that it made more sense for McHugh, who had been hosting Thursday night games that aired on NBC, to serve in that capacity.[56] However, he later admitted in an interview with ESPN's Outside the Lines that the comments were indeed the basis of his removal, ultimately resulting in his departure from the network after 40 years.[57]
Personal life [ edit ]
Costas was married from 1983 to 2001 to Carole "Randy" Randall Krummenacher. They had two children, son Keith (born 1986) and daughter Taylor (born 1989). Costas once jokingly promised Minnesota Twins center fielder Kirby Puckett that, if he was batting over.350 by the time his child was born, he would name the baby Kirby. Kirby was hitting better than.350, but Bob's son initially was not given a first (or second) name of Kirby. After Puckett reminded Costas of the agreement, the birth certificate was changed to "Keith Michael Kirby Costas".[58] On March 12, 2004, Costas married his second wife, Jill Sutton. Costas and his wife now reside primarily in New York, but he has often said he thinks of St. Louis as his hometown.[59]
Costas's children have also won Sports Emmys; Keith has won two as an associate producer on MLB Network's MLB Tonight,[60][61] and Taylor as an associate producer on NBC's coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics.[61]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
Costas has won eight National Sportcaster of the Year awards from the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He was inducted into that organization's Hall of Fame in 2012. He has also won four Sportscaster of the Year awards from the American Sportscasters Association and well over twenty Sports Emmy Awards for outstanding sports announcing. He is the only person in television history to have won Emmys for Sports, News (Sandusky interview), and Entertainment (Later).
In 1995, Costas received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[62] In 1999, he was a recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is awarded to members of the electronic and print media for outstanding contributions to the sport. In 2000, he won a TV Guide Award for Favorite Sportscaster.[63] In 2001, Syracuse University honored Costas with the George Arents Award, SU's highest alumni honor, for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting. He was selected as the Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism recipient in 2004. In 2006, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Loyola College in Maryland. In 2012, Costas was awarded the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[64] In 2013, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications honored him with the first Marty Glickman Award for Leadership in Sports Media.[65][66]
On December 13, 2017, it was announced that Costas would receive the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 28, 2018.[67] In August 2018, the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame announced that Costas would be inducted to its body at a ceremony on December 11, 2018 honoring ten other sports figures including Dick Vitale, Jim Nantz and Bud Greenspan.
Costas is an honorary trustee of Webster University, a private college located in Webster Groves, Missouri. He is a frequent supporter of the school and has been in numerous radio commercials for them. He is also an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Films [ edit ]
In 1994, Costas appeared as the play-by-play announcer for the World Series (working alongside Tim McCarver) in the movie The Scout. In 1998, he appeared as himself along with his rival/counterpart Al Michaels (who now works for NBC) from ABC in the movie BASEketball. Costas voiced the animated character Bob Cutlass, a race announcer,[68] in the movies Cars (2006) and Cars 3 (2017). He also appeared as himself in the 2001 movie Pootie Tang, where he remarks that he saw "the longest damn clip ever".
Costas' voice appeared in the 2011 documentary film Legendary: When Baseball Came to the Bluegrass, which detailed the humble beginnings of the Lexington Legends, a minor league baseball team located in Lexington, Kentucky.
Popular culture [ edit ]
Costas has been alluded to several times in popular music. The songs "Mafioso" by Mac Dre, "We Major" by Domo Genesis and "The Last Huzzah" by Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, all refer to Costas. He was also mentioned in a Ludacris song after Costas mentioned the rapper on the late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly.
In June 2013, Costas provided the voice of God in the Monty Python musical Spamalot at The Muny Repertory in St. Louis.
Television guest roles [ edit ]
Apart from his normal sportscasting duties, Costas has also presented periodic sports blooper reels, and announced dogsled and elevator races, on Late Night with David Letterman.
In 1985, Costas appeared on The War to Settle the Score, a pre-WrestleMania program that the World Wrestling Federation aired on MTV.
In 1993, Costas hosted the "pregame" show for the final episode of Cheers. Costas once appeared on the television program NewsRadio as himself. He hosted an award show and later had some humorous encounters with the crew of WNYX. Costas also once appeared as a guest on the faux talk show cartoon Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Costas has been impersonated several times by Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live.[69] Costas was "supposed" to appear in the fourth-season premiere of Celebrity Deathmatch (ironically titled "Where is Bob Costas?") as a guest-commentator, but about halfway through the episode it was revealed that John Tesh had killed him before the show to take his place.
On June 13, 2008, Costas appeared on MSNBC's commercial-free special coverage of Remembering Tim Russert (1950-2008).
On January 30, 2009, Costas guest-starred as himself on the television series Monk in an episode titled "Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs"'. He mentions to Captain Stottlemeyer about how Adrian Monk once helped him out of a problem several years ago with regards to a demented cat salesman. He apparently sold Costas a cat that allegedly tried to kill him with a squeeze toy (in fact, when he signs off, he says "The cat was definitely trying to kill me").
Costas guest-voiced as himself in 2010 Simpsons episode, "Boy Meets Curl", when Homer and Marge make the U.S. Olympic curling team. Costas also guest-voiced as himself on the Family Guy episode "Turban Cowboy" in an interview with Peter after he wins the Boston Marathon by hitting everyone with his car.
On February 11, 2010, Stephen Colbert jokingly expressed his desire to stab Costas with an ice pick at the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver so that Colbert could take over as host. Costas later made a cameo appearance on the February 25, 2010, edition of Colbert's show.
In January 2013, Costas appeared as himself in the Go On episode "Win at All Costas" with Matthew Perry, wherein Ryan King auditions with him for a TV Show.
Real footage of Costas from NBC's pregame show before Game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals was used in the second episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
Costas appeared on the September 22, 2017 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss issues such as concussions and the role of political activism in professional sports (namely by Colin Kaepernick).[70]
Video games [ edit ]
In 2002, Costas was the play-by-play announcer, alongside Harold Reynolds, for Triple Play 2002 during the ballgame for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Career timeline [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Two years prior to discovering Elon Musk’s work, I had been studying the environmental destruction that is currently taking place on land, in the sea and in our skies. I gorged on information, learning about microplastics, overfishing, destructive energy companies, Monsanto, the list is endless. I consumed so much information in those two years that I almost became ill. I tried for years to understand what I could do to help the earth. I learned about the organic farming movement and the many groups that were all trying to save the earth. I even wrote a children’s book, titled, Solargirl Stella, that came to me in a vision (this is another story). I was drawn to radical groups like Deep Green Resistance and people who are intent on re-wilding our planet.
But I could never quite dive into those groups because I felt that these underground movements went against my basic nature: I don’t like the prospect of being arrested. I also became aware of the many flaws contained within the groups. I always felt they lacked an intelligent, all-encompassing design. At this precise moment, I came across the Elon Musk video.
From the moment I ran across that video, I set about learning everything I could about Musk: PayPal, Tesla Motors and to a lesser degree SpaceX and SolarCity. In all my life, I couldn’t remember a time that I was exposed to a CEO whom I considered to be truly brilliant. Before learning about Musk, I had very rigid and preconceived notions about what defined a CEO. I thought they were all money-devouring, greedy, spineless psychopaths who only lived for one purpose: to make more and more money. I certainly had no respect for such low-lying beasts.
My heroes tended to be artists, writers, visionaries, scientists, inventors, trailblazing people who defied categorization, had visions and altered the course of history, smashing outmoded thought along the way. Joan of Arc, Nikola Tesla, Theo Janssen and Frida Kahlo are all on my list. Arthur Rimbaud is another. It’s ten years later and I’m still trying to decipher the full meaning of one of Rimbaud’s quotes,
“I have researched the magic shapes of the happiness no one escapes.”
Isn’t that a fucking brilliant sentence? What does it mean?
Mr. Musk smashed my preconceived notion of a “CEO” to bits and I loved every second of its demise. After the formal research of Musk had waned, I found myself wanting to learn even more about this curious man. I tend to want to research a topic of my interest until there is no more information left. I then discovered the not so glittery sides of Elon through the writings of his ex-wife, Justine Musk and Ashlee Vance’s book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. The story of what happened to Elon’s personal assistant, Mary Beth Brown, is brutal and illustrates how cruel he can be to people who have shown absurd amounts of loyalty to him. From Quora, Justine Musk writes:
“Mary Beth Brown started working for Elon soon after we moved to LA twelve or thirteen years ago (Elon and I were still married then). MB was an exceptional and devoted employee of Elon’s and lovely to deal with on a personal level. She gave her life to the job — and to our family — and the news of her departure was a shock to me. Apparently (according, I believe, to Ashlee Vance, who wrote the book on Elon), MB asked for a raise. E told her that if she was truly critical to SpaceX, it should not be able to operate in her absence (or something to that effect). He suggested a 3-week experiment to test this hypothesis/her worth. This reminds me of something similar he once said to me, many years ago, after I came back from a week’s visit with my family in Canada — that his life had operated quite smoothly in my absence. He was letting me know that I was an incompetent house manager.”
Of course I do not personally know the details, but I did read Ashlee Vance’s book and this is where the cult of personality plays out. We tend to look the other way when we learn about Elon Musk’s personality flaws and the fact that he tends to treat some individual people horribly. We tend to say to ourselves, “Well, he’s running two (or three) companies and is changing the course of history.” But let me point out another intriguing genius, Nikola Tesla, who also changed the course of history. I just finished his autobiography and he did not exhibit such cruel treatment of other human beings, as far as I can tell. Elon Musk is a person with an exceptional amount of engineering intelligence, business acumen, drive and passion for altering the course of technological and space history. He is also exceptionally good at taking advantage of opportunities. But he is a mortal and has flaws. He possesses some qualities that are not worthy of being emulated. These last two sentences are always left out of media headlines because the cult of personality wants you to believe that you could never reach the same level as Elon Musk.
It is true that you may not possess the perfect balance of characteristics, talents and skills necessary to make another Elon Musk. But the truth is, you are capable of doing great things, greater than your wildest dreams. The article that made me aware of these thoughts was written by Andrei Draganescu, someone you’ve probably never heard of. Here’s his thought-shattering explanation of the cult of personality:
“You are not special. Elon Musk is. This system glorifies the ones who somehow break the funnel. These rogues then spill out large amounts of change into our environment. To contain this, we devised a system of investing humans with special abilities. Of course we don’t have them, only they do.
The personality cult pattern is the foundation of the culture of heroes. From ancient demigods to modern day pop stars and fame flooded CEOs. It is all about how they are simply better than everyone else.
No one is better than everyone else. We’re all sweaty and smelly at times and mean and stupid at other times. Some of us exploit opportunities, that’s it. Opportunities are cracks produced by environment into the walls of the funnel of change.”
Speaking of mean and stupid…….have you read what Justine Musk’s life was like? My God! Her life with him sounded dreadful! More like a nightmare than anything else. Elon’s psychology seems full of barbs.
Elon admitted in an article that his definition of spending time with his children sometimes amounted to multi-tasking sending emails while being with them. Hmmmm……This brings to mind something worth thinking about: what are you willing to give up in order to make your dreams come true?
I’m beginning to understand the true cost of bending the world to make your vision of the future a reality. But wait a second. Perhaps, just perhaps I, too, am suffering from a dizzying spell of the cult of personality? You see, the cult of personality is so engrained, so much a part of the fabric of our minds that we cannot even perceive its existence.
We don’t see Elon Musk as a real person, only a cult figure that exists in our imaginations. He represents the person we are too lazy to become. He personifies the crazy ideals that we abandoned in our own childhoods. He symbolizes the collective potential energy of a trillion adults, who, for one reason or another, vacated their dreams of becoming a super heroic figure and instead settled inside the vapid walls of some mediocre, fluorescent-lit cubicle.
Learning about Elon Musk can be downright depressing.
We feel weak and ashamed when we are confronted by yet another story of him in Forbes. Forbes knows this. Forbes knows that we feel like abject losers when our photos are placed next to Musk’s.
The media uses the cult of personality to make you feel inferior, less than, diminished and vulnerable. Media is not designed to prop you up and feed you information to enrich your life, to climb out of your self-designed cages. No, the purpose of the media machine is to attack your most vulnerable personality traits and get you hooked, much like the drug dealer wants to get you hooked on heroin.
Let me bring up another person in history who significantly altered our human course: Nikola Tesla.
Nikola Tesla chose not to marry because it seemed for him, that being involved in a relationship would have decreased the amount of time he invested in his inventions. He chose inventions over relationships. He also tended to work in isolation and was not in charge of running companies. He had many friends, like Mark Twain, but it seems that his day to day existence did not revolve around people. The cult of personality surrounds Nikola Tesla as well. But Tesla is perhaps more of a freakish curiosity than Musk because Tesla forsake women altogether. Musk appears to treat them badly whereas Tesla didn’t get involved with women at all.
What do I have to do with any of this?
Well, it’s simple. I want to reach my potential. I want to dispel myths and help destroy the status quo. I want to bring to light brilliant people who also lie in the shadows. I want humanity to move forward. I am tired of brilliance being hidden. I’d like to change a lot of things.
I’ve spent my entire life in the shadows, it seems………………Today, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler is walking around to the offices of his fellow commissioners and passing out freshly mimeographed copies of his proposal for new net neutrality rules. He’s also typed up, presumably on a trusty Imperial A, a defense of his baffling decision to disregard the whole “neutrality” aspect of net neutrality by allowing deep-pocket content companies to pay for “fast lane” access
“There has been a great deal of misinformation that has recently surfaced regarding the draft Open Internet Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” writes Wheeler, who has previously held consumer-loathing gigs as the CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and president of the National Cable Television Association. “The Notice does not change the underlying goals of transparency, no blocking of lawful content, and no unreasonable discrimination among users established by the 2010 Rule.”
Sigh.
It’s true that the proposal does introduce transparency to the process and it does prohibit the outright blocking of content, but it’s the “no unreasonable discrimination” part that Wheeler is hoping to slip past the public.
He is trying to convince consumers of this illusory notion that ISPs will continue innovating and improving delivery speeds for everybody, but that there will be rare circumstances in which a content provider will pay for extra-special treatment.
But what incentive would ISPs have to make quality connections available to market-wide when there is money to be made in holding end-users as hostages to demand higher fees?
Imagine this scenario:
Cable Company X has a monopoly on wired broadband in Town City, USA. StreamVideoNow |
and the collectors edition? The regular book version (Just the book) is £29.99, and you get five nice demoscene postcards. The Collectors edition is £49.99, for this you get the book, an Amiga bookmark, some cool Amiga fridge magnets, some stickers, an awesome Guru Meditation error mouse mat! and also the five demoscene postcards!
If you was lucky enough to be one of the backers during the Kickstarter, then you may have received one of the stretch perks such as, an Amiga logo printed pen, a remixed version of the Shadow of the Beast soundtrack by Tim Wright, Another World A3 size poster, an optional hardcover and one of the best stretch goals was a Limited Edition physical boxed version of Putty Squad. Only 100 of these were made!
So there you have it, the Commodore Amiga: A Visual Commpendium, an essential accessory for Amiga owners old and new. The only thing I would add to this book, would be a few more pages about the demoscene, just my personal opinion, I really love the demoscene, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Thank you Sam for another beautiful book! 🙂
Sam will be releasing another book soon titled ‘ZX Spectrum: a visual compendium‘
The Kickstarter is still live right now with 18 days left, and has already surpassed it’s goal of £20,000! Currently the Kickstarter has reached a whopping £48,630! Head over to www.kickstarter.com and secure your copy and also check out the awesome stretch goals too!
Related Websites:
Sam Dyer: https://twitter.com/mrsidc64
Buy the book: http://www.funstock.co.uk
Publisher: http://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk
Editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jarratt
Affiliates: http://www.gamesyouloved.com, http://www.funstock.co.uk
Many thanks to http://www.funstock.co.uk
Review by Christina BurroughsDear readers, I’ve found a new way to create wireless hotspot in Ubuntu, AP mode with Android devices support, using Unity’s Network Manager.
After this tutorial, I’ve found 3 ways to create wifi hotspot in ap mode:
Using Ap-hotspot, an open-source app from github: see this post. Using KDE connection editor, see the post. Using Unity’s Default Network Manager with a little hack. See below
Below I will show you how to use Unity’s default network manager to create a wireless hotspot with Android devices support, tested in 64-bit Ubuntu 1404 with Nexus 4 and Sumsung Galaxy ace3.
1. Disable WIFI and plug in an internet cable to your laptop so that your Ubuntu is connect to a wired internet and wireless is disabled.
2. Go to Network Icon on top panel -> Edit Connections …, then click the Add button in the pop-up window.
3. Choose Wi-Fi from the drop-down menu when you’re asked to choose a connection type:
4. In next window, do:
Type in a connection name. The name will be used later.
Type in a SSID
Select mode: Infrastructure
Device MAC address: select your wireless card from drop-down menu.
5. Go to Wi-Fi Security tab, select security type WPA & WPA2 Personal and set a password.
6. Go to IPv4 Settings tab, from Method drop-down box select Shared to other computers.
When done, click the save button.
After above steps, a configuration file created under /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections directory. File name is same to the connection name you typed in step 4.
Now press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and hit enter to edit the configuration file:
gksu gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/wifi-hotspot
Replace wifi-hotspt with the connection name you typed in step 4.
When the file opens, find out the line mode=infrastructure and change it to mode=ap. Finally save the file.
When everything’s done, enable WIFI from Network Manager icon on the panel. It should automatically connect to the hotspot you created. If not, select “Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi Network …” and select it from the drop-down box.
Now you can search and connect the access point from your Android mobile and enjoy!By Mark Dummet
BBC News, Dhaka
Bangladesh's power plants have not kept pace with a rising population
The prime minister of Bangladesh has ordered male government employees to stop wearing suits, jackets and ties to save electricity.
Sheikh Hasina told officials that doing so would minimise their use of air-conditioners.
Bangladesh suffers from daily power cuts as power plants are unable to meet the country's demand.
A senior official told the BBC the government would soon encourage businesses to follow its example.
Bangladesh's official dress code has been rewritten - after Sheikh Hasina ordered government employees to do more to ease the country's energy shortage.
Even ministers now will no longer be expected to wear suits and ties.
During the hot months between March and November, men have been ordered to wear trousers and shirts instead, and these do not have to be tucked in any more.
Officials and ministers have also been told not to turn their air-conditioners below 24C.
In June, the government introduced daylight saving, and the clocks moved forward by one hour, in another attempt to cut energy consumption.
It has said it will also soon spend $6bn (£3.6bn) on new power plants, operated by private companies.
The current state-owned plants have not been able to keep up with Bangladesh's large population and its economy, which has been growing at about 6% annually for the past five years.
The energy sector in the country has been beset by allegations of mismanagement and corruption.In this episode MVP Allan Rafuse @AllanRafuse and myself MVP Dave Kawula @DaveKawula sat down with fellow Veeam Vanguard John Nicholson from VMWare.
John is with VMWare Storage and Availability Technical Marketing Architect focusing on VSAN. We had an amazing chat about HyperConverged infrastructure and it was really nice to get John's take on the industry in General. We learned the VMWare VSAN has an annual run rate of 300/mil and is really proving the HyperConvergence is here to stay. We are seeing Secondary Storage declining and 85 % of customer use cases at Dell/EMC are a good target for HyperConverged Infrastructure.
We learned what some of the top target verticals are for VSAN.
He also answered a key question and that was what Workloads should not be run on HyperConverged Infrastructure.
Lastly we chatted about NVME and how it will take over the Modern DataCenter.
Here is a little bit more information on John:
John Nicholson
vExpert 2013-2015. Enjoys syslog deep dives, and can telepathically sense slow and undersized storage.
He actively blogs at:
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/author/john_nicholson/Antrim woman Mitchell avoids jail for making over 50 hoax bomb calls BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A woman who made more than 50 hoax bomb calls narrowly escaped going to jail and was instead ordered to spend two years on probation. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/antrim-woman-mitchell-avoids-jail-for-making-over-50-hoax-bomb-calls-35453949.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article35081173.ece/e7baa/AUTOCROP/h342/Joanne_Mitchell
Email
A woman who made more than 50 hoax bomb calls narrowly escaped going to jail and was instead ordered to spend two years on probation.
Freeing 44-year-old Joanne Elizabeth Mitchell at Antrim Crown Court on Wednesday having taking what he said was "an exceptionally lenient course," Judge Desmond Marrinan told her that had it not been for her significant mental health issues, "I would have been sending you to prison for up to 18 months."
"You are putting people's lives at risk" by diverting vital police resources, said the judge.
In addition to the probation order, the judge also imposed a 30-month Anti-social Behaviour Order which bars Mitchell from owning or using any device which has internet access or wifi capability.
"I hope you take this chance I'm offering you because if you come back before me you will be going to prison for 18 months at least," warned Judge Marrinan.
Mitchell, from Greenview Avenue in Antrim, had earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of causing bomb hoaxes by communicating information she knew to be false to Crimestoppers which caused a "false belief that a bomb or other thing liable to explode or ignite" on 17 February and 25 September last year.
Opening the facts prosecuting lawyer Michael Chambers said while there were single counts on two separate bills of indictment, there were also "well over 50 counts of her doing the same thing" to be "taken into consideration".
He told the court that on February 17 the police received a report from Crimestoppers that there was a bomb on the Dublin Road in the town, adding that the supposed site was "about 150 yards from the defendant's home".
Police enquiries led them to Mitchell and although she initially denied making the hoax call, her iPad was seized and when it was examined, they discovered she had used it to make an internet call to the charity.
When that evidence was put to her, Mitchell admitted that incident along with "a large number of other" similar incidents.
Dealing with the incident last October, Suzanne Gallagher for the prosecution outlined how on that occasion, two calls were made in quick succession at 4am claiming there was a bomb and then "shots fired" at Mitchell's home with the caller even giving the name of "Joanne Mitchell".
Similarly to the other case Mitchell initially denied she was the caller but when other evidence was put to her she confessed.
Ms Gallagher revealed that Mitchell was in breach of two suspended sentences arising from other incidents in Belfast and Enniskillen, adding that the large majority of the entries on her eight page criminal record were for causing bomb hoaxes.
Submitting that Mitchell's offences while serious "were not the most difficult to investigate," defence barrister Richard McConkey said the best way describe them were "unsophisticated, a waste of time and a waste of money".
He said Mitchell had spent a "very long eight weeks" on remand before getting bail, adding that while in prison "she was subjected to significant bullying" but that since her release, Mitchell is receiving therapeutic care from mental health services.
"If she's put back into custody it may do more harm than good as it would cost the public purse to keep her there and would interrupt the help she's getting which will hopefully break the offending cycle," argued the lawyer.
Imposing the probation and ASBO, Judge Marrinan said it was clear that Mitchell suffered from mental health difficulties and that while "I don't hold a large degree of hope" that the help she's getting will see the end of her offending, "I think the best thing from societies point of view would be if you undergo a period on probation".
Even with those mental difficulties the judge told Mitchell in no uncertain terms that if she reoffended or breached the orders, "I will have to send you to prison because the police have limited resources and it's vitally important for them to be able to get to the scenes of real crimes".
Belfast Telegraph DigitalDemocratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves to supporters as she arrives to speak with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pa., on Monday. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday that five polls, all affiliated with major news organizations, will be used to qualify presidential candidates for the upcoming televised debates. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- The Commission on Presidential Debates on Monday announced it will use five different polls to determine which candidates will be able to participate in the upcoming presidential debates.
The nonpartisan commission, which determines the lineup for every U.S. presidential election, said the polls that will determine this year's lineup will be those conducted by ABC News-Washington Post, CBS News-New York Times, NBC News-Wall Street Journal, CNN-Opinion Research Corporation and Fox News.
The CPD said it selected those surveys on the advice of Dr. Frank Newport, editor in-chief at polling firm Gallup.
Three main factors that determined which polls will be used, the CPD said, are their reliability of polling and sample size, the soundness of the survey methodology, and the longevity and reputation of the pollster.
Because there are numerous candidates running for president, the CPD must establish a statistical threshold that determines which candidates can participate in the televised debates.
"If a candidate is invited to the first presidential debate, that person's vice presidential running mate will [automatically] be invited to the vice presidential debate," the CPD stated in a news release Monday. "The criteria will be reapplied between the first and second presidential debates and the second and third presidential debates."
The panel said to qualify, a candidate must meet three requirements:
First, qualifying candidates need to have at least 15 percent support of the national electorate -- which is determined by averaging the most recent results of all five polls.
Second, candidates must meet eligibility requirements in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution -- which include being a U.S.-born citizen, and having resided in the United States for at least the last 14 years.
Third, a candidate's name must appear on ballots in enough states to secure the mathematical potential to win at least 270 electoral votes -- the number needed to win the election.
"The candidate who receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College.. is elected President regardless of the popular vote," the CPD noted in its news release.
The first presidential debate will be held Sept. 26 at New York's Hofstra University, the second on Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis, and the third ten days later at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The lone vice presidential debate will be held Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Virginia.
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump will definitely qualify for all three debates, but the CPD's criteria will be used to determine whether Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and their running mates, will take part.
Though uncommon, third-party candidates have twice qualified for the presidential and vice presidential debates since they began in 1960 -- independents John Anderson and Patrick Lucey in 1980, and Ross Perot and James Stockdale in 1992.Mother wins right to more than half of ex-husband’s £500,000 crash compensation payout as ‘her needs are greater’
A woman battling her amputee ex-husband for the lion's share of his £500,000 compensation has won the right to more than half his money in a landmark ruling.
The Appeal Court declared that her needs and those of their children were more important than those of the disabled man.
Lord Justice Thorpe ruled that the money Kevin Mansfield received in 1998 after losing a leg in a road smash - five years before he met his former wife Cathryn - ought to be 'available to all his family' and that the needs of his ex-wife and their four-year-old twins were 'primary' and outweighed his own.
Landmark ruling: Amputee Kevin Mansfield lost his fight to stop his ex-wife Cathryn from claiming over half of his compensation after a judge ruled it to be an asset of their marriage
Mr Mansfield, 41, now faces having to sell his home, a specially adapted bungalow in Chelmsford, Essex - to meet the court's order that he pay £285,000 to 37-year-old Cathryn, so she can buy a new home for herself and their two children.
But Lord Justice Thorpe left Mr Mansfield with a glimmer of hope by also ordering that £95,000 of the money must be paid back to him by his ex-wife if she remarries a partner who can support her, or in 14 years time, once their children have grown up.
Mr Mansfield was still a student when he lost a leg and suffered serious spinal injuries when he was hit by a car in 1992. He met his ex-wife Cathryn five years after receiving £500,000 compensation in 1998.
The couple split up in 2008, soon after having twins, Carys and Corben - now aged four - through IVF treatment. Mr Mansfield told the court that almost the whole of the family's wealth at the point of their divorce derived from his damages payout.
At a divorce hearing in May last year, he heard a judge rule that his compensation should be regarded as an asset of the marriage and divided accordingly.
He took his case to the Appeal Court, but Richard Todd QC, for Cathryn Mansfield, insisted it made no difference that his damages payout pre-dated his marriage.
'No part of a personal injury award is sacrosanct. No part of the award is ring fenced, not even that part awarded under the heads of pain, suffering and loss of amenity,' Mr Todd said. 'When he took on the responsibility of a wife, and they decided to have two children, he knew that the capital would have to be used for their benefit too.
'The court would regard it as illogical that, whilst earnings should be taken into account and thus be fully available for the support of the family, a sum paid by way of compensation should be treated otherwise.
'This is capital which replaces earnings which would otherwise form part of the marital acquest. The wife has suffered real relationship-generated disadvantage.'
Turning to Mr Mansfield's request that some of the money should be returned to him by way of a charging order over his wife's new home, Mr Todd continued, 'The husband talks of a charging order. Such an order would leave the parties locked together contrary to the spirit of the clean break and would also make it impossible for the wife to meet her long term reasonable needs.
'When confronted with competing needs, the court is required to give first consideration to the needs of the children. The court carefully weighed the competing needs of the parties. The need of the husband to be properly housed, fully taking into account his disabilities, was carefully measured against the wife's need to care for the children.' he said.
Key decision: Lord Justice Thorpe said it would be 'unprincipled' for the court to interfere with the previous ruling
The QC added that the wife disputed that all the assets of the marriage came from her husband's damages award, claiming she had contributed £30,000 to buying the former marital home, plus the'sweat of her brow' in carrying out a 'great long list' of DIY improvements to the house.
Mr Mansfield, representing himself, told the court: 'I love the children, I think the world of them. I wouldn't be here today if I didn't care. There has been a lot of effort put into attacking me, but not a lot of due diligence.
'For me this chapter of my life should be closed. The insurance company did not just pay out the money to me on a whim.'
Giving the court's judgment, Lord Justice Thorpe said: 'This appeal raises a single point of significance - the degree to which a judge in ancillary relief proceedings should reflect a substantial award for a personal injury claim. The husband received approximately half a million pounds in his personal injury claim in 1998 before he ever met the wife. '
He added: 'I have been of a fluctuating mind during argument, but have come to the conclusion that the judge went into the conflicting needs of the parties with considerable care and found that £285,000 was the minimum needed to meet the needs of the wife and children.'
'£285,000 may be on the high side and it might be that the wife was fortunate to receive that quantification, but it would be unprincipled for this court to interfere.'
The judge went on to impose a £95,000 charging order on Mrs Mansfield's new home, to be paid back either when the couple's children turn 18, or when they finish their first degree, or if she remarries a partner who can support her.
In a statement outside court after the judgment, Mrs Mansfield said that she had brought the case for the sake of their children.
'From first to last, this case was all about our wonderful twins and how they would be housed. I am so very glad that a very wise Court of Appeal has approved the orders made by the lower courts that I should have £285,000 for housing both them and me,' she said.
Mr Todd added: 'The judge achieved what he wanted to achieve which was the security of the roof over the children's heads during their minority. '
Commenting on the legal importance of the case, the barrister went on: 'This case is going to be of huge importance to many other cases in future involving divorce and personal injury.Celebrate National IPA Day
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 4, 2011 9:40PM
Today is National IPA Day, a celebration of the India Pale Ale beer style that dates back to 17th century England. The style, like other pale ales, gets its name from the color imparted by the malt. By the mid-18th century pale ales were brewed from coke-fired malts, which needed less smoking and roasting during the malting process.
A long held assumption about IPAs is that the beer was brewed extra strong and given added hops so that it wouldn't spoil on its passage to India. Beer historian Martyn Cornell points out that's largely a tall tale as porters, which British troops perferred, also survived the journey to the subcontinent. IPA was the preferred beer of choice for the upper and middle class Europeans in India.
Although today the IPA style is associated by some with excessive hoppiness, the hops themselves don't necessarily have to be bittering hops. Some of our favorite IPAs, like Three Floyds Dreadnaught, New Holland's Mad Hatter and Bell's Two-Hearted, have a prominent citrus aroma from the hopping. Others like Two Brothers Resistance IPA impart a pine flavor to the palate. Then there are IPAs like Emmett's Black IPA, which intensify the malt color but still drink like a session ale. Like snowflakes, no two IPAs are the same.
If you're interested in diving head first into the IPA pool, Small Bar Fullerton is offering a wide range of them tonight. Featured drafts include Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet Black IPA,
Green Flash West Coast IPA and Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous on draft. They're also offering $1 off bottles of He'brew Leny Rye IPA, Dogfish Head 60-Minute and 90-minute IPA, Avery IPA, Lagunitas Maximus, Ska Modus Hoperandi and Stone Ruination IPA. The Twitter hashtag #IPADay is also trending, although we wonder if that's because beer geeks are using it or people are mistaking it for a free iPad giveaway.by
Hurricanes develop in the Atlantic Ocean and move across the cold water towards the warmer sea of the Caribbean. All that energy journeys, picking up steam, driving forward with immense force. This September, hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia and Maria thrust themselves into the Caribbean and devastated many of its islands as well as the coastline of the United States and Central America. One meteorologist, Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, suggested that this September was the most deadly hurricane month since 1893.
Changes in the world’s climate, scientists suggest, have made these Atlantic cyclones much more powerful than before. Warming waters increases the ability of the storms to draw in water vapour and to engorge themselves with more energy. These devastatingly formidable storms then drag the rising waters to produce dangerous storm surges that beat against coastlines and produce large-scale flooding.
Hurricane Irma, which arrived in the Caribbean Sea in early September, destroyed many of the small islands such as Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda and St. Martin. Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said that Barbuda, which housed short of 2,000 people, had become “barely habitable”. The government called for an evacuation of the island, which now has a population of zero. It has been abandoned. This country in the Lesser Antilles or the Leeward Islands faces the brunt of hurricanes since it is in the mouth of the Caribbean. Daniel Gibbs of the government of St. Martin, a French territory also in the Lesser Antilles, said that 95 per cent of the island had been destroyed. “It is an enormous catastrophe,” said Gibbs, who represents the island in the French parliament.
Cuba and Irma
Irma, a Category 5 hurricane—the strongest possible—struck Cuba with immense force in early September. The storm came fast and hard. The devastation was severe. In the small town of Moscu in the municipality of Esmeralda (Camaguey province), only 10 of its 289 houses remained standing. The Cuban journalist Yaditza del Sol Gonzalez reported for Granma that near Jiguey beach “the sea took it all”. The storm surge overcame the Malecon sea wall in Havana, sending water into its streets with ferocity. Havana, with its old buildings, suffered from flooding and power cuts. Ten people died, the majority of them in Havana. Cuba’s President Raul Castro took to the airwaves, calling for unity of the nation and for reconstruction of the island. “This is not the time to mourn,” Castro said, “but to build what the winds of Irma attempted to destroy.”
By all indications, the death toll in Cuba was remarkably low as was the devastation to the island’s infrastructure. Certainly, homes in the old part of Havana are brittle and parts of the infrastructure are in severe need of modernisation. But the island’s preparation for the hurricane and the general community spirit that prevails there saved it from total devastation. Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from Havana in anticipation of the storm, and over a million people from across the island went into shelters. One such shelter was at the Karl Marx Vocational Pre-University in Matanzas, where volunteers gathered food, water and medical supplies for the evacuees.
The country’s pharmaceutical industry halted production of medicines a week before the storm in order to build up the stock of hydration salts, which were then distributed across the island. Electricity and gas supplies were cut before the storm came to the island, and measures were taken to protect the lines and transformers from the impact of the winds and the flooding. The government made sure to dispatch flour to state bakeries, which worked overtime to produce stocks of bread for the aftermath of the storm. Agricultural workers from Santiago de Cuba harvested their crops before they ripened in the field and distributed the produce.
Meanwhile, brigades and defence councils began to conduct search-and-rescue operations across the areas most affected by the hurricane. “The most important task is, and will be, the preservation of life,” said Dr Jose Luis Aparicio Suarez, a coordinator of one of the medical brigades. “The recovery will come later, gradually. Health and life are the absolute priorities.”
But rebuilding was not left to later. Radio Cadena Agramonte in Camaguey reported during the storm that electric workers had begun to restore power in the area. Within weeks, such workers restored the electric grid, which is not anyway in the best shape. The electric providers reported that the storm destroyed two high-tension pylons, downed 3,616 poles and 2,176 kilometres of power lines, and damaged 1,379 transformers and several substations. Today, almost the entire island has electrical power.
Just before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba, U.S. President Donald Trump renewed the embargo of the island. This means that Cuba will be denied crucial supplies needed for reconstruction, including financial assistance from multilateral organisations. Cuba’s finances cannot manage the reconstruction, but nonetheless the government has announced that its state budget will finance 50 per cent of the construction materials needed for the 158,554 homes that have been affected by the storm. Also, the government has said it will provide a 50 per cent discount on damaged household goods. For those who have had all their goods destroyed, the government has said it will cover 100 per cent of their expenses.
Puerto Rico and Maria
Hurricane Irma did not directly strike the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, but it did knock out its power grid. More than a million customers lost access to power and half of the island’s hospitals went offline. This happened without any rainfall on the island and without a direct hit from Irma. Last July, the government-owned power company declared bankruptcy when it could no longer service its debt of $9 billion. There was no money to protect the grid, nor was there money to hastily get it back on its feet. Irma’s strike on Puerto Rico was a warning of what was to come.
Ten days later, with the power grid still in distress, Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, struck Puerto Rico. Power went out across the island. Drinking water was no longer available and fuel vanished. The 3.4 million U.S. citizens of the island found themselves stranded in an apocalyptic nightmare. The official death toll was given as 16, although the Centre for Investigative Journalism (School of Law at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico) says that there are already dozens of confirmed deaths, with the toll likely to rise to the hundreds. As hospitals are unable to function, the infirm are under danger of death. Dialysis has been halted; oxygen is not available. The Demographic Registry that certifies deaths has no power. It cannot do its work.
While Cuban journalists and brigades fanned Cuba to provide information to the authorities about destruction and reconstruction, Puerto Rico went dark. Communications collapsed and information about the damage was not easily available. While in Cuba the authorities tried to get exact information of the damage done to each home, in Puerto Rico the numbers thrown about were the price tag for recovery—between $40 billion and $85 billion is the estimated insurance claims that will likely be triggered by the devastation. It says a great deal about the different approaches to disaster: one makes sure each person is tended to and the other worries about the cost of the recovery.
Power company officials said it would take at least four, if not six, months for the power to be fully restored to Puerto Rico. This is on territory that is under U.S. government control, although according to a poll only 54 per cent of Americans know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Recovery has been glacially slow. In Aguadilla, thousands of desperate people were given four bottles of water and four snacks. They are starving and frustrated. The price of water has skyrocketed from $2.99 to $10 in many parts of the island. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of the capital, San Juan, said: “I’m begging, begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying and you are killing us with the inefficiency.”
Trump celebrated the “incredible” job his government had done. “The loss of life—it’s always tragic—but it’s been incredible, the results that we’ve had with respect to loss of life,” he said. “People can’t believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking.” He waived the Jones Act, which prevents ships from coming directly into Puerto Rico without going to a U.S. mainland port. But this will not be enough. Cuba has even offered to send its personnel to the island, but the Trump administration has not acknowledged the request.
Here is a tale of two islands, one a poor socialist state with infrastructure in grave need of modernisation and the other a territory of one of the richest countries in the world. One has slowly emerged out of the chaos caused by a hurricane’s wrath, while the other cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.Police Minister Neil Roberts this morning ruled out a temporary suspension of Tasers, telling reporters the weapons had saved lives in the past. But Terry O'Gorman, vice president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, said the decision was irresponsible. "The Minister knows full well it will be 12 to 18 months before this matter reaches coronial inquest. Are we going to risk the chance of another death in that time?" Mr O'Gorman said. Criminal defence lawyer Jim Coburn, who has lobbied with other solicitors for the State Government to justify its decision to introduce Tasers with scientific evidence of their safety, said today's tragedy was "inevitable". "This is the case we have feared since the fast-tracking of the Taser trial by the former Police Minister (Judy Spence) last year," Mr Coburn, of Brisbane firm Ryan and Bosscher, told brisbanetimes.com.au.
"We've warned about the introduction of Tasers in the first place and the potential for devastating effects. Now it has happened. "It is a dereliction of the Minister's duty not to suspend their use immediately." Mr Roberts said separate probes by the Police Ethical Standards Command, the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the coroner's office would examine the incident and whether the Taser had been used appropriately by police at the scene. He ruled out a ban on the weapons until that time. "I don't think that's necessary at all. In fact the the evidence clearly shows that from the initial trial and indeed the general roll out of the Taser they have been used very appropriately by police," Mr Roberts told reporters. "Every deployment of the Taser is investigated fully and reported. If there are any complaints about the use of a Taser, there is a higher level of investigation that is involved."
Frontline police were given Tasers by former Police Minister Judy Spence after a 12-month trial was cut to six months last year. Mr Roberts today defended the weapon's use and said far from doing harm, they were in fact "saving people's lives". "The evidence to date is showing the mere presentation of the Taser is actually diffusing situations. "They are actually being deployed proportionally less than (during) the original trial. "There are many other examples where the Taser has, I believe, actually saved people's lives. There have been people who are attempting to self harm and cause harm to others and the use of the Taser, rather than lethal force of a weapon, has diffused that situation immensely."
Police said the 39-year-old man, who had allegedly brandished an iron bar and broken glass, was shot three times with a Taser and had collapsed while being handcuffed. He died before ambulance officers arrived on the scene. He said a coronial inquiry would likely prove the electric shock device was not to blame. "Although a Taser was used by police, at this stage I believe that it is unlikely that this will ultimately emerge as the cause of death, due to other contributing factors," Mr Leavers said. "I believe that the deceased had caused a number of injuries to his person prior to police arriving and whilst police were trying to apprehend him and it is possible that toxicology reports could also be helpful to the coroner." Mr Leavers is flying to Townsville to speak with the officers involved. He said they were receiving support and counselling.
"It should also be noted that if the police officers did not have a Taser available in this case, they would certainly have had to resort to use of a firearm due to the level of danger that they were exposed to given that the deceased armed himself with a number of weapons. "Any death in custody is a tragedy and all of our thoughts are with the family of the deceased as well as with the officers involved." It is believed the man's death is the first in Queensland involving a Taser arrest. A 39-year-old man died in Alice Springs after being Tasered by police last month, and in 2002, Gary Pearce, a violent, mentally-ill NSW 56-year-old, died about two weeks after being shot with a stun gun when he threatened police with a frying pan. A joint inquest in Brisbane heard all four - James Henry Jacobs, 29, Thomas Dion Waite, 30, Mieng Huynh, 40, and James Michael Gear, 22 - had been in the throes of a psychotic episode and had become violent when they were gunned down either in their homes or in public.Video
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont aggressively confronted voter concerns about his electability as president on Thursday, making a rare formal address to explain his left-wing ideology of democratic socialism and argue that its principles reflected mainstream American values like fairness and equality.
Mr. Sanders, who is hugely popular with liberals but is struggling to attract more voters to his Democratic presidential bid against Hillary Rodham Clinton, made blunt overtures to the party faithful by presenting himself as the heir to the policies and ideals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Invoking the two men several times, Mr. Sanders said that democratic socialism was reflected in Roosevelt’s priorities like Social Security and in Dr. King’s call for social and economic justice, contrasting them to “socialist-communist” caricatures of his thinking put forward by Republicans to tar the Democratic field.
“I don’t believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production,” Mr. Sanders said in an hourlong speech before a friendly audience of college students at Georgetown University in Washington. “But I do believe that the middle class and the working families of this country, who produce the wealth of this country, deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down.”
Tapping into Democratic anger over income inequality and the power of big banks, Mr. Sanders also argued that the government bailouts of Wall Street firms during the Great Recession — and the lack of any prosecutions of industry executives — were a form of state-driven socialism in which a central government propped up and protected the wealthy.
Poor and middle-class Americans, by contrast, struggle financially without meaningful government help and end up being arrested on minor drug offenses, Mr. Sanders said, denouncing such fates by quoting Dr. King: “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.”
“Wall Street C.E.O.s who help destroy the economy, they don’t get police records, they get raises in their salaries,” Mr. Sanders said. “It’s time we had democratic socialism for working families, not just Wall Street, billionaires and large corporations. It means that we should not be providing welfare for corporations. It means we should not be providing huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, or trade policies which boost corporate profits that result in workers’ losing their jobs.”
Mr. Sanders, who is running second to Mrs. Clinton in many national and state opinion polls but appears tied with her in the influential New Hampshire primary, has tried to portray his rival as a close ally of Wall Street who cannot be trusted to restructure the American |
isn't right." Something was wrong with my back, but since I couldn’t see it, I was all the more anxious to find out what was going on.
Luckily I had a doctor’s appointment that week for my sports physical. The doctor took one look at me and said, "Yeah, this appears to be scoliosis." He ordered an X-ray to confirm it, which kicked off a week-long chain of X-rays, referrals, appointments, tests, and more referrals until finally I ended up meeting with Dr. Nigel Price. Dr. Price is now one of the top scoliosis specialists in the country; I was lucky that he practiced in my city.
After more X-rays/exams and a few physical tests, he laid out his recommendation. My back had curved too far for a brace to help, so the only real solution left was surgery. The surgery would straighten out my spine, and to keep it straight they would fuse bone to some of my vertebrae. While the fusion healed, my back had to stay perfectly rigid to prevent it from curving again before the fusion finished healing. To keep that from happening, they had to implant two rods held in place by screws along almost my entire spine. Basically all of my thoracic and some of my lumbar vertebrae are held in place by the steel. The surgery itself took 12 hours, and over the course of the surgery they had to give me eight pints of blood. The room was full of doctors; one was there to make sure my anesthesia was correct, another doctor was monitoring my spinal cord to make sure I wouldn't end up paralyzed, and there was Dr. Price and his team of doctors who actually straightened out my spine.
I spent the next week in the hospital and got out on Christmas day with a gift of two stainless steel rods and 25 stainless steel screws wrapped up in my body, with one huge scar as the bow. The funny thing is that most people would never know just by looking at me that I have this gnarly scar and all of this implanted steel running the entire length of my back. I take that as a point of pride, though, because it means I have recovered to the point that it seems like nothing is wrong.
What I find interesting is that some people don't realize the steel is still in my spine. Even though the fusion has fully healed, there is no reason to put me through another 12-hour surgery just to take out the implanted steel. I don't notice it most of the time, unless it's about to rain or I go through a metal detector. It’s weird to me that I’ve never been able to see the evidence of this life-defining event with my own two eyes.
So how does "Shirtless Kyle" come into play? When I tell the story about my surgery, sometimes people ask if they can see the scar. I’ll oblige, lift up a portion of my shirt, and that's that. However, during college, if anyone asked to see my scar while I was drinking at a party, somehow the entire shirt would disappear like I was Gray Fullbuster from the anime Fairy Tale.
Most of the time I put my shirt back on in a reasonable amount of time. Occasionally it did not find its way back until much, much later. In those moments, “Shirtless Kyle” was born.
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And that wraps up yet another glimpse into the dysfunctional lives of Rooster Teeth staff. New issues of "Up Close and Uncomfortable" will be released the first Thursday of every month, so check back on May 5 for your next dose of depravity.
As always, leave a comment to share your coolest scar stories.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
More than 120 top Democratic donors will spend next week's inauguration near Miami at the Turnberry Isle resort for three days of closed-door meetings and strategy sessions with elected officials, progressive leaders, and key strategists — all organized by David Brock.
Participants next week include familiar faces: attorneys general, state and federal officials, representatives from the four major labor unions, Stephanie Schriock of Emily’s List, Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood, and Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice, as well the five candidates running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, who will participate in a forum on Saturday and mark the close of the conference.
Brock, a prominent strategist with a web of liberal groups, organized what he’s calling “Democracy Matters 17.” He plans to hold a regular retreat as often as twice each year and, he said in an interview, eventually build it into a donor network dedicated to political causes and capable of funding groups beyond his own.
“We really aspire to be like the Kochs,” Brock said.
Brock, the Clinton hitman-turned-defender, now without a Clinton cause to defend for the first time in years, said an expanded Democracy Matters would distinguish itself with a square political focus and by keeping control with the strategists not donors.
The Democracy Alliance, the leading donor network on the left, has a different focus and structure. But Brock did not dispute the idea that a new liberal donor network could pose a challenge, though he noted that the DA hasn’t been focused on political fights, leaving a void.
“The DA has veered away from politics,” he said. “This conference is openly political.”
Gara LaMarche, the president of the Democracy Alliance, said he is planning to attend part of the Democracy Matters conference next week. The network funds a variety of progressive policy and advocacy groups, including Brock’s own press watchdog organization Media Matters.
The DA, he added, has seen about 50 new members in the past few years. And given “deep concern about Trump,” LaMarche said, the DA has organized a summit on regaining power in 2018 and 2020 state races as part of the organization’s spring meeting in Washington.
The donor conference programming will focus almost entirely the party's political position: Clinton pollster John Anzalone on “Tactics To Win”; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and veteran strategist Ron Klain on Donald Trump’s first 100 days; former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, by videoconference, on redistricting; and three sitting attorneys general on strategic role of Democratic states in the first term.
Next week’s retreat, according to Brock, has drawn interest from new donors. Of the 120 who are confirmed to attend, about one third, he said, have never given to one of his organizations, including a “new contingent” from the Silicon Valley community.
Brock’s move toward a donor network makes one in a list of other prominent Democratic groups that unveiled plans to transform, expand, or retool, with many competing for the same donors and indistinct roles that make up the loosely termed “Resistance.”
Both American Bridge, Brock’s group, and the Center For American Progress, run by Clinton ally Neera Tanden, have been presented as a central clearing house for research. (Neither Tanden nor Guy Cecil, who runs another central group, Priorities USA, will be attending the Brock conference.)
Brock is already planning the second Democracy Matters 17 conference for the fall, followed next year by “Democracy Matters 18” retreats. It is not clear when he hopes to be able to start raising for other groups, or how that network would be structured or its groups selected.
Brock hosted his first donor retreat in 2013, where Bill Clinton keynoted, but his groups were the only ones represented. Next week’s Democracy Matters conference will be his featuring other organizations, but the event is still aimed at promoting and raising a undisclosed multimillion-dollar amount for four of his organizations: American Bridge, Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington, ShareBlue, and Media Matters.
Brock said that any group at the conference will benefit alone from access to 120 donors. The group will also include 10 of Clinton’s top fundraisers, he said, each of whom raised more than $1 million for the campaign. Brock declined to provide any donors’ names.
In their closed-door meetings, donors will receive two debriefs on the 2016 loss, one from AFL political director Michael Podhorzer, and the other from Cowan of Third Way. Other sessions include Roberta Kaplan, a top litigator in the Supreme Court marriage cases, on “Holding Donald Trump Accountable To The Court,” as well as “Democratic Messaging That Can Work” from Schriock of Emily’s List, John Neffinger of the DNC, and former congressman Harold Ford Jr.
The conference's more eclectic offerings include an speech from liberal newscaster Keith Olbermann to open the retreat; cameos by two Republicans, Bill Weld and Richard Painter; and a session on “Fake News: What It Is and What To Do About It” led by Brock’s ex-boyfriend of 10 years, James Alefantis, who owns D.C. pizza shop Comet Ping Pong and became ensnared for weeks in an offensive viral conspiracy theory involving his restaurant and Hillary Clinton known as #pizzagate.
The conference sessions, running Thursday to Saturday, will take place almost entirely behind closed doors.
Brock said he is planning to credential press for his opening remarks, as well as an interview with Sen. Jeff Merkley and the forum with the five DNC chair candidates.So today we celebrate these tiny, underdog countries, the Rocky countries, who kicked ass against all odds.
You've got to love the underdog. It doesn't matter who they are or whether or not they're good at all, we just want the little guy to win--because in the real world, he usually doesn't.
6 Albania Cheats at War... and Kicks Extraordinary Amounts of Ass
If you're not familiar with the Balkans, here's a fun experiment that'll give you a quick education. Go to YouTube, and find any video from the region (Albania, or Greece, etc). Scroll down to the comments and lay witness to the terrifying spectacle of violent, unrestrained Balkan hate contained within.
Something along these lines.
That's the Balkans. So when we hold up Albania as an example of a badass underdog of a country, well, you can see what kind of neighborhood they're from.
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And it's been that way for a long time. More than 500 years ago, the small, mountainous, fiercely independent country was under attack by the Ottoman Empire, at the time a hugely powerful nation that had just torn through the whole of the Balkans like paper mache. Only tiny Albania stood in its way of total regional domination. The Ottomans promptly high-fived each other, said something about how "this was going to be fun," and prepared for a route.
Waiting for them was a man named Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg--the name alone is so incredibly badass that it will make you shit yourself--who lead a hardened, patriotic army of Albanian resistance warriors all across the countryside, basically fucking up the Ottoman's shit every opportunity he got.
In one battle, he killed 22,000 Turks while losing a mere 2,000 of his own men. While defending the castle of Kruje, his 8,000 man army beat 160,000 Turkish troops, who were led by the legendary Sultan Mehmet II.
Shit, those are feats we can't even replicate in Age of Empires.
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Pictured: Albanian resistance leader Gjergj Skanderbeg, tattooed onto the arm of a man who
we are going to assume will kill you just to see if his gun is still working.
Gjergj Skanderbeg was what many consider the world's first guerrilla leader, using the mountains to his advantage and striking at the Ottomans in ways that would make any strategy game-playing nine-year-old cry out, "GAY! HAX!"
What was it that finally ended Albania's stand? Fucking malaria. Skanderbeg died in 1467, and though the memory of his name was enough to inspire Albania for another 10 years of resistance, they eventually fell.
That's right, it took mosquitoes to do what the most feared army on Earth at the time could not.Chairman Tony Bloom has thanked the departing players, telling seagulls.co.uk, "On behalf of the club I would like to thank Peter, Will, Tomasz, Andrea, David Lopez and David Rodriguez for their efforts and wish them all the very best for the future.
"I'd also like to thank the players who joined us on loan during the season - Stephen Ward, Keith Andrews, Leroy Lita, Jonathan Obika and Jesse Lingard - for their efforts and excellent professionalism."
He also confirmed the decisions had been under review for a number of weeks, adding, "It's obviously important we let the players know where they stand and give them clarity as early as possible - and we also have to inform the Football League of the players we intend to release by this Friday.
"We had held off from making these decisions until now at the request of Oscar Garcia. He felt it was important for the unity within the squad in the final weeks of the campaign that we waited until the end of the season.
"However, it is not an immediate decision, that has been taken since Sunday's game. It is something which has been under discussion and review with Oscar for a number of weeks. The final decisions have been taken with input from David Burke, Nathan Jones and me."Are you a nervous traveller? Then you might want to consider a trip to Finland, the safest country on Earth according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Those countries shown in lighter colours on the map above rated highest for "safety and security" in the foundation's latest biennial Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, published last week; those in darker colours recorded the lowest scores.
The presence of the United Arab Emirates and Oman in the top five, and Qatar in the top 10, will no doubt surprise many given their location in the troubled Middle East. Rwanda, in ninth, ahead of countries such as Portugal and New Zealand, to name just two, will also raise eyebrows.
Oman (pictured) and the UAE were also among the five safest Credit: Cristian Andriana/Cristian Andriana
The world's 20 safest countries, according to the WEF
Finland - rating: 6.65 UAE - 6.6 Iceland - 6.57 Oman - 6.49 Hong Kong - 6.47 Singapore - 6.45 Norway - 6.41 Switzerland - 6.41 Rwanda - 6.39 Qatar - 6.33 Luxembourg - 6.32 Portugal - 6.32 New Zealand - 6.31 Austria - 6.28 Estonia - 6.26 Sweden - 6.22 Slovenia - 6.2 Spain - 6.16 Netherlands - 6.14 Morocco - 6.14
Equally remarkable is the UK's lowly position. It's down in 78th, below the likes of Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua, among others.
Zimabwe: safer than Britain, reckons the WEF Credit: © Pascal Boegli / Alamy Stock Photo/Pascal Boegli / Alamy Stock Photo
15 countries that are safer than the UK, according to the WEF
Rwanda Qatar Morocco Bhutan Armenia Azerbaijan Jordan Tajikistan Mongolia The Gambia Kazakhstan Zimbabwe Saudi Arabia Nicaragua Malawi
The US fares even worse, lagging behind in 84th, just below Gabon, Algeria and Benin.
The rankings take into account "the costliness of common crime and violence as well as terrorism, and the extent to which police services can be relied upon to provide protection from crime," the report states.
Colombia propped up the table Credit: JOHN COLETTI
Bottom of its survey is Colombia, followed by Yemen, El Salvador and Pakistan. A handful of countries do not feature in the 2017 report, in which case we have taken their rating from 2015 to populate the map above, or else they are shown in grey if no rating has been given in either of the last two World Economic Forum reports.
Previously, Telegraph Travel has mapped those countries where the threat of a terror attack is highest, according to the Foreign Office:
We've also looked at where a natural disaster is most likely to strike, according to the United Nations University for Environment and Human Security:Internet Memes And 'The Right To Be Forgotten'
"Scumbag Steve," "Overly Attached Girlfriend," "Bad Luck Brian." All these Internet celebrities have one thing in common: They didn't intend to become famous. Their pictures just happened to go viral.
Is nothing off-limits? That's something Kyra Pringle has been asking herself in the past couple of days. The South Carolina resident recently found out her 2-year-old daughter Mariah's birthday pictures were being shared online by thousands.
toggle caption Courtesy of Complex
Mariah has a rare disorder that impairs her learning and motor skills. It also affects her appearance. As Mariah's picture spread, so did the nasty captions and altered versions of the image.
The Pringle family was horrified. "The smile that you guys think is funny or the smile that you guys are comparing to a leprechaun, the smile that you guys are comparing to all these disgusting things like the things that you are saying about my child," Kyra Pringle told a local TV station. "She's not a monster, she's not fake. She's real, she is here."
Some unwitting meme celebrities embrace their fame. Earlier this year the Washington Post profiled Kyle Craven, more popularly known as "Bad Luck Brian," a meme about a boy with hilariously and often very dark bad luck. Craven, who was always a class clown, capitalized on his fame. The Post reports that between licensing deals and T-shirts, he has made between $15,000 and $20,000 in the past three years.
Others have tried to use their Internet fame as a catapult for an entertainment career. Laina Morris' picture is easily recognizable — the bulging, crazy-looking eyes and loopy smile made her best known as the Overly Attached Girlfriend who makes ridiculous demands and accusations. Morris has tried to create a comedic career out of her online celebrity. She has a YouTube channel where she posts skits, and a Twitter account.
But for others, it's a nightmare. Perhaps one of the most notable cases is Ghyslain Raza, "Star Wars Kid," who in 2003 became one of the first viral memes. This was before YouTube launched, and Raza did not even post the video. He simply taped himself doing Star Wars-style fighting for a school video club. His classmates secretly posted the video online, and it spread like wildfire. By the end of 2006, it had been clicked on more than 900 million times. It has more than 27 million views on YouTube and was parodied on Family Guy, The Colbert Report and South Park.
For Raza, it was a teenage nightmare. He was bullied incessantly, to the point that he became depressed and dropped out of school to go to a children's psychiatric ward. Raza's family initiated a lawsuit against the families of the four students who posted the video online. The family eventually dropped one of the cases and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
But the Internet is a difficult place to police. "The law is frankly very ill-suited to respond to that," says Woodrow Hartzog, an associate professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law. "It doesn't really offer a great tool to respond to unwanted attention."
Most people who have sought legal remedies have failed, Hartzog says, adding that it comes down to free speech. But, he says, "The idea that free speech is without consequences is silly. The consequence is that people's reputations are involved here. It does very likely impact not only emotional stability, but people's ability to find a job. Because now we know that everyone's resume is not the thing they submit in an email, but rather what comes up under a Google search."
And not all memes are created equal. Hartzog says there's a strong argument that women are saddled with the more sexist and mortifying jokes. "If you look at the statistics, most of the unwanted attention that we see on the Internet typically has more negative consequences for females," he says.
One example is Alix Bromley, who posted provocative photographs on her social media account in 2006. The pictures were republished on various sites without her permission and eventually featured in the men's magazine Loaded. Bromley filed a complaint against that magazine but lost because the pictures had already been widely distributed before the magazine published them.
The European Union and Argentina have instituted a concept known as "the right to be forgotten." It allows for individuals living in these places to ask search engines like Google to de-index certain pages that are irrelevant, false or not newsworthy.
It's a concept that has been controversial, as it raises concerns about public records and freedom of information. The battle has been playing out between Google, which is fighting to apply Europe's "right to be forgotten" only in the EU, and EU regulators, who want the company to apply the rule globally.
Ultimately, the threat of unwanted Internet attention has led to the rise of ephemeral media like Snapchat, a photo messaging app in which users take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients, with a time limit for how long they can view the Snaps.
For those who did not grow up in an era where everything got recorded, it's hard to imagine the mortification of having our silliest teenage moments live on forever, beyond a photograph stowed away in mom's garage.
"It's important for us to fail when we are young," says Herzog, the associate professor. "That's how we learn. That's how we develop our sense of right and wrong. That's how we develop our sense of empathy. And the ability to move past that, and not have those same things haunt you."Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! for America, one of the leading anti-Muslim activists in the country, wants the University of California, Los Angeles to ban the Muslim Student Association. Gabriel is no marginal figure, as her group won a glowing endorsement from Rep. Susan Myrick (R-NC) and she will host Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who is using his perch as the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee to launch investigations into Muslim American communities, on her premier talk show. In addition, ACT! for America’s David Yerushalmi was heavily influential in shaping legislation in Tennessee and Missouri that would make it a crime to practice Sharia law, the legal code of Islam.
ACT! for America recently announced that it wants UCLA to ban the campus chapter of the Muslim Student Association due to the groups purported links to radical Islam. “We at ACT for America are serving this petition to UCLA in our effort to ban the assembly of any group advocating the overriding of the laws of the United States Of America with their own set of laws on a publicly funded university such as UCLA,” says the group in a letter to UCLA’s Chancellor, “We are specifically sighting the Muslim Student Association in violation of this.”
The letter goes on to say, “We demand that they be removed from campus on the grounds that their purpose is to conduct a stealth jihad against America through the indoctrination of our youth on college campuses.”
Now that ACT! for America has made its extreme agenda even more obvious, does Congressman King agree with his allies at ACT! for America that universities should ban groups which represent Muslim students?For a long time, scientists having been trying to predict why some invasive species survive and thrive in their new environments while others die out. In a new study published on August 22, 2012 in the journal NeoBiota, scientists examined six popular hypotheses regarding biological invasions and found that the concept of invasional meltdown has held up well during experimental tests conducted across different taxonomic groups of exotic species and habitats.
The term ‘invasional meltdown’ was first proposed by Daniel Simberloff and Betsy Von Holle in 1999 (pdf) to describe the process whereby the establishment of one type of invasive species in a new environment can facilitate the invasion of other non-native species.
For example, when zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) invaded the Great Lakes during the mid-1980s, their voracious appetites for phytoplankton improved water clarity and the penetration of sunlight into deeper waters of the lakes. The extra sunlight, in turn, helped to facilitate the invasion of the Great Lakes by exotic Eurasian watermilfoil plants.
Another example of invasional meltdown occurred in the western United States when livestock such as cattle and sheep were introduced into the region. Grazing and trampling of native grasses by the livestock is thought to have helped to facilitate the invasion of the area by exotic cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum).
In a new study published on August 22, 2012 in NeoBiota, scientists examined the scientific literature to determine if the invasional meltdown hypothesis and other popular hypotheses about biological invasions were supported or refuted by experimental tests carried out scientists. They found that the invasional meltdown hypothesis had the highest level of support among the six hypothesis examined.
The scientists uncovered 30 studies that explicitly tested the concept of invasional meltdown, and 77% of those experimental tests found evidence in support of the hypothesis. High levels of experimental support amounting to 54% were also found for the enemy release hypothesis – the idea that invasive species thrive in new environments because those environments do not contain enemies such as predators and parasites that can keep population levels of the invasive species in check. The novel weapons hypothesis – the idea that invasive species carry novel traits into their new environments that give them a competitive advantage – was supported by 74% of experimental studies.
Low levels of experimental support were found for hypotheses that state that ecosystems with high biodiversity are more resistant to biological invasions then ecosystems with low biodiversity.
Jonathan Jeschke, lead author of the new paper, is a German evolutionary ecologist. His co-authors included Lorena Gómez Aparicio, Sylvia Haider, Tina Heger, Christopher Lortie, Petr Pyšek and David Strayer. Their research was inspired in part by discussions during a March 2010 workshop titled “Tackling the emerging crisis of invasion biology: How can ecological theory, experiments, and field studies be combined to achieve major progress?”
Bottom line: Scientists examined six popular hypotheses regarding biological invasions in a paper published on August 22, 2012 in the journal NeoBiota. They found that the concept of invasional meltdown – the process whereby the establishment of one type of invasive species in a new environment can facilitate the invasion of other non-native species – has held up well during experimental tests conducted across different taxonomic groups of exotic species and habitats. Low levels of experimental support were found for hypotheses that state that ecosystems with low biodiversity are more susceptible to biological invasions
Florida has world’s largest number of invasive amphibians, reptiles
To embrace or not to embrace non-native speciesMicrosoft Research is pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence to a whole new level. Imagine a smart elevator that can figure out what floor a person wants to go to, based on their history and other factors. Okay, now you don’t have to imagine it anymore.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Head of Microsoft Research Peter Lee explains that AI is the company’s biggest focus right now. Check it out for yourself (the elevator part starts at 2:40):
Lee elaborates how a Microsoft Research team set up a bunch of sensors in front of the elevators. These in turn watched what people did, without any additional programming and without facial recognition software, for about three months.
Over that time period, the AI system learned how people behaved and began to understand their intentions. After the training period, the learning portion was turned off, and the intelligent system could control the elevator and act on the user’s behalf.
Here’s Lee offering a specific use case:
If your environment knows, for example, that it’s lunch time, that you had spoken yesterday about having lunch with a colleague on the second floor, and that it notices that you seem to be now leaving your office to go to the elevator, the elevator can be smart enough to take you, without your need to operate anything, to your colleague.
Lee’s job is to think further ahead than just what will be the next killer device to hit the market. Most of us currently sit down in front of a computer or take out our phone on the go and operate it, but Microsoft Research is looking to the next era of computing: “We think in the future, you won’t be operating computers, but instead computers will be working on your behalf.”
See also – Microsoft Research uses Kinect to translate between spoken and sign languages in real time and Microsoft Research and the UN team up to build a computational model of ecosystems across the world
Top Image Credit: Bloomberg
Read next: Leak suggests Samsung's revamped TouchWiz UI will include Google Now-like notificationsIs that an alien in there?
It really might seem that way as you watch your pregnant partner's belly lurch, peak, roll and move. Your little guy or gal is packing quite a punch…and a kick…these days. So take a feel (but ask first). She'll love that you're getting into the action (and feeling the action), and it'll bring the two of you (and three of you) closer together. Stay hands-on in other ways too, like by writing down reminders for her if she seems forgetful (which she will; pregnancy does a number on her brain as well as her body, so be prepared for her to be a little scatterbrained in the coming weeks and months).
What to do this month
Experiment. Ah… the second trimester. Her sex drive may be in overdrive, but both of you might be a little unsure how to approach a romantic evening. Suggest exploring new positions that are both comfortable and exciting. You've probably been doing it with her on top and/or with her facing away on her side; now try it from behind with her on her knees or sitting in your elongated lap as you lay down. More worried (about "hitting" the baby, or the baby "seeing" what's going on) than hot? Don't be. First of all, you're giving yourself too much credit — the baby's way out of even your reach. Second, the baby is well secured in its uterine home, impervious to harm, completely unable to view the proceedings, and perfectly oblivious to what's going on when you're getting it on. As far as hurting her — always ask what feels good and what doesn't. But take it from her practitioner — for most women, sex is completely safe up until delivery. Still concerned? Let her know. Remember, open and honest communication about everything, including sex, is the best policy.
Ah… the second trimester. Her sex drive may be in overdrive, but both of you might be a little unsure how to approach a romantic evening. Suggest exploring new positions that are both comfortable and exciting. You've probably been doing it with her on top and/or with her facing away on her side; now try it from behind with her on her knees or sitting in your elongated lap as you lay down. More worried (about "hitting" the baby, or the baby "seeing" what's going on) than hot? Don't be. First of all, you're giving yourself too much credit — the baby's way out of even your reach. Second, the baby is well secured in its uterine home, impervious to harm, completely unable to view the proceedings, and perfectly oblivious to what's going on when you're getting it on. As far as hurting her — always ask what feels good and what doesn't. But take it from her practitioner — for most women, sex is completely safe up until delivery. Still concerned? Let her know. Remember, open and honest communication about everything, including sex, is the best policy. Renovate. Or decorate. If there's anything that needs doing in the house, do it now. You will not be building new shelves or regrouting the tile for a while after the baby comes home, so finish those unfinished projects soon. Pay special attention to the nursery — you have a little time to finish the decorating, but any patching or painting should be on your to-do list soon. (Put the tools and ladder away when you're done.)
Or decorate. If there's anything that needs doing in the house, do it now. You will not be building new shelves or regrouting the tile for a while after the baby comes home, so finish those unfinished projects soon. Pay special attention to the nursery — you have a little time to finish the decorating, but any patching or painting should be on your to-do list soon. (Put the tools and ladder away when you're done.) Date. Go out together, and make it special by suggesting you dress up a bit. Go where she wants to go (dancing, or to a chick flick, or a museum, whatever she loves), even if it usually makes you groan. Tell her how beautiful she is — she has her doubts now more than ever. Score extra points by letting her sleep in the next day (or plan on lingering in bed together to extend your special night with some morning-after play…after you've served up breakfast in bed, of course).
Go out together, and make it special by suggesting you dress up a bit. Go where she wants to go (dancing, or to a chick flick, or a museum, whatever she loves), even if it usually makes you groan. Tell her how beautiful she is — she has her doubts now more than ever. Score extra points by letting her sleep in the next day (or plan on lingering in bed together to extend your special night with some morning-after play…after you've served up breakfast in bed, of course). Be self-aware. Are you feeling curiously…pregnant? Cramps, cravings, backache? Relax, that's couvade syndrome, a sympathetic (and relatively common) reaction of a male animal to his mate's pregnancy. Somewhere in your psyche you're dealing with your anxiety, stress, and (maybe just a little?) jealousy, as she's getting all the attention. But there's more to these sympathy symptoms than just sympathy. Believe it or not, your female hormones are kicking into high gear too as you approach fatherhood (and you thought she had the exclusive on those hormones — ha!). Not enough to grow breasts, or anything, but enough so you're more in touch with your nurturing feminine side — which is a good thing. So now that you're really feeling her pain, redouble your efforts to help her out (cook some dinner, clean the bathroom, pick up the dry cleaning). And don't forget to give yourself a break, too.
Topic of conversation
Does it feel like there's a lull in your life as you wait for baby to arrive — and for pregnancy to be behind you? Or does that due date seem as if it's approaching like a runaway train? Ask her if she feels like time is dragging, or racing. Talk about what's left to be done: Finding a doula? Ordering the furniture? Buying the layette? Choosing a name? Use the Baby Name Finder if you need help making your selection (or if you just want to have some fun with wacky choices you'd never really make).
This month's survival tactic
Is the thought of childbirth classes thrilling to you or terrifying? Both, you say? It's fine to let her know that, but you'll go when it's time. To every class, no excuses (just say no to poker nights, business dinners and the big game when they conflict with class time). Be enthusiastic about every drill they ask you to do (even when you start hyperventilating during those breathing exercises). And remember, these classes are for you too (even if they seem a little lame sometimes). Ask your questions, pay attention, take notes. And don't forget to ask questions about baby care — or read up on it yourself. You'll be prepared for whatever labor and beyond throws your way, plus she'll think you're her hero (hey…you already are!).The Trump International Hotel and Tower on Adelaide Street continues to dominate Toronto's skyline thanks to its spire and new light installation. Although all is not bright at this downtown skyscraper.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Russian-Canadian Alexander Schnaider used money from a deal brokered by the Russian bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) to help fund 65-storey building, which at the time was facing financial troubles.
"Mr. Shnaider sold his company’s share in a Ukrainian steelmaker for about $850 million in 2010, according to S&P; Global Market Intelligence. According to two people with knowledge of the deal, the buyer, which hasn’t been identified publicly, was an entity acting for the Russian government," writes the Journal.
The Journal reports that American investigators are currently looking into connections between Trump (and any of his associates) and Russian financial institutions. "The Toronto deal adds a new element to the list of known connections between Mr. Trump's associates and Russia," says the Journal.
Trump, of course has stressed that he only licenses his name and manages the day-to-day operations of the hotel.
Back in March, the Toronto building was sold for nearly $300 million to its main debt holder JCF Capital.Renea Royster at her son Phil's apartment in Perrysburg, Ohio. Maurice Chammah/The Marshall Project Early one May morning, Renea Royster arrived at her son's apartment, pulled out her laptop, and scrolled through the dozens of messages from prisoners that had collected in her inbox overnight.
She began her daily grind of copy-paste — moving messages sent via CorrLinks, an email service available to federal inmates, to the Facebook pages they had paid her to create in their names.
Renea read out a post that one of her clients had asked her to put on his Facebook page. It was a paean to Hillary Clinton.
"Everybody stops and looks her way, and when she talks everybody shuts up and listens," she read aloud to her son Phil, who chuckled. "That's the other type of shit that makes me hard-up! Go Hillary! You are one bad bitch!"
Eventually, she drifted to other tasks: helping prisoners look up old friends, sending them stock quotes and sports scores (for their fantasy leagues), and checking crowdfunding pages where they're raising money for legal bills.
This is what Renea, who is 47 and lives outside Toledo, Ohio, does for up to 100 hours a week, stopping only for new "Game of Thrones" episodes and smoke breaks and calls from her boyfriend, Jimmy, who is currently incarcerated in Kentucky and who she met through the business.
She has coined her operation "Bridging the Gap." It began more simply as a website and Facebook group soliciting pen pals for prisoners who submit a picture, a bio, and a fee. Such sites have existed since the 1990s, and there are now nearly 50 |
khlas Ishteia, whose father was killed by an illegal settler, after the Israeli occupation forces had confiscated NIS5,000 from her at Allenby Crossing.Story highlights Van Jones: Reagan promoted simplistic idea that government and liberty are at odds
Reagan et al. tried to turn love of country into hate for government, he says
Jones: Obama offers "liberty and justice for all" patriotism
Jones: Obama's address also shows he is standing on the right side of history
Thirty-two years ago, President Ronald Reagan launched an era of anti-government politics with his first inaugural address. On Monday, President Barack Obama offered the best rebuttal to date.
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said the speech marked "the end of Reaganism," and I couldn't agree more.
Like Reagan, the president sought to ground the national conversation in his own definition of patriotism. But instead of the "liberty-only" patriotism of Reagan and political descendants such as Paul Ryan, who would turn love of country into hate for its government and its people, Obama offered a deeper "liberty and justice for all" patriotism.
Obama noted that the world has changed -- that global problems cause local disasters, and what happens across town affects you and your neighbors -- and he called on us all to realize that you cannot have liberty for all without justice for all.
Van Jones
Perhaps most fittingly, on a day heavy with memory, the president invoked those who once stood on the National Mall to hear a different type of founding father -- "a king (who proclaimed) that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."
The overtones of Reagan's 1981 speech rang so loudly, in fact, that it's clear the president and his team looked to that address as inspiration.
Reagan offered up a vision of an over-taxed, long-neglected "We the People"; Obama's version of "We the People" is youthful, diverse, energetic and engaged.
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Both saw their addresses as a call to arms for all Americans. Both sought to tie the best traditions of our founding fathers to today's challenges. Both insisted that what truly drives America is the ingenuity and independence of our people.
But while Reagan advanced the simplistic idea that government and liberty are always at odds, Obama's speech reflected the realizations of a new century.
Instead of "government is the problem," the president reminded us that we could all fall victim to sudden misfortune. Instead of pinning blame for every social problem on the size of government, the president recognized both individual responsibility and the role of community in giving each child the opportunity to succeed.
Like Reagan, the president invoked the names of famous places in American history -- but instead of battles, he tied Stonewall in with Selma and cemented his declaration that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are civil rights.
Coming off an election during which today's Reaganites insulted a nation of "takers," the president declared that Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security "free us to take the risks that make this country great."
This was not a partisan speech. It was not a campaign rally. But it showed that Obama will not back away from a fight. He is staking a bet that a rising generation has a new vision for the country.
I do not think that following through will be easy, or that the president will do everything right. But he showed Monday that he is standing on the right side of history.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.IMSA has confirmed multiple Balance of Performance adjustments for GT Le Mans and GT Daytona class cars ahead of next weekend’s Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park, including power cuts for both the BMW M6 GTLM and Ferrari 488 GT3.
The BMW, which claimed its second consecutive GTLM class win last weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, has received a significant reduction in turbo boost across all RPM levels, as well as a 1-liter fuel capacity cut and refueling rig height adjustment.
After struggling in the last two rounds, the Corvette C7.R has been given a 0.2 mm larger air restrictor and 1-liter fuel capacity increase for Lime Rock, along with a 1.5mm larger refueling restrictor.
Refueling restrictor adjustments have also been made to the Ford GT (+0.5 mm) and Porsche 911 RSR (-1.0 mm)
In GTD, the Ferrari has also received a reduction in turbo boost, along with corresponding adjustments to fuel capacity (-1 liter) and refueling restrictor (-3 mm).
Other changes in the class include a 20kg weight break for the Lamborghini Huracan GT3, 10kg reduction for the Porsche 911 GT3 R, a further 20kg added to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 and a 1 mm smaller air restrictor for the Lexus RC F GT3.
The Northeast Grand Prix is scheduled for July 21-22.Previously, Bandai Namco confirmed they were working on bringing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, the Tales of series, Taiko Drum Master, and more to the Nintendo Switch. Now, we’ve learned those games are set to hit the hybrid console sooner than we thought.
Now, the publisher has released their latest financial results (via Games Jouhou) for the previous fiscal year, which ended on March 31st of this year. The file lists Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Taiko no Tatsujin for the Nintendo Switch, alongside a new Tales of game, now listed for this fiscal year.
To be clear, we’ve known about a new Tales of game for the Switch since our previous report, however then its release was listed as “TBD.” Maybe the publisher is porting Tales of Berseria to the Nintendo Switch? This fiscal year will end on March 31st as well, so these game could release anytime before then.
We’ll keep you guys posted.CHICAGO — Chilling video has surfaced of the 2010 choking death of a homeless shoplifter at the hands of a CVS store manager who chased him into an alley.
And a U.S. congressman is now calling for a special investigation into the death of 35-year-old Anthony Kyser, who stole toothpaste from the drug store before his death nearly three years ago.
The grainy surveillance video from the alley near the Little Village CVS was obtained from a source by DNAinfo.com Chicago.
It shows Kyser's final minutes on May 8, 2010, and the beginning of the police investigation into the case. No charges were filed in Kyser's death, which police ruled an accident. CVS has said the manager acted in self-defense after being attacked by Kyser.
The video appears to capture Kyser fleeing to the alley with the store manager close behind him. There's a brief struggle before Kyser hits the pavement, with the store manager on top of him.
Another man appears to punch and kick Kyser, at one point stepping down on his hand while the store manager remains atop Kyser. More bystanders join in, helping to hold Kyser down. Eventually, Kyser stops flailing his legs, the video shows.
A police officer arrives minutes later, followed by more cops and then an ambulance. But emergency responders are unable to revive Kyser.
Sprawled on the pavement, Kyser's dead body remains in the frame when the recording stops.
The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a homicide. But police decided it was an accident and no charges were filed.
"The video was reviewed by detectives as part of their investigation at the time," Chicago Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Maureen Biggane said. "It was determined that criminal charges were not warranted."
Kyser's mother, Ann Marie Kyser, filed a lawsuit claiming the store manager committed battery and that CVS is liable. That case is still pending in Cook County Circuit Court. The video has been discussed in sworn statements taken as part of the case.
"The video shows that Anthony Kyser was being choked by the CVS store manager and that no one did anything to help," said Jack Kennedy, an attorney with Cochran, Cherry, Givens, Smith & Montgomery, the law firm representing Kyser's mother.
"I think it’s appalling that CVS maintains that an employee can choke someone to death if they steal from a CVS store."
A CVS spokesman would only tell DNAinfo.com that the company does not comment on pending litigation. An attorney representing CVS and the store manager did not return calls for comment.
But in court filings in the civil case, CVS lawyers argue Kyser punched the store manager — identified in court papers at Pedro Villanova — in the face and the manager was acting in self-defense.
Through his attorney, Villanova acknowledges he "held onto Anthony Kyser on the ground while defending himself after being struck," according to court records.
In a deposition, Villanova said: "As soon as I got hit by Mr. Kyser, that's when it went from I'm here trying to recover the product and he can leave to all of a sudden he just punched me, so now I need to defend myself."
Anthony Kyser, 35, died after being choked in an alley behind a Little Village CVS in 2010, says an attorney representing the man's mother. His crime was stealing toothpaste. View Full Caption http://o-mores.blogspot.com
In court filings, Villanova acknowledges his "arm came into contact with decedent Anthony Kyser's throat" and he heard Kyser say "I can't breathe."
Soon after Kyser's death, an outraged U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat, sent a letter to Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez demanding action for the "brutality visited upon a homeless man."
Rush now says his "calls for justice" were not heeded. Now, after being shown the video by DNAinfo.com, he said he hopes its release will reopen the investigation.
"This videotape... presents an undeniable moment where [his] life was snatched from him," he said after viewing the footage. "Thank God for the videotape."
Rush compared the way Chicago authorities handled the Kyser case to the case of David Koschman, who died in 2004 of a head injury he suffered when Richard J. "R.J." Vanecko knocked him to the ground with one punch during a Division Street encounter, authorities say.
"You see in Koschman to Kyser a pattern of flagrant disregard for justice," he said.
Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of involuntary manslaughter only after the case was assigned to a special prosecutor following a series of stories by the Sun-Times.
Rush is calling on Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans to "open a special investigation" and appoint a special prosecutor.
"The store manager who killed [Kyser] is walking around today free as a bird," he said. "Anthony Kyser is crying from his grave for justice."Dear brothers and sisters of the light!
I am finally online again after a prolonged silenced caused by what turned out to be an unusual malfunction in my old modem, but now I have been set up with a model that is so new, it was the first one of its kind the technician who delivered it had installed. I cannot help but think that it is not a coincidence, for the similarities between this and what has happened to me while I was offline are striking.
For yesterday, while I was doing yoga, I went through something that I can only describe as a switch from the old and outworn to the “brand new model”, and it felt like my whole “operating system” was rebooted. I was on my back doing a deep, slow stretch when it happened, and it felt like not only my heart, but everything inside of my chest flipped over completely, first once, and after a few seconds, once more. At the same time, I saw something that looked like a data cable being pulled out from a plug and a brand new one inserted instead. It was very powerful, but not frightening in any way. My sister was right beside me, and when it was over I just said wow, something incredible just happened, and she told me that when I said those words, what she heard in her head was “I just died”. I have been through many intense physical reactions triggered by these energies before, but this was really something else, and I spent most of the day trying to digest it all.
It feels a little bit like I have been travelling through a black hole these last couple of days, so it is probably not an accident that I could not go online at all while all of this took place. For this black hole is not dark or negative in any way, it is more like there is such an incredible amount of light compressed into such a small space it makes it impossible to discern anything, you just feel yourself going through something that changes you completely, but is very difficult to explain. I also think it will not be the last “black hole” we will encounter in time ahead, for I sense that there are more of these intense energetic “reboots” on their way.
Information is pouring in now as I continue to search for the “hidden inner treasures” the CCs talk about, and a whole string of synchronicities have manifested in the form of words and images, links and books popping up on all sides. I have shared some of it here already, it is about the “reactivation of our ancestral DNA”, also referred to as “time capsules” in these two interesting channelings from Kryon, and I have been guided to repost these links: The Nulls and Nodes of the Earth part 1, The Nulls and Nodes of the Earth part 2
I know I am not the only one searching for these “hidden treasures” at the moment, for last night in a vision I saw us all as bees (hello, Bev!). We were busy collecting pollen, and we must have been very good at it for our bodies were all covered with golden yellow pollen. And the wonderful thing was, we were all collecting pollen from the Flower of Life. This potent symbol is one of the images that keeps popping up for me at the moment, and I have also been guided to include this image of it here, for I am certain it will serve to trigger something for many of you as well.
So let us all continue to “collect pollen”, and let us continue to share what we find. Not in order to see if what we find “measures up to” what others may come across, but to connect the individual pieces we are being given so we all can start to see the bigger picture. For as the CCs like to remind us, we must all travel our own unique path and find our own inner treasures, but it is also important that we share what we discover along the way. For this is truly a collective effort of rediscovering our magninficence, not just for ourselves, but to “rectify the wrongs” on this planet. And the only way to do so, is to pool our energies in a very new way. So I wish you all the best for your continued journey, may we all find the treasures that I know are ready and waiting for us!
With love, light and gratitude from me, Aisha
AdvertisementsAsta from Rosny College in Hobart beat a field of over 850 high school acts to be crowned our Unearthed High winner of 2012. We've just flown her to Sydney to record her new single 'Escape' and you can stream/download it here on Unearthed. Congrats Asta!
Tell us about your music - how did you develop your sound?
I have been singing since I was a little lady down south in a small country town Cygnet on Dad’s veranda and haven’t stopped since. I was acoustic up until a few months ago when I met a guy in sound production who recorded “My Hearts on Fire”. He had more of a background in electronic music so it came out sounding quite different. Refreshing to my ears. My voice developed a further depth and maturity through taking up vocal training at Rosny College. All I had to do was strip back old habits and let it flow naturally.
How would you describe your live show?
At the moment it’s a mix of my heart-felt acoustics and some up beat folky-pop. I find the blend a reflection of my personality and I love the diversity I can give.
You’re the winner of Unearthed High 2012. What are you hoping to gain from this opportunity?
I am hoping I can follow my dreams of becoming a strong and nationally recognized Australian artist who people will find entertaining, real and giving.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given and who was it from?
There’s been many people that have supported me and believed in me but it was this one occasion recently that made me truly inspired. It was a cab driver who knew nothing about me but over heard my phone conversation crying over confusion as to where my career was going. He said “look love, you need to go for it. You gotta be in it 100%. I have this feeling you gotta do it”. After listening to him ramble on some more, I stepped out of that cab realizing I had to put both feet into this, I had no idea who this guy was, but the way he spoke to me and believed in me was truly riveting.
Tell us about the bands, producers and people in the Tasmanian music community that inspire you.
My music teacher Westy (Brian West) has been very inspiring to me because he doesn’t praise the good, but makes you want to try harder and come into his office the next day with something even better. Usually people will come up to me at the local markets where I sell organic vegetables and by the end of scanning their last item of vegetables, they’re in tears about what I’m doing with my music. It’s so Inspiring to have the community so moved and backing you all the way.
What else is coming up in 2012?
I’m playing at the Power House in Brisbane along with a few other of the Unearthed High finalists and doing a headline gig in October. Mum’s not happy with the pub scenes and wants a classy all age venue.. She still has a lot to learn. SOUNDSCAPE will be my first festival and that will be November the 16th in Hobart. We have got so many potential gigs on the white board at home. It’s going to be a busy summer. I hope to cover every state and reach out to all those wonderful people who have been throwing love my way.
Australian music is...
...loved, supported, thrown sky high, fresh, real, moving, passionate, unique, triple j!!!It started with Kahlua and coffee, the woman said.
Then, she said, Bill Cosby asked her a question: “Do you like back rubs or belly rubs?”
The setting was Cosby’s hotel room one night in the mid-1980s after the comedian had appeared at Clemson University, the woman said, according to court records. What allegedly came next follows a familiar pattern in the accusations against the iconic entertainer.
The woman, an anonymous Jane Doe accuser in a 2005 civil lawsuit against Cosby, said she rubbed Cosby’s belly.
That’s when the story goes foggy.
The woman said she passed out. Her accusation, which has not previously been reported, adds to the mountain of publicly known allegations leveled against the 79-year-old as his case on charges of sexually assaulting a woman he was mentoring slogs through a Pennsylvania court. (Cosby and his attorneys have vigorously denied that he sexually assaulted any women.)
The newly surfaced accusations come from a woman known in the 2005 civil suit as Jane Doe No. 6, according to sources who declined to be identified because of ongoing legal cases. Her claim, as well as those of another woman, whom sources identified as Jane Doe No. 8, raises the total number of confirmed The newly surfaced accusations come from a woman known in the 2005 civil suit as Jane Doe No. 6, according to sources who declined to be identified because of ongoing legal cases. Her claim, as well as those of another woman, whom sources identified as Jane Doe No. 8, raises the total number of confirmed Cosby accusers catalogued by The Washington Post from 58 to 60.
Dozens of women have held news conferences or given media interviews to outline their accusations against Cosby, but others have chosen to remain anonymous, even as they have provided detailed accounts of their allegations to attorneys in civil suits or investigators.
Among those who have not spoken publicly are four of the 12 Jane Doe accusers who were prepared to testify in the civil lawsuit filed in 2005 against Cosby by Andrea Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball official. The Post is publishing only the names of those who have spoken publicly about their allegations.
The Constand lawsuit ended in a confidential settlement. Cosby has now been criminally charged with sexually assaulting Constand.
The allegations of Jane Doe No. 8, a modeling agency booker, also date back to the mid-1980s. A friend of hers, a male model named Tony Hogue, said in an interview that she was frantic when she called him from Cosby’s Manhattan home late one night in 1984.
The woman, who’d been to dinner with Cosby and one of the models from her agency that night, pleaded with Hogue to come get them. She said her “clothes were messed up,” Hogue recalled, and she was “very uncomfortable” because Cosby was kissing and touching her.
Hogue said he initially suggested that his friend ask Cosby’s driver to take her to the apartment where she was staying. Her response unnerved him: “She said she couldn’t even really move.”
Hogue, who first gave an account of that evening to the Daily Beast, said he banged on Cosby’s door for a long time. Finally the comedian answered, he said, acting as though nothing was wrong. Hogue left with his friend and the model, a woman named Beth Ferrier, who would later become Jane Doe No. 5.
“They were such a mess that there wasn’t a lot of conversation,” he said.
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During a deposition related to the civil lawsuit, Cosby said he did not know Jane Doe No. 6 or Jane Doe No. 8.
A Pennsylvania state judge has ruled that Cosby should stand trial in the case but no date has been set. A pretrial conference is slated for early September.
The accusers could play a significant role if the case goes to trial because Pennsylvania law allows testimony in sexual assault cases by other women who make similar allegations. Prosecutors have said Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate. Forty-one of the 60 accusations analyzed by The Post involve allegations of drugging.
In a sense, the Jane Does have been through a screening process because they were selected by Constand’s legal team as the 2005 civil lawsuit was being prepared.
“We were vetted,” one Jane Doe said in an interview on the condition of anonymity because of legal sensitivities associated with the ongoing criminal case. “We were chosen.”For the moment, emotions are running high in the dispute over teardowns in Minneapolis’ most idyllic districts. But even if a moratorium on new home construction in Linden Hills and four other popular southwest neighborhoods is lifted after a few months, as now seems likely, tensions over the broader issues of growth and density are here to stay. Minneapolis, in some sense, is a city at war with itself.
One side prefers the city pretty much as it is. The southwestern neighborhoods, in particular, are deeply satisfied with the status quo, and why not? Quiet tree-lined streets; lakeside views; biking and walking trails; great little restaurants and coffee shops; sailboats set against the backdrop of a distant glassy skyline. Why risk any change that might break the spell?
But there’s another less myopic side, one that sees population and tax-base growth as vital to the city’s future. Without more people and more taxable assets, Minneapolis won’t be able to maintain city services, improve schools and add the transit connections that a successful, competitive city requires. Another way to say it is that the whole city, rich and poor together, cannot move forward without taking maximum advantage of the current “back to the city” real estate trend.
In her campaign last fall, Mayor Betsy Hodges set a goal to add more than 100,000 residents and push the city’s once-shrinking population back up over 500,000. It’s not an outlandish target; rival cities, including Seattle, Denver and Portland, have grown that much in recent years by building dense, urbanized districts that appeal to young residents.
In theory, there’s room for each side in this skirmish to have its way. After all, a key element of the growth strategy is to add density mainly along commercial corridors with transit service so that the city’s established single-family neighborhoods can be left undisturbed. In practice, however, it’s not quite so simple, as the new mayor and council are finding out.
That’s where teardowns come into play. The appetite for city living hasn’t been this strong in many decades, and the southwest neighborhoods hold special appeal. A portion of the housing stock, especially in the far southwest, consists of postwar two-bedroom ramblers that are too small for modern tastes and built on lots that are more valuable than the houses. These are ripe for rebuilding and, if you drive the streets south and west of Lake Harriet, you’ll see hundreds of new infill homes that have popped up in recent years. A few of them are too large, and a few are downright ugly. But the vast majority of them are well designed and fit nicely into their surroundings.
“It’s wonderful news for Minneapolis that people want to invest and live in the city again,” said Caren Dewar, director of the Urban Land Institute-Minnesota. “But how to manage all this will be an ongoing challenge for the city because this is the direction that the market wants to go.”
The value of these teardowns is clear; they add tax base that the city desperately needs. How much? Well, just across the city line in Edina, officials have been struggling to manage a wave of teardowns — more than 280 in the last three years — over the objections of neighbors who hate the construction and the scale of the new homes. But the added value of those 280 new homes exceeds the taxable value of the entire Southdale shopping mall, according to Edina City Manager Scott Neal.
So, the stakes are high for Minneapolis. And that’s why the moratorium launched by new 13th Ward Council Member Linea Palmisano may have been hasty and shortsighted. Is it wise for Minneapolis to hang up a sign that, in effect, warns investors to stay away? Is it smart to encourage people to build their new homes in the suburbs instead?
Excessive power
In political terms, the moratorium reflects the excessive power that a few disgruntled and fearful neighbors can exert in Minneapolis, especially with a new mayor and council still feeling its way. Yes, the growth side has won many battles. Coming out of the Great Recession, the city has led the metro area in construction permits and new housing units.
MinnPost file photo by Terry Gydesen Linea Palmisano
But the status quo side has gained momentum recently. It almost certainly has succeeded in stopping the Southwest light rail project, the largest transit project ever proposed for the metro area. And the moratorium, although minor by comparison, further illustrates the built-in advantage that the status quo enjoys: It is an actual constituency; it can vote and it can complain loudly to elected officials, even about petty details and imaginary consequences. By contrast, the new 100,000 people that Hodges hopes to attract have no voice at City Hall. No one shows up to speak for them or for the long-range benefits they could bring.
It’s not that some of the complaints over teardowns are without merit. Jason Wittenberg, Minneapolis’ acting planning director, acknowledges that there have been serious problems on some construction sites: debris dumped on neighbors’ property; improper placement of dumpsters and portable toilets; problems with drainage and water table; disregard for designated work hours, and even some possible cheating on building heights.
“The most urgent point in all this is about construction site management,” he said. “Council Member Palmisano is right when she says that crews ‘should build like they live next door.’ They should have more consideration for neighbors. It feels like the communication isn’t what it should be.”
Lessons from Edina
The question is whether that merits a moratorium, or whether the city could fix all of that by beefing up its enforcement while construction continues. As a first step, the city should consult with Edina, which last year enacted a new system to deal with similar complaints.
Neal, the Edina city manager, offered this advice: It’s more about emotion than anything else. People love their neighborhoods, and that’s a good thing. The prospect of change incites fear and suspicion. It’s important to have one point-of-contact person to eliminate surprises and to tightly manage the site, making sure that the neighbors are informed and that the crews follow the rules — every day. Both sides — the contractors and the neighbors — need predictability, he said. You can’t just pass rules and expect contractors to comply.
Edina’s new emphasis on communication and enforcement seems to be working, although the suburb could use more than just one enforcer/coordinator.
MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley Two homes in the 4500 block of Abbott Avenue under construction.
As for complaints about the scale of new homes, Wittenberg said that Minneapolis will review changes it made in 2007 that reduced heights and expanded the space between homes. Edina’s new 30-foot height limit and sideyard regulations match closely the scale that Minneapolis set seven years ago.
Truth is, modern lifestyles demand homes larger than those built 60 years ago. Unless the city wants to discourage a renewal of its housing stock, it must, within reasonable limits, allow larger homes. Those homes will cast shadows. A few trees will need to be cut, although that should be kept to a minimum. Skilled architects can use design to give new homes a less obtrusive profile. Those techniques should be emphasized before construction begins.
Warning from San Francisco
But for neighbors to stop construction altogether is akin to shooting themselves in the foot, as San Francisco has discovered. With the best of intentions to preserve the city’s character, residents there have fought nearly every effort to renew and expand housing and grow the population. The result: some of the highest property taxes, living costs and housing prices in the nation — and thousands of young people who want to live in the city but can’t.
“The city was largely ‘protected’ from change. But in so doing, we put out the fire with gasoline,” Gabriel Metcalf, a Bay Area planning advocate, wrote recently in Atlantic magazine.
Minneapolis isn’t San Francisco. Still, it faces formidable resistance to the mayor’s laudable goals of growing population and tax base. Political leaders must gather the courage to explain to neighbors that NIMBYism delivers a self-inflicted wound. As for teardowns, the city needs to establish a much better system of communicating and enforcing the rules without slowing the pace of renewal.Lust and a desire for fame and power drove the BTK serial killer to murder 10 people in Wichita from 1974 to 1991.
So says professor of forensic psychology Katherine Ramsland, a research scholar who trains detectives and other criminologists, and who has written 58 nonfiction books, many about criminals and crime. Her latest book, “Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer,” goes on sale Aug. 30.
It won’t surprise those familiar with Rader’s story that lust drove him. In this book, Ramsland guides the narrative but often lets Rader describe in his own words (and sometimes at great length) how abnormal sexual desires led him to kill 10 people. The BTK serial killer literally wrote most of this book. He wrote Ramsland letters and answered her questions in phone calls.
Ramsland constructed the book not as a textbook for criminologists but as a page-turner narrative.
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“There is something powerful about the raw experience of having someone freely describe something that most of us find odious, and yet this person doesn’t mind doing this,” she said. “I felt like I’d hit on something.”
That something is a core explanation, she said, backed by years of her research about how and why Rader, Ted Bundy and other serial killers became who they are, and why they do such terrible things.
Wichita natives familiar with Rader say he made up details in the book. A detective who helped capture him says Ramsland didn’t do enough to challenge Rader’s version of events.
More about BTK | Photos: Growing up with BTK | Dennis Rader’s testimony | Four boys who grew up to catch a monster | When your father is the BTK serial killer, forgiveness is not tidy
International attention
For Rader to reappear like this is not new, no matter how much his ego and deeds appall people. He has drawn international attention nearly every year since his arrest 11 years ago. There have been books, multiple film documentaries both foreign and domestic, and at least two movies, including one based upon author Stephen King’s novella “A Good Marriage.”
From Ramsland’s book, people interested in true crime and Rader’s deeds may learn two words:
Paraphilia: Abnormal sexual desire coupled with a penchant for carrying out reckless deeds.
Erotophonophilia: A sub-paraphilia – abnormal sexual desire, coupled with murder fantasies and sometimes real murders. Forensic psychologists also call it “lust murder.”
Rader and several of his serial killer heroes shared the desire for lust killing, Ramsland said, among them Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jack the Ripper. She goes into some depth, quoting Rader (and Bundy), to help people understand what drives these deviants.
Rader, in a letter from prison to The Eagle, said there may be no understandable reason why he or others kill people. Life is mostly chaos, he wrote.
“Every one of us will be touch(ed) with Bad news or Bad luck in our own lifes (sic), more to some than others. There seems to be no reason for why it happens … some humans are going to turn evil or bad, and they may be like me, a ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.’ ”
He hopes the book “will help others to understand part of that ‘Dark Chaos,’ and shine a light on ‘why.’ ”
With Rader concurring, Ramsland made a deal with lawyers representing families of Rader’s victims. “And so the majority of the proceeds from the book will go to them,” she said.
Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, said her father cooperated because he’s proud of his murders – and glad to come back into public view.
Reopening of wounds
Some who remember BTK’s terror period in Wichita’s history already regard this book as a reopening of wounds, and a chance for Rader to pose once again as the dangerous alpha male he fancies himself to be.
“He’s a selfish, egotistical bastard,” former Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said. “If what he did weren’t so terrible, he’d be laughably funny, with his ego and his pseudo-intellectual commentary.”
“He’s not Hannibal Lecter (a fictional serial killer from the movie ‘The Silence of the Lambs’),” said Kelly Otis, one of the BTK task force detectives who helped capture Rader in 2005. “He’s an idiot who is a sexual pervert who does nothing but fantasize when he was out, and certainly now that he’s in prison, fantasizing is all he does.”
Tim Relph is a Wichita homicide detective and also a former BTK task force investigator.
“I think time and loneliness has allowed him to fantasize and make himself much more of a master criminal than the facts or history would show,” Relph said.
After they all realized what a clumsy and stupid man Rader was, Otis said, police and prosecutors decided to show the public what he was really like.
“That’s why Nola arranged at his plea hearing to show everyone the photos he’d taken of himself all tied up and wearing women’s clothing,” Otis said. “He’s a freak.”
“Some of the things that it seems like (Ramsland) takes his word on … it’s almost like she takes everything he says as being the truth, when in actuality Dennis Rader’s whole life is fantasy,” Otis said. “And she never confronts him on any of this.”
None of these criticisms trouble Ramsland.
“I don’t think he necessarily told me the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” she said. “I’m better than that.”
“I can’t go back and prove any of it, but that wasn’t the point. The point is to have him tell the story the way he wants to tell it, with the idea that he wants to create impressions. I don’t have any investment in whether he’s telling the truth, but in the behaviors he shows us,” she said.
“If Rader totally made up the items about Paula (his wife), he’s really quite cruel,” Ramsland added. “Yes, he has that side, but he speaks of her with care. Such a cubed individual.”
Chess game
For a full year, Rader called Ramsland once a week from the El Dorado Correctional Facility, and the two of them would talk for an hour each time, Ramsland said.
They are still in touch. The chess game they are playing has lasted more than a year, with Rader and Ramsland mailing their next moves to each other.
Ramsland says she learned much from Rader and her research that should intrigue police who hunt killers and readers who try to understand why people kill.
Detectives need to know that serial killers don’t fit the patterns of media and movie portrayals, or the common assumptions of many veteran police investigators, she said.
Rader didn’t fit the supposed profiles of other serial killers, and he killed victims at random – a tactic that Otis and other detectives said was key to how he got away with murder for 31 years. There were no connections between his 10 victims, no patterns in the murders that could have provided clues or leads for detectives to run down.
Ramsland teaches forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.
“Investigators sometimes make the mistake of locking in on tunnel vision,” she said. “So they sometimes don’t see |
dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land” — that Kelly said she recognized Trump’s newfound friendliness for what it was.
“I think he felt betrayed,” Kelly said of Trump’s reaction to her question, which prodded him on his record of making disparaging and degrading comments about women. His immediate response, she noted, was, “I’ve been very nice to you.”
“But I didn’t ask him to call me or send me those clippings,” Kelly told Couric. “It was a nice gesture, but it’s not going to stop me from asking tough questions.”
Fox News Channel anchors and debate moderators, from left, Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier, begin the Jan. 28 Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Couric and Kelly later discussed whether the appeal of high ratings influenced the way the press covered Trump as compared to other candidates.
Continue readingFor the past several days it seemed likely that former University of Buffalo head coach and long-time Brian Kelly assistant Jeff Quinn would be named Notre Dame's new quarterbacks coach. Last week Matt LaFleur left for the Atlanta Falcons leaving that position open for someone else.
However, according to several reports Notre Dame has found their man, and he'll be more than just the new quarterbacks coach.
As FIRST reported by #Irish247, Mike Sanford is expected to be named the new OC and QB coach at #NotreDame http://t.co/hlSbYhW30y @247Sports — Notre Dame 247 (@NotreDame247) February 11, 2015
Meteoric rise for reported new Notre Dame OC Mike Sanford. Still in early 30s, was Boise OC for 1 season, Stanford pos. coach/RC before that — Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) February 11, 2015
Mike Sanford was in his first year as the offensive coordinator and QB coach at Boise State this past season and is expected to take on those same duties at Notre Dame. A former quarterback who played at Boise State from 2000-2004, Sanford has been a hot commodity since joining the coaching ranks.
Sanford began his coaching career as a grad assistant at UNLV from 2005-06 where he worked under his namesake father who was the head coach of the Running Rebels. Sanford's father also coached at Notre Dame in 1997-98 for those of you who recognize the name.
In 2007 he was hired by Jim Harbaugh to be an offensive assistant at Stanford for two seasons before moving to Yale to become the Bulldogs' tight end & fullbacks coach plus recruiting coordinator. Sanford was in New Haven for just one season and then spent another single season as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator at Western Kentucky under Willie Taggart.
Sanford found some stability when he was hired by David Shaw to coach the running back position in 2011 back at Stanford. A year later he added the recruiting coordinator position, and in 2013 switched to coaching quarterbacks and receivers in addition to handling Stanford's recruiting.
As mentioned above, Sanford just finished his first year as an OC at his alma mater and interviewed last month at Ohio State for their vacant OC job.
It is expected that Sanford will work the west coast as a recruiter for Notre Dame and be an immediate upgrade in that position for the Irish.
This hire now brings up several questions for Notre Dame:
1) Will Sanford Actually Have (Near) Complete Control Over the Offense?
Brian Kelly has been criticized for giving the title of Offensive Coordinator out to several different coaches but never really allowing those staff members much except a secondary voice on running the offense, creating gameplans and/or making play-calls. If Sanford was hired with the understanding he'd be given the keys--or at least the role vis-a-vis Kelly wold be reversed--then this is a pretty interesting decision heading into Kelly's sixth season with the Irish.
2) How Does This Affect Notre Dame's Scheme Moving Forward?
Boise State's offensive scheme can best be described as "varied" under Sanford but it's also been that way for years. However, if you had to lean one way the Broncos offense does rely a little bit more on under-center, power running, and pro-style concepts than the Brian Kelly Notre Dame Offense.
Of course, Sanford has experience in Stanford's offense which was pro-style ManBall™ trending toward more usage of spread concepts and shotgun formations. It'll be really fun to see just how much, if anything, changes for the Irish offense and, more importantly, how this might affect the impending quarterback battle between Everett Golson and Malik Zaire.
3) What Happens to the Rest of the Staff and Coaching Vacancies?
Here are the coaching positions right now for Notre Dame:
Head Coach - Brian Kelly
Defensive Coordinator & Linebackers - Brian VanGorder
Defensive Line - Mike Elston
Outside Linebackers - Bob Elliott
Secondary - Todd Lyght
Offensive Coordinator & Quarterbacks - Mike Sanford
Offensive Line - Harry Heistand
Wide Receivers - Mike Denbrock
Tight Ends & Special Teams - Scott Booker
Running Backs- Vacant
You'll notice that Denbrock is no longer the offensive coordinator. Unless they plan on doing some sort of co-OC situation--and it doesn't appear that way--it's possible that Denbrock accepts the recruiting coordinator role left behind by Tony Alford.
Notre Dame looks to be taking their time filling the running back position and Autry Denson remains the favorite to land the job.
Where things get interesting is with the rumors floating around South Bend. Those include Elston moving to coach linebackers, which presumably opens up a new position for defensive line unless he flip flops with VanGorder.
Bob Elliott is expected to take an off-field position with the program with Elston coaching all of the linebackers in 2015.
Jeff Quinn is still rumored to be coming to Notre Dame but it may likely come in an off-field position. Notre Dame's Directer of Player Development Duke Preston is leaving which may be Quinn's landing spot for a year or two.
The coaching overhaul continues...The Toronto Blue Jays are pulling out all the stops as they face elimination.
Toronto discussed using ace David Price out of the bullpen in Game 3 on Sunday against the Texas Rangers, though manager John Gibbons said it's unlikely it happens.
"If we need him, we could, if it came down to it. I wouldn't necessarily count on it, but it could happen," Gibbons told reporters.
While Gibbons was non-committal on ruling out any pitcher from making an appearance in a potential elimination game, he did confirm that R.A. Dickey will remain the scheduled starter for a potential Game 4.
"Nobody in there thinks we have an insurmountable mountain we can't climb," Dickey said of the 2-0 series deficit.
Though Price won't get the start on short rest for Monday's potential game he did, however, acknowledge that he's ready to take the ball whenever he's called.
"I want to close tonight, start tomorrow and start Game 5." Price joked.
With left-hander Brett Cecil out for the remainder of the season after tearing his calf, the Blue Jays are desperately in need of left-handed arms in the bullpen; Aaron Loup is the team's only remaining option.
Toronto replaced Cecil on the postseason roster with right-hander Ryan Tepera, who has good splits against left-handed hitters.
Price, 30, struggled in Game 1 of the series, allowing five earned runs in seven innings of work. He is now just 1-6 with a 4.79 ERA for his career in the postseason, with his lone playoff win coming in a relief role as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 American League Championship Series.
"I need to redeem myself," Price said. "I'm going to."TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- At last night's closing ceremony for the 2017 Taipei Universiade, Argentine athletes boldly carried the official Taiwan flag and wore wigs in the Taiwanese national colors into Taipei Municipal Stadium during the procession of athletes from the 144 countries that participated in the games.
The gesture immediately drew attention from Taiwanese fans and media as throughout the Taipei Universiade the host country was not allowed by the International University Sports Federation (FISU) to fly its national flag, and instead only display the Chinese Taipei flag at the games to comply with Olympic rules.
(Image by www.facebook.com/ckpc.tw)
However, Universiade officials did make one small concession by allowing spectators at events to cheer on Taiwanese athletes with Taiwanese flags, so long as they are no larger than 200 x 100 centimeters. Indeed, many Taiwanese flags have been seen in the stands at Universiade competitions starting with the opening ceremony.
Taiwanese fans throwing Taiwan flag to Argentine athlete. (Image by www.facebook.com/ckpc.tw)
Taiwanese netizens were thrilled to see the Argentine athletes carry the Taiwan flag at the Universiade's closing ceremony:
"Our own athletes are not allowed to carry them, so we have to rely on athletes from other countries to help us out! Thank you Argentina."
"Taiwan-Argentina friendship."
"Taiwan! no. 1"
"It turns out the people proudest of us are foreigners."
"Seeing the flag feels so good."
(Image by www.facebook.com/ckpc.tw)
The Republic of China (ROC) first competed in the Olympics beginning in 1932, but in 1975, the People's Republic of China (PRC) applied to participate in the games and insisted that the ROC (Taiwan) be decertified in the process. After much controversy over whether the ROC could participate in the 1976 Montreal games in Canada, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of current Canadian President Justin Trudeau) suggested the ROC compete as "Taiwan," as a compromise. The ROC government refused his terms and boycotted the games.
(CNA image)
Taiwan was not allowed back into the Olympics until the so-called "Nagoya Resolution" was passed in Nagoya, Japan in 1979 by the IOC, which dictated that Taiwan must use the ambiguous name "Chinese Taipei" and not use its national flag or anthem.
(CNA image)
Update:
A photographer with the CK Photography Club who took many of the photos said that at least two of the flags were handed to the athletes by Taiwanese fans in the front row.Dad,
As far as I know, you’ve never played videogames once in your life. I must be wrong. You were a young man when videogames started appearing, in bars and bowling alleys and whatever public spaces were used for before video arcades came and went.
You must have accidentally played one of the early arcade games. Pong, maybe, or Space Invaders, or surely Pac-Man. You have friends who pride themselves on being technologically forward; surely one of your buddies purchased an Atari just for the heck of it. My childhood memories of you relaxing are memories of you watching sports, so maybe there was some moment in your late 20s or early 30s when someone described videogames to you as “video sports,” or “robo sports,” or “Sports Like On Television But You Control The Players.”
Barring some insanely well-kept secret life, though, you’ve never played a videogame in my lifetime. Ironic, because my lifetime is the lifetime of videogames as a popular thing. I was born in 1985, the same year that Super Mario Brothers brought the Nintendo to North America. (I’m pretty sure you still think all videogames are Nintendo, which is literally wrong but figuratively a fair aesthetic argument.) I have wanted to play videogames for as long as I can remember. You guys bought me a Game Boy when I turned 6. To you, it must have seemed like a toy. Did you think that, by the time I grew up, everyone would carry a very thin, very expensive Game Boy in their pocket?
So you probably don’t care about videogames. And you probably don’t care that my favorite videogame ever is Shadow of the Colossus. What goes through your mind, when you hear those words: “Shadow of the Colossus”? That’s not what things were titled when you were a kid. Or anyhow, it’s not what great things were titled when you were a kid. Shadow of the Colossus sounds different from The Great Gatsby and Lawrence of Arabia and Death of a Salesman and whatever other cultural shorthand for “Greatest Thing Ever” you and I can both understand.
Does it help, though, if I say that I think Shadow of the Colossus is the videogame version of all of those things? If I explain that—like Lawrence of Arabia—it’s an epic adventure story about a man driven to heroism that winds up looking a bit like madness? And if I further explain that—like The Great Gatsby—it’s the story of a man who will do anything for love, even if it means his own oblivion? And it’s not really anything like Death of a Salesman, but maybe if you and I knew or cared about ballet, I could explain how Shadow of the Colossus is like watching the Bolshoi Theatre perform Swan Lake—a beautiful dance of light and music and forms moving. Maybe it makes more sense if I describe Shadow of the Colossus in vaguely athletic terms: It’s like hunting, but every time you find the animal, you need to learn how to play a new sport.
I’m burying the lede only because I can’t imagine anything I’m about to say will make sense to you. Shadow of the Colossus is a game where you play a man on a mission. You have arrived in a mysterious and empty land, riding a noble horse, carrying the apparently dead body of the woman you love. You go to a bleak and grand temple—remember the Temple of Dendur in the Met? Imagine it’s the size of a skyscraper.
Inside that temple, a spirit speaks to you. Maybe a demon. It says that, if you want to bring your beloved back to life, you have to wander around this land, find sixteen monsters, and kill them.
You ride away from the temple; you track down the first monster, because your sword shines sunlight in the direction you’re supposed to go, because videogames. The first monster looks like the Minotaur, like from Theseus. It is gigantic. Usually, in videogames, you kill monsters by shooting them, or by throwing magic at them. You have to climb on this guy. It’s like you’re stabbing a mountain through the heart. And when you kill the monster, sad music plays, and a cloud of ethereal black fog appears over the monster’s body, and one tendril of fog attacks you, and there’s a sound like a back breaking, and you fall unconscious.
You wake up back in the Temple, ready to go again. There are 15 more monsters, each of them weirder-looking than the last. There’s one that looks like a giant turtle, one that resembles a giant bird, one that patrols a deep cave, one that floats over a desert like an Earthworm for clouds.
Does this sound weird to you? Can I explain how unusual this was in 2005? Games right then had stories, supporting characters, vibrant worlds filled with things to interact with. Shadow of the Colossus came out about a year after Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a videogame which let you drive around relatively real-looking versions of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. And I’m not going to get into how Grand Theft Auto isn’t just a game about shooting people and taking their money, because you’re a fundamentally very moral person, so if I tried to explain how Grand Theft Auto is only like 35 percent a game about shooting people and taking their money, you would rightfully wonder what I do with myself 35 percent of the time.
Shadow of the Colossus is empty. At a time when most videogames tried to present the imitation of a vibrant world, it is a desolate landscape, like visiting the ruins of a civilization so ruined that nobody bothered building a museum in their honor. And I mean “empty” in every way. Because most videogames go out of their way to establish you, the player, as the “good guy.”
And weirdly—given that I’m guessing you think most videogames are just Ms. Pac-Man chasing ghosts and Super Mario eating mushrooms to fight frogs—most videogames actually have too much story. Imagine if one of the books you’ve read by Ernest Hemingway was ten times longer, and every character talked too much about themselves, and occasionally someone fired a rocket launcher and the main character had a self-aware sidekick who said things like “Looks like the fun stuff is about to start” in that weird tone of sneering sarcasm that makes everyone sound like a skateboarder.
Compared to that, Shadow of the Colossus is an actual Ernest Hemingway novel. You reach a point in the game where you start to wonder why you are doing what you are doing. But you keep doing it, because it’s fun. You wonder if that’s what it feels like to be a bad guy.
The game is a fantasy, and I know that you don’t care much about the fantasy genre. It must be so weird to you, to live in a world where half the pop cuture looks like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Superman comic books or Star Trek. But for a kid my age, fantasy is practically the defining genre. (Maybe even moreso for people younger than me; a kid born 10 years after me was raised on Harry Potter and then Twilight and then The Hunger Games, carrying them from youthful exuberance through sexual awakening into anti-authoritarian cynicism, which is what ages 10-20 were like for me.) So you have to understand that, for a kid my age, Shadow of the Colossus felt like the better version of every fantasy story I’d ever heard—at once smaller-scale and more epic, with a mysterious world that never really gets explained.
——————————————————
So: That’s Shadow of the Colossus. It was made by a guy named Fumito Ueda. A few years earlier, he made the videogame Ico, which was set in a roughly equivalent worldscape. If Shadow of the Colossus is Lawrence of Arabia, maybe Ico is Bridge on the River Kwai. Except imagine both movies were made by Walt Disney, and they had no dialogue. Am I making these games sound terrible? Can you trust me that they’re really good?
Shadow of the Colossus was critically beloved and it sold decently well. Not great good. Not as good as anything called Call of Duty. But I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea that the very best things usually don’t make the most money. It’s not like people have to be adventurous. I just turned 30 and I don’t want to ever try caring about new music anymore. I can understand how you’ve gone an entire epoch of world history without playing videogames.
For the people who did play Shadow of the Colossus, it felt like a vision of the future. I imagine it’s sort of like what people your age felt when the Beatles got weird: When “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” gave way to “A Day in the Life.” I realize suddenly that I have no idea if you like “A Day in the Life,” or if you even noticed when the Beatles got weird; most of my early music memories with you are of listening to Jimmy Buffett. To put this more simply: Everyone who played Shadow of the Colossus was excited for another game that would feel just like Shadow of the Colossus.
And Fumito Ueda was definitely working on a follow-up. We knew that semi-officially way back in 2007, and then there was actual video footage of the game in 2009. The game’s title would be The Last Guardian, and it appeared to star a young boy and his animal pal: a very large bird-dog-cat with a prehensile tail. And then, nothing happened.
This isn’t uncommon in videogames. Because you have a healthy relationship to pop culture, I’m pretty sure that you usually learn about the existence of a movie when you see it during the trailers before another movie. Imagine that you watched the trailer for that movie two years before that movie’s release date; now imagine that the movie’s release date got pushed back another two years; now imagine that, during those four years of waiting, you check news updates every day on the movie’s progress, and once every six months you hear that they fired the movie’s director, and all your friends keep telling you that the movie is definitely not coming out or definitely is coming out next year and it will definitely be great and it will definitely suck. That is what it’s like to be a videogame fan.
And The Last Guardian got pushed back further. And while The Last Guardian got pushed back, videogames… changed. I don’t think anyone has quite captured the totality of that change, because the changes have been so frequent and so all-encompassing. When Shadow of the Colossus came out, games were seen as a very trendy emerging art form and a very lucrative corner of the entertainment world. That was before everyone started playing tiny videogames on their iPhones—Game Boys, see?—and before people started talking about “the casual gamer.”
Like, have you heard of Angry Birds? Can you understand that Angry Birds is hugely popular, and that its popularity represented a weirdly personal refutation of everything that made Shadow of the Colossus great? I’m trying to think of a comparison that makes sense. The mind runs to gourmet food vs. fast food, but that feels judge-y—and after all, I played a lot of Angry Birds. The only comparison I can think of is probably one you won’t get: Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, saying that the old movie stars were always big, but the pictures got small.
So The Last Guardian started to grow a mystique. In its absence, we could imprint a whole assortment of impossible traits. The Last Guardian started to feel like a missing link, or maybe the last vestige of what videogames used to be. Dylan’s basement tapes. The missing scenes from The Magnificent Ambersons. Or like speaking in our family’s terminology, imagine there were five Jimmy Buffett songs just as good as “Margaritaville,” but nobody could find the recordings, but everyone was pretty sure they would find them soon.
And it’s important to mention that, while The Last Guardian wasn’t getting released, some of the changes in the videogame world were great! A decade after Shadow of the Colossus, there’s a really vibrant and energetic culture of independent videogames, which cost less and don’t last as long and sometimes look like art projects but usually look like the games I grew up with (which, after all, were also cheaper and shorter than the Big Games of Today). A lot of these games actually feel a little bit like Shadow of the Colossus. (I actually think you’d really dig Journey, because you really enjoy walking to places, and Journey is just walking to places with scarves.) There were great videogames that came out in the last 10 years that felt nothing like Shadow of the Colossus.
And you might wonder if all the excitement for The Last Guardian was a weird kind of nostalgia. Most videogames become franchises, which means they inevitably cough up disappointing sequels—and even if the sequels aren’t disappointing, you hit the point when you’re playing your eighth or ninth Legend of Zelda game when you suddenly realize that none of the games will ever feel quite as fun as they felt when you were a kid. Maybe because everything seemed brand-new back then. (Maybe because everything actually was better when you were a kid, no matter what your kids might counter-argue.) But because there was no follow-up to Shadow of the Colossus, it could remain pristine in our memory. And The Last Guardian became an even-more pristine counterpart: the better version, not to be ruined by anything as vulgar as actually existing.
But apparently The Last Guardian will exist now. Sony announced yesterday that it will come out in 2016. This is incredibly exciting news and also terrifying news. Exciting, because this is a new game from the creator of two of the greatest games ever. Terrifying, because The Last Guardian has been a hopeful abstraction for a very long time, and now it is going to become an actual concrete thing—possibly a concrete thing that was conceived a long time ago, in an industry that prides itself on always being five minutes ahead of now.
Maybe The Last Guardian will be some missing link between the old videogame reality and the new one. Maybe it will be the best game of 2008. Maybe it will look old and stitched-together and embarrassing. (When we have 10 hours, remind me to explain Duke Nukem Forever.) It will probably look like something out of time. I doubt you’ll ever play it. But at least now you know: It’s something.A group of modernising pro-green Tories will today launch a fight-back within the party when they publish a manifesto outlining plans for a £5bn-a-year boost in economic growth, creating 300,000 jobs, by pursuing environmentally friendly policies.
In a sign of their determination to challenge Tory climate-change sceptics after a leading minister said that David Cameron was getting rid of "green crap", the modernisers will say that the most successful economies of the future will embrace both the environment and competitiveness.
The publication of the manifesto by the 2020 group of Tory MPs came after the former Conservative environment secretary Lord Deben launched an offensive on climate-change sceptics.
In a series of tweets Deben – the father of green Tories in his days, and formerly known as John Gummer – said he hoped the sceptics would stop insulting pro-green campaigners and accept that they were denying science.
Echoing comments by the Prince of Wales, who depicted climate-change deniers as the "headless chicken brigade", Deben tweeted: "If we accept advice of 95% of scientists & they're wrong, we've cleaned atmosphere. If we deny them & they're right, we've buggered the planet."
The 2020 group of modernisers, many of whom feel as strongly as Deben about climate change, have cast their arguments in purely economic terms and have been careful not to use the words "green" or "sustainable" in their manifesto.
This is a deliberate tactic hammered out at a private meeting with Cameron following his alleged "green crap" comments to try to win over George Osborne – who put the brakes on the "Vote Blue, Go Green" approach when he said in his speech to the 2011 Tory conference that Britain would go "no slower but also no faster" than any other EU country in carbon emission cuts.
The 2020 group's biggest proposal is to boost profits for manufacturers by £5bn a year, creating 300,000 jobs, by tightening the rules on waste products. The group proposes that laws banning valuable products, including mobiles phones, from being put in landfill, be extended to cover plastics, wood, textiles and food.
Laura Sandys, the Conservative MP for Thanet South, who chaired the work preparing for the 2020 manifesto, said: "By making sure things go further – and actually ensuring they travel round the economy rather than being dumped – we must ensure that waste is seen as a resource and not a liability. Only about 17% of everything we call waste today is really waste."
Sandys said that restrictions would be placed on putting food in to landfill. "It would be taken away – you wouldn't have to have it at home. But it would be used in anaerobic digestion and utilised in food-to-energy."
The modernisers also call for a rethink away from what Sandys calls the "British Leyland" mentality, which says that the strength of an economy is measured solely by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the size of an economy.
"We are going to have to look at what we are really achieving and not what I call British Leyland metrics," Sandys said. "British Leyland produced a lot of cars. It had a lot of GDP. Nobody wanted the cars but nobody seemed to care.
"If we are going to be competitive we can't replicate an old-fashioned 19th century business model. We are going to have to be in the new world which looks at resources in a very intelligent way. We focus on labour productivity when the developing world is looking at resources in an intelligent way."
The modernisers say that their approach could involve a fall in GDP, as they press for a more efficient approach to the use of energy, but said that illustrated some of the problems with the standard economic measure.
Sandys said: "If energy prices go up, which they have, GDP goes up. If we reduce our energy consumption, or we bear down on the price, GDP will go down but our margin will go up. If you spend a pound on energy it is a very dead pound.
"There is a very short supply chain and on the whole it is primarily imported. If you go out and spend a pound that will be much more productive because there will be a value-added supply chain. That pound will travel faster round the economy than the pound that goes on energy."
The approach of the modernisers is summed up by Tom Burke, chairman of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism, who said it was wrong to put "the environment and the economy at opposite ends of a see-saw".
Pursuing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology could create a new industry worth between £15bn and £35bn by 2030 employing tens of thousands of people, a report from the industry and trade unions has found.THESE are heady times for sport in Las Vegas. The city has never had a top-tier professional sports team, in part because of fears that players and referees could come into contact with unsavoury figures from the gambling world. Soon it will have two: the Vegas Golden Knights will make their debut in the National Hockey League in October and, last week, the National Football League (NFL) voted 31-1 to allow the Oakland Raiders to move to Nevada too. The Raiders’ lease on their current stadium in California expires after the end of the 2018 season, and they are likely to play in a temporary stadium in Las Vegas in 2019, before moving into a new stadium there in 2020, with an estimated building cost of $2bn.
Las Vegas has been promised many benefits by having a new NFL team. One thing the city is not bracing itself for is more crime. Yet that is exactly what they can expect, according to a paper published in 2016 by David Kalist and Daniel Lee of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Analysing the rate of crime in eight cities with NFL teams, the authors find that home games are associated with a 2.6% increase in total offences across the city, while financially motivated crimes such as larceny and motor-vehicle theft jump by 4.1% and 6.7% respectively on match days, with early afternoon home games proving particularly inflammatory. Each NFL home game costs $86,000 in extra crime, the authors estimate. The reality might be even worse, if misdemeanours are less likely to be reported on game days, as KIRO-TV, a broadcaster from Seattle, suggested in an investigation in 2013.
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Why does an NFL team playing home matches make crime more likely? The authors suggest several reasons. It might be easier to commit offences on game days because there are more visible targets—in parking lots, say. Large gatherings of people could also make criminals less conspicuous and allow them to exploit the general chaos outside a stadium. As many supporters consume vast amounts of alcohol before and after matches, they are also less vigilant. The concentration of hostile fans from opposite teams in the same place might also increase tensions and the risk of hooliganism. And anger following defeat for the home team is associated with an increase in domestic violence against women, an earlier paper found. Male-on-female crime spikes by 8% on days when the local favourites suffer an unexpected defeat.
To bring the Raiders to Las Vegas, Nevadan taxpayers must contribute $750m, a record subsidy, of the costs for the new stadium, which will be collected by raising hotel taxes. This is in keeping with a history of billionaire owners demanding that municipalities pay for a new or improved stadium and then threatening to leave—as the Raiders have done in Oakland, making them the third NFL franchise to opt for relocation in 15 months—if their requests were not met. Indeed, local taxpayers still owe $95m for the renovation of the Coliseum stadium in 1995, which brought the Raiders back to Oakland after a stint in Los Angeles. From 2000 to 2010, 14 NFL stadiums were built, with the public financing 44% of costs for a total bill of $3.9bn. No other tax scheme redistributes money to billionaires in the same way.
There is no evidence of taxpayers gaining benefits to match this outlay, despite the extravagant claims of owners about the economic benefits of a city hosting a franchise. The executive director of the Coliseum Authority in Oakland recognises as much, saying that it would be “financially to our benefit” if the Raiders left as soon as possible, and that housing the team costs the stadium $1m a year, even excluding the renovations necessary to entice the franchise back in 1995. The notion that taxpayers funding stadiums is a “Field of Schemes” is well established; the extra crime associated with hosting an NFL team makes the case for publicly funding stadiums even weaker still. Oakland’s NFL fans might be in despair, but losing the Raiders should help the city’s economy—and make it safer too.Tomato seedlings
No seed companies sell GMO seeds to home gardeners -- whether the company publicly states it or not.
(NOLA.com|The Times-Picayune archive)
Home gardeners can have great success without delving too deeply into the genetics of horticulture. Generally speaking, we do not need to fully understand the breeding efforts that went into producing our favorite cultivars of shrubs, annuals, perennials and vegetables in order to enjoy growing them.
But when gardeners have questions about hybrid and F1 hybrid plants and genetically modified organisms (known as GMOs), some knowledge of genetics is needed to understand the answers.
To some home vegetable gardeners, concerns over GMOs, hybrids and F1 hybrids may be troubling. So with that in mind, let's take a look at these terms, what they mean and how they relate to home gardening.
Hybrid plants
In botany, a hybrid is the offspring of two plants of different varieties, cultivars, species or, rarely, even genera. Plants must be fairly closely related to interbreed.
Hybridization allows us to combine the desirable characteristic of two dissimilar parents in their offspring (such as breeding a rose with double red flowers with a rose with single white flowers to, hopefully, produce an offspring with double white flowers).
There are numerous examples in gardening. All of the repeat-flowering roses we grow are complex hybrids created over hundreds of years by crossing several species with each other and then crossing the offspring together.
The evergreen azaleas that are so much a part of our gardening traditions are all hybrids derived from several species native to eastern Asia. Many of our best cultivars of crape myrtle are hybrids between two different crape myrtle species (Lagerstroemia indica and Lagerstroemia fauriei).
To propagate a desirable hybrid plant, vegetative propagation utilizing cuttings, division, grafting, layering or tissue culture will produce offspring genetically identical to the parent with all the same desirable characteristics.
F1 Hybrid plants
Understanding how to create F1 hybrids and utilizing them successfully in horticulture and agriculture is relatively new -- only about 100 years old. Corn was the first plant used to successfully create F1 hybrids.
Producing F1 hybrids means first developing true breeding lines. When individuals within a true breeding line are crossed with each other, the resulting offspring very closely resemble the parents.
When you cross two different true breeding lines with each other to combine the desirable characteristics of the parents, the result is a F1 hybrid offspring. F1 stands for the "first filial" generation -- the first generation produced when the two true breeding lines are crossed.
Perhaps an example using dogs will help explain this process. poodle and Pekingese are two true breeding lines of dogs. These breeds were created by inbreeding (mating sons to mothers, fathers to daughters and brothers to sisters) to fix the desired characteristics into the breed.
Once done, mating a poodle with a poodle results in poodles, and mating a Pekingese with a Pekingese results in Pekingese.
If, however, you cross these two true breeding lines, poodle and Pekingese, you produce an F1 generation of peekapoo puppies. The peekapoos are a blending of desirable poodle and Pekingese characteristics, and they all look very similar to one another. One of the great advantages of F1 hybrids is their uniformity.
But if you breed a peekapoo to a peekapoo, you will not get peekapoo puppies. Some of the puppies will look mostly like poodles, some mostly like Pekingese, and some will look in between. F1 hybrids do not breed true.
Mules are also F1 hybrids -- the result of breeding horses and donkeys together. Mules are sterile and cannot breed, but they are an excellent illustration of another aspect of F1 hybrids -- hybrid vigor. Hybrid vigor makes mules stronger and tougher than either the horse or the donkey parent.
A good example of hybrid vigor can be seen in the mules that pull carriages in the French Quarter. After several horses died of heat exhaustion pulling carriages in the 1980s, city ordinances banned the use of horses for that purpose and required mules to do the job. Mules don't die of heat exhaustion during hot summer days because of their hybrid vigor.
A large number of vegetable cultivars we grow today and many flower cultivars are F1 hybrids. They are popular for their outstanding performance in gardens, including increased vigor, more produce or flowers, improved stamina, tolerance of adverse growing conditions and excellent uniformity (in characteristics like height, rate of growth, time of bloom, pest resistance, time of ripening, etc.).
But, as illustrated with the peekapoo, they do not breed true, and you cannot save seeds, plant them and expect to get another uniformly outstanding generation.
Genetically modified organisms
While hybrid plants originate from breeding techniques long used by humans, GMOs are a modern innovation created in the laboratory by inserting specific genes into the genetic material of a plant. These genes may come from vastly different organisms that would never naturally cross with the plant.
While I'm not going to delve into the pros and cons, moral objections and controversy surrounding this new technology, there is one particular matter I would like to clear up for home garden |
a rigorous set of criteria for acceptance, and is widely regarded as a feeder school to the Ivies and other top U.S. colleges and universities.
Run by the Jesuit order, Regis combines a commitment to academic excellence with a focus on religiously guided values.
Annual class enrollment is limited to approximately 135 male students from the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area. All students receive a tuition-free education.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include immunologist Anthony Fauci, writer and critic Luc Sante, book publisher and editor Robert Giroux, journalists Pete Hamill and Mark Mazzetti, and author Edward Conlon
Tuition: $0
23 Rye Country Day School
(Rye, New York)
Rye Country Day School, which was founded in 1869, is a co-ed day school in a town on Long Island Sound, north of New Rochelle on Connecticut border.
While Rye Country Day has a consistent rate of students who matriculate into top-tier schools, it also maintains a deep commitment to community service.
Diversity also plays a prominent role on campus: Out of the many co-curricular clubs and activities Rye offers, nine are student clubs that promote diversity on the campus.
The school requires a Senior Term mandatory graduation project..
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Ranked #21 on a list of top schools by the Wall Street Journal in 2007
Alumni include Pulitzer Prize--winning playwright Edward Albee, first lady Barbara Bush, and TV actor Nick Kroll
Tuition: $34,600
24 Crystal Springs Upland School
(Hillsborough, California)
Crystal Springs Uplands School, is an independent, co-ed private school located south of San Francisco, near San Mateo.
The school was among the first private schools to wave goodbye to the College Board's AP courses. This was done so that teachers could design even more challenging coursework and students could initiate projects, internships, investigative research, and global experiences. However, students may elect to take the AP exams.
In terms of diversity, over 50% of the student population are students of color.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include heiress Patty Hearst, hip hop music producer Charlie Kubal, and TV actress Polly Draper
Tuition: $35,700
(Cambridge, Massachsetts)
The Buckingham School (1889) and Browne & Nichols School (1883) merged in 1974, creating a dynamic co-educational institution (BB&N). The three separate campuses are located within a few miles of each other in the western part of Cambridge, between the Charles River and historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
BB&N's excellent academics prepares students for acceptance and success at the nation's top colleges. Participation in sports is mandatory for all students.
BB&N students produce several publications, which have received national recognition.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
27 Presidential Scholars from Massachusetts
Ranked #5 top private school in the Boston area by Boston Magazine in 2009
Ranked among the top 50 schools in the world for university preparation by the Wall Street Journal in 2007
Alumni include actor Anthony Perkins, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, NPR radio broadcaster Sylvia Poggioli, U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy, III, billionaire businesswoman Abigail Johnson, and Netflix founder Reed Hastings
Tuition: $38,030
(Dallas, Texas)
St. Mark's School of Texas is a nonsectarian, all-men's day school located in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of north Dallas. The school's academic performance record shines in the light of its many graduates who attend the nation's best colleges.
St. Mark's makes concerted efforts towards environmental sustainability, for which the school has received accolades.
Outdoor education is an integral part of the St. Mark's experience and is required of all students.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
22 National Merit Scholars in the Class of 2011
35 Commended Scholars from the National Merit Program in the Class of 2011
Seven Presidential Scholars since 2003
Alumni include National Lampoon co-founder Robert Hoffman, singer-songwriter Boz Scaggs,and actors Tommy Lee Jones and Luke and Owen Wilson
Tuition: $25,258--$26,914, depending on the grade level
27 San Francisco University High School
(San Francisco, California)
San Francisco University High School (popularly known as "University") opened in 1975 as a co-ed private school in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of the city.
Independent learning and self-directed projects are a valuable and unique asset to the excellent curriculum the school offers.
At University, community service learning requirements are mandatory. Over 40% of the student body is composed of students of color.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Ranked #21 best high school based on university preparedness by the Wall Street Journal in 2007
Ranked #8 best high school in the country for matriculation rate and success at top colleges and universities by the Washington Post in 2013
Alumni include writer Ethan Canin, filmmaker and actor Ari Gold, National League pitcher Tyler Walker, and actor John Morris
Tuition: $35,440
28 Marlborough School
(Los Angeles, California)
Founded in 1889, Marlborough School is a private, all-women's day school located in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Central L.A. It is the oldest school for women in Southern California.
Marlborough hosts a premiere Visiting Scholars program. While Marlborough does not require community service from its students, it is a valued, encouraged, and integral part of daily student life.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Science program has received national recognition
Honors research program was featured in a 2005 New York Times article
Alumnae include novelist Nell Freudenberger, author Anne Fadiman, actress and playwright Zoe Kazan, and MSNBC anchor Alex Wit
Tuition: $28,950
29 Riverdale Country School
(New York, New York)
Home to the largest campus in the New York City area, Riverdale Country School is a co-ed, private school located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.
The school has decided to forgo AP course offerings so that more challenging and innovative classes would be available to students.
Additionally, all students are required to have three arts credits towards graduation---a nod to the emphasis on a strong and thriving arts program.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include U.S. Senator Edward M.Kennedy, singer-songwriter Carly Simon, science writer James Gleick, NFL running back Calvin Hill, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, restaurant critic Tim Zagat, and actors Cesar Romero, Chevy Chase, and Sarah Michelle Gellar
Tuition: $35,500
30 Latin School of Chicago
(Chicago, Illinois)
Latin School of Chicago (known locally as "Latin"), founded in 1888, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school located in the city's affluent Gold Coast neighborhood. It is the oldest independent day school in the city of Chicago.
Latin School's mission is to provide students with an academically rigorous and innovative educational program in a community that embraces diversity of people, cultures, and ideas. Latin's aim is "to inspire its students to pursue their passions and lead lives of purpose and excellence."
Latin offers many innovative electives in every subject area, in addition to the core requirements. Many classes have a real-life-experience component, which helps to bring the material to life, including mock trials, hands-on labs, and a Model U.N. simulation.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include sculptor Claes Oldenburg, singer-songwriter Roger McGuinn, actor and producer Bob Balaban, first lady Nancy Reagan, U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson, III, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, II
Tuition: $28,985
31 Ethical Culture Fieldston School
(New York, New York)
Ethical Culture Fieldston School (popularly known as "Fieldston") was founded in 1878 with the goal of educating New York City's working class children.
Located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Fieldston is sponsored by the secular humanist Society for Ethical Culture. True to its heritage in the Progressive Era movement, Fieldston mandates courses in ethics and philosophy, as well as a minimum of 60 documented hours of community service.
The school no longer offers AP coursework, in an effort to go above and beyond teaching-to-the-test, and chooses to implement more innovative and challenging classes instead.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, AI pioneer Marvin Minsky, critics Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, David Denby, and Andrew Delbanco, photographer Diane Arbus, poets Howard Nemerov and Muriel Rukeyser, conductor Alan Gilbert, composer Stephen Sondheim, film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, fim directors James Toback and Sophia Coppola, and TV broadcaster Barbara Walters
$39,525
32 Potomac School
(McLean, Virginia)
Just outside of Washington, D.C., lies the 90-acre campus of the Potomac School.
This private, co-educational school presents students with the opportunity to complete a concentration in Visual and Performing Arts in music, theater, or visual arts.
Character development and community service are integral parts of the standard curriculum, as well.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include actresses Frances Sternhagen and Keshia Knight Pulliam, documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, and music critic Alex Ross
Tuition: $33,345
33 Branson School
(Ross, California)
Branson School, which is located near San Rafael in Marin County, 11 miles north of San Francisco, was founded in 1920. Today, Branson is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory day school with only 320 students enrolled in grades 9 through 12.
Through the vitality, breadth, and rigor of its programs, Branson encourages students to think critically, communicate clearly, develop their individual talents and interests, and pursue a lifelong passion for learning. Foreign language requirements are rigorous, with three years in one language, and two years each of two different languages required.
Community service is also a priority: Freshmen must complete five Core and 10 Support hours, and sophomores, juniors, and seniors must complete 15 Core and 10 Support hours each year (where Core hours = hours spent working directly with people in need, and Support hours = hours spent indirectly helping those in need).
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Student/faculty ratio 8-to-1
Average class size 13
Alumni include author and TV personality Julia Child, Olympic skiier Jonny Moseley, and documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel
Tuition: $35,000
34 Brunswick School
(Greenwich, Connecticut)
Brunswick School is an all-men's, college preparatory, private day school located just over the NY/CT state line.
Brunswick has a high matriculation rate to the country's most competitive colleges. However, competition does not end at the classroom doors: Participation in sports is required of all students.
Brunswick students have unique study abroad opportunities, including an Arabic year abroad, and a choice of six single-semester programs, notably in the Bahamas and in Switzerland.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include Peter Fonda, sports columnist Bill Simmons, and social networking pioneers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
Tuition: $35,700
35 Maret School
(Washington, D.C.)
Maret School, founded in 1911, is a private school on a single campus in the Woodley Park neighborhood of our nation's capital.
Over 40% of Maret students identify themselves as students of color.
Foreign language instruction is a focus of the curriculum, and students have the opportunity to travel to Honduras, India, and France for summer course credits.
Each student is expected to take visual and performing arts classes, as well.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include film composer Theodore Shapiro, and educator and author Rosalind Wiseman
Tuition: $32,745
36 Baldwin School
(Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania)
Baldwin School, an all-women's, private day school located west of Philadelphia on that city's historic "Main Line." The school's main building is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Baldwin no longer offers AP coursework and chooses instead to present an even more rigorous curriculum to students. Baldwin students care deeply about environmental sustainability, the arts, athletics, and diversity. Over 35% of students are persons of color.
Baldwin requires its students to participate in athletics or physical education.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
The Class of 2011 had 18 students recognized by the National Merit Scholar program
The same class boasted a recipient of the annual National Latin Exam Scholarship
Alumnae include actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, writer Andrea Lee, and philosopher Martha Craven Nussbaum
Tuition: $28,000
37 Haverford School
(Haverford, Pennsylvania)
Haverford School is an all-men's, nonsectarian, private college preparatory day school located nine miles outside of Philadelphia on that city's historic "Main Line." Its reputation as a pillar of academic excellence is long-standing and graduates gain admission into America's top colleges year after year.
Haverford incorporates the idea of service learning into its curriculum; each student needs to complete an entire service project each school year.
The school emphasizes environmental sustainability on campus and within the Montgomery County community.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Six Rhodes Scholars
National Merit Scholarship Competition, Classes 2008--12: 46 Commended; 37 Semifinalists, 31 Finalists
Alumni include painter Maxfield Parrish, physicist Britton Chance, astronaut Pete Conrad, political scientist John DiIulio, and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper
Tuition: $34,800
(New York, New York)
Nightingale-Bamford School is an all-women's day school located on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Diversity plays an important role on and off campus: More than 30% of the student population is made up of students of color and students are encouraged to go on the various study abroad trips that span the globe.
Curricular enrichment includes a freshman class trip to the U.K., specialized programs in science, creative writing, visual education, and theater, taking full advantage of the school's prime New York City location.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Three Semi-finalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Program in 2008
Ranked in the top 80 of 31,700 schools nationwide for placing students in the Ivies, according to Worth magazine
Alumnae include U.S. Representative Millicent Fenwick, political consultant Mandy Grunwald, actress Sarah Thomson, and children's author Cecily von Ziegesar
Tuition: $38,820
39 Hopkins School
(New Haven, Connecticut)
Hopkins is a private, co-ed, college prep day school located across town from Yale University. Founded in 1660, it is one of the oldest schools in the nation.
Hopkins boasts both academic and artistic excellence through its wide assortment of course offerings and co-curricular programs in the arts.
Students are introduced to the concept of ethical leadership early on in their Hopkins careers.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Ranked #19 on the top 20 best prep schools list by Forbes
Alumni include physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs and composer Charles Ives
Tuition: $32,100
40 Boston University Academy
(Boston, Massachusetts)
Boston University Academy (BUA), founded in 1993, is a private, co-ed high school operated by Boston University (BU) and located on its campus. BUA allows juniors and senior students to take BU classes for college credits.
BUA does not focus on teaching-to-the-test or college admission. Rather, the school provides ample opportunities for students to be exposed to the western tradition of critical thinking, both inside and outside of the classroom.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
The Class of 2012 had 39 members qualify for National Merit Commendations
Numerous student activities include art, drama, dance, film, math, chess, and robotics clubs
Tuition: $33,574
(Houston, Texas)
St. John's School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school located in Houston's River Oaks neighborhood.
The school's mission is to create excellent citizens and leaders, particularly for the Houston area and for the U.S. in general. One hundred percent of students participate in community service, although the school does not require it.
Students are encouraged to complete both independent and directed study projects.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Featured in the Wall Street Journal's November 2007 article, "How to Get Into Harvard"
Nine percent of graduates in 2007 went to one of the most eight highly selective colleges
Alumni include humorist Molly Ivins and publisher and film producer Christy Haubegger
Tuition: $21,550
42 Pingry School
(Martinsville, New Jersey)
The Pingry School is a private country day school located not far west of New York City, just north of New Brunswick.
Pingry is home not only to an excellent academic reputation, but also to championship athletic teams and a strong tradition in scholastic press.
Approximately 86% of Upper School students participate in a variety of sports on 55 varsity and junior varsity boys and girls teams.
A multicultural curriculum and cultural competency are valuable part of campus life.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include World War II correspondent and author Richard Tregaskis, physicists Howard Georgi and James A. Yorke, economist N. Gregory Mankiw, filmmaker Todd Solondz, actor Andrew McCarthy, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
Tuition: $33,040
43 North Shore Country Day School
(Winnetka, Illinois)
North Shore Country Day School is a private, coeducational, college preparatory day school, which was founded in 1919 and is located near Lake Michigan just north of Chicago.
Through a range of experiences in and out of the classroom, North Shore students are immersed in science, mathematics, humanities, language, and the arts. The school's broad and ever-evolving curriculum challenges and engages students to strive for personal growth and academic excellence.
North Shore also prides itself on the fact that each student is a part of a community "where each has a voice, is known and is valued." In addition, "Teachers use global connections to tie learning to real life applications. And students receive a well-rounded education including participation in the arts, athletics and service."
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Alumni include actress Jessica Harper and pop music singer Richard Marx
Tuition: $26,800
44 Sidwell Friends School
(Washington, D.C. & Bethesda, Maryland)
Sidwell Friends School is a private, co-ed day school founded in 1883 by Thomas Sidwell, who had formerly taught in a Baltimore school run by the Society of Friends. Sidwell Friends now has two campuses, in Washington, D.C., and in Bethesda, Maryland.
Guided by its Quaker values, students commit to practice environmental stewardship and to appreciate the differences in one another; there is no class ranking system.
Sidwelll Friends offers a unique and extensive Chinese Studies program. Graduates matriculate at the nation's top universities.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Highest scores in the nation on the 2005 AP English exam (even though AP English is not offered as a course)
Alumni include aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, Nobel Prize--winning chemist Walter Gilbert, novelist Gore Vidal, Pulitzer Prize--winning playwright Margaret Edson, economist George Akerlof, CIA Director John Deutch, TV news anchor Charles Gibson, TV personality Bill Nye, and Presidential daughters Julie and Trisha Nixon, Chelsea Clinton, and Sasha and Malia Obama
Tuition: $34,268
45 Gilman School
(Baltimore, Maryland)
A private, all-men's school founded in 1897, the Gilman School has the distinction of being the nation's first country day school.
Gilman is committed to the development of the individual, both inside and outside of the classroom.
Students are required to take visual and performing arts classes, as well as religion courses. They are also required to participate in athletics and community service projects.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Rated one of the top 30 feeder schools to the Ivies by Worth magazine
Alumni include author Walter Lord, sportswriter and radio commentator Frank Deford, and U.S. Representative John Sarbanes
Tuition: $26,180
46 Greenhill School
(Addison, Texas)
The Greenhill School, a co-ed, non-denominational private day school, lies just outside the city limits on the northwest side of Dallas.
Greenhill offers students the unique chance to shape their own course of study, working with advisers to make class selections pertinent to their needs and interests after the first two years of core study.
The school's core principles are honor, respect, and compassion, which are instilled in each student, and, "combined with the balanced education, fully prepare them for success throughout their lives."
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
84 AP Scholars
Class of 2012 produced 10 National Merit Finalists and 17 Commended Scholars
Rated as one of the top 40 schools in the nation by the number of matriculants to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, by Worth magazine
Alumni include singer-songwriters Martie McGuire and Emily Robison, TV sports commentator Rob Stone, and fashion designer Lela Rose
Tuition: $24,850
47 Tower Hill School
(Wilmington, Delaware)
Founded in 1919 with a commitment to progressive education methods, Tower Hill School is rated one of the best college preparatory schools in Delaware.
Students not only excel academically, but also must play at least 10 seasons of interscholastic sports. They are also asked to complete 40 hours of community service, as well as a full credit of Fine Arts classes drawn from the music, theater, and art departments.
AP courses are not offered; instead, students are presented a more rigorous and challenging curriculum.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Ranked #24 in the nation, and #1 in Delaware, in percentage of students attending eight top colleges by the Wall Street Journal
Alumni include TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and DuPont CEO Ellen J. Kullman
Tuition: $26,425
48 John Burroughs School
(St. Louis, Missouri)
John Burroughs School (known as "Burroughs") is a co-ed, private day school located on the west side of St. Louis. Its rankings and production of Nation Merit--recognized students speak to the school's high quality of academic instruction.
In addition to excellent academics, Burroughs---which is named after the famed nineteenth-century naturalist and essayist---seeks to enrich the student outside of the classroom. The school has an appointed office of diversity and multicultural education to ensure that awareness and inclusion spans across the curriculum.
Burroughs does not have a community service requirement for its students, yet more than half of the senior class participates in community service.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Class of 2013 includes 30 National Merit Semi-finalists and 16 Letters of Commendation
Ranked among the nation's top 50 high schools in sending graduates to eight top universities, by the Wall Street Journal
Alumni include novelist Jane Smiley and restaurateur Danny Meyer
Tuition: $22,900
49 Blake School
(Minneapolis, Minnesota)
The Blake School is a private, co-educational day school, which was founded in 1900 and is located in the Lowry Hill section of Minneapolis.
Prizing ethics and integrity as well as academic excellence, students are required to take a course in communication before graduating.
Seniors must also complete an approved project as a graduation requirement.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:
Three-time recipient of the Blue Ribbon Award
Ranked #41 in the nation by the Wall Street Journal in 2007
Alumni include writers Robert Pirsig, Charles Baxter, and Arthur Phillips, film director George Roy Hill, and comedian and U.S. Senator Al Franken
Tuition: $24,450
50 University School Nashville
(Nashville, Tennessee)
University School Nashville (USN), founded in 1888, is a private, co-ed day school located near the Vanderbilt University campus. USN offers students two campuses: a main campus for academics and an 80-acre campus for extra-curricular purposes.
USN has a long-standing commitment to the arts and students enjoy the culture of Nashville.
Belief diversity does not happen in isolation; USN presents a cultural dialogue series to promote multiculturalism on its campus.
Awards, Ranking, Alumni, Tuition:JERUSALEM (JTA) — Like many of my friends, I grew up in the United States with a strong affinity for Israel. As a child we saved money to buy trees, learned Israeli songs, studied Hebrew, visited Israel and marched in Israeli Independence Day parades. I recall well that my parents encouraged me to give part of my bar mitzvah gifts to Israel. Ultimately I made aliyah.
Tensions arise whenever the interests of two parties may not perfectly align. This seems to be occurring more frequently between the North American Jewish community, with its pluralistic nature, and an Israeli government that gives into haredi Orthodox demands over promises and commitments made to the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
Just a year ago, Israel’s prime minister stated that the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency will for the first time invest in the development of Reform and Conservative Jewish congregations in Israel. He went on to say, “As prime minister of Israel I will ensure that all Jews – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox – feel at home in Israel.”
On Jan. 31, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government approved an agreement to create an egalitarian prayer space along the Western Wall and establish a governing body to administer the venue. This was the result of three years of intense negotiations, with Netanyahu’s top adviser serving as the negotiator.
Thus far, no money has been forthcoming for non-Orthodox congregations and the Western Wall agreement has not been put in place. Excuses abound. Mr. Netanyahu has called for patience. But how long can one be patient when it becomes increasingly clear that the situation is only worsening? Shas, a fervently Orthodox political party, has just introduced legislation that would scuttle the entire Western Wall agreement and create strictly haredi oversight to the area, including the site designated for egalitarian worship.
For the past three years five Ugandan Jews, known as Abayudaya, have been trying to come to Israel to study at the Conservative yeshiva. All are converts to Judaism through the Masorti/Conservative movement. The Jewish Agency has accepted the Abayudaya as a “recognized community.” But despite written assurances from the Prime Minister’s Office that visas would be issued, student visas have yet to be forthcoming. The one member of this community who applied for aliyah has had his paperwork sit in the offices of the Interior Ministry for over two years.
A group of nine Masorti/Conservative Jews by choice from Venezuela applied to immigrate to Israel in April. After receiving the required documents, the Jewish Agency approved their aliyah. The Interior Ministry, however, has demanded a series of redundant and unnecessary additional documents; they have all been submitted. The situation in Venezuela is dangerous. Beyond the civil strife and collapsed economy, food and medicines are in very short supply. But none of this seems to worry the Interior Ministry officials, who act as though they are above the laws of our country.
But this should come as no surprise. The minister of the interior, Rabbi Arye Deri, said recently:
“Last week someone said that the Reform are our brothers, but we completely disagree with them. We reject their ways, etc. The truth is that they are NOT our brothers and we do not want such brothers. Those that stick a knife in the back of the Jewish people cannot be our brothers. Those who are the cause for the assimilation of millions of Jews cannot be our brothers. No how — no way! Such a person is an adversary and an enemy. One who mocks and prostitutes our tradition, that is to say, all of the holy Torah of the Jewish people for which we have sacrificed our lives from generation to generation for thousands of years, is not a brother. One who is a traitor and betrays his parents, grandparents, and all of the generations that came before, is not a brother. Not even a lost brother. He has thrown off the yoke and one must fight against him with all means available, and never give any sort of recognition nor any foothold.”
So while the prime minister calls on the leaders of the non-Orthodox movements, both here in Israel and in the Diaspora, to be patient, the Venezuelan Nine live in daily fear as they do their best to survive. The Ugandan Five wonder why their beloved Israel turns her back on them.
I, too, wonder. Two weeks back, Knesset member Dudu Amsalem, chair of the Israeli parliament’s Internal Affairs Committee, ended a hearing about the Western Wall agreement by stating: “I just don’t care about any favors the Jews in the Diaspora do for us” in support of Israel. “The Jews of North America should have no right to influence our policy. If this insults them, so be it. They are not doing us any favors.”
So there you have it. A prime minister who fails to honor his commitments. An interior minister who reviles the non-Orthodox — and he is far from the only such member of the Knesset. And the chair of an important government committee that, in his ignorance, dismisses the Diaspora community with ease.
Maybe they are right. Maybe Israel can stand on her own without the backing of the Jews of the Diaspora. Maybe. But I, for one, doubt it.
—
Rabbi Andrew Sacks directs the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel and the Bureau for Religious Affairs of the Masorti movement.French jet placed in quarantine after passengers develop symptoms of swine flu and crew discover they had all recently been to Asia
Some 47 passengers started coughing and spluttering while others developed a fever
Sixteen were taken to hospital for further testing but found to be suffering only a simple flu and were discharged today
A plane full of passengers on a French runway has been quarantined after many developed swine flu-like symptoms.
During the flight, 47 passengers started coughing and spluttering while others developed signs of a fever, local media reported.
As flight attendants questioned passenger, it emerged that many were returning from Asia.
Flu on a plane: A plane full of passengers returning from Asia were quarantined on the runway at Blagnac Airport near Toulouse after 47 started coughing and spluttering and other developed fever-like symptoms (file picture)
The plane operated by Hop, the budget subsidiary of Air France, landed at Blagnac Airport near Toulouse, authorities decided to take precautions and quarantine everyone in their plane seats according to The Local.
Many of the passengers were returning from a trip to Bangkok, Thailand and flown via Dubai.
Paramedics examined each passenger which took several hours before allowing all but 16 to continue their onward journey.
The remaining 16 people were taken to the infectious diseases department at Purpan Hospital where further testing were carried out and found to be suffering just the simple flu and were discharged from hospital according to France TV.
Earlier this year, research into three bird flu victims in China found that a vicious new strain has the potential to pass more easily into humans and remain undetected until it is at an advanced stage.
The research into three people, all of whom died, showed the disease causes pneumonia, septic shock, brain damage and multi-organ failure.
For further testing: The onboard quarantining took several hours and 16 passengers were taken to the infectious diseases department at Purpan Hospital (pictured) to determine whether they do in fact have swine flu
It came as officials in a region of China culled chickens in a bid to stop the spread of a new strain of bird flu which has claimed at least 11 lives.
In 2009 swine flu emerged in France, prompting authorities to launch a mass vaccination campaign.
A British school trip to France ended with a group of frightened children being placed in quarantine, then trapped on their coaches for hours while they were escorted home by French police, after four girls were diagnosed with swine flu.
The group of 96 had to endure an exhausting 215-mile journey to Calais, without stops, after zealous French authorities insisted they return to Britain using the Channel Tunnel rather than the ferry at Cherbourg.
The authorities forced everyone to wear face masks and even made those suffering from flu to close the coach curtains so they did not ‘disturb’ other road users.Matt Smith has admitted he's "sad" Steven Moffat is leaving Doctor Who after the next series.
The Eleventh Doctor admitted the showrunner has done so much for the series and he feels "very privileged" that he got to work with him.
During a press tour for his upcoming film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Smith said: "I'm sad he's leaving Doctor Who. He's done so much for it and so much for me."
He added: "He pretty much is Doctor Who, but the show will always endure and there's a wonderful writer coming in and as always, it's about regeneration and reinvention of things.
"But he has done so much for the show and I feel very privileged that I got to work with, what I think, is the greatest writer."
After the 10th series of Doctor Who airs in 2017, Moffat will step down and Broadchurch's Chris Chibnall will take over writing duties on the BBC One series.There has been much talk about whether a general election will or should take place before 2020, the key arguments behind it being that Theresa May has no mandate to carry out her programme, while also having no mandate to negotiate the exact terms of Brexit. Calling an early election would therefore be a single-topic vote. Yossi Nehushtan explains why such an outcome would be anti-democratic.
Many have argued for a general election ‘about the EU’. The common assumptions are that an election will allow ‘the people’ to express their updated and informed views about the exact way to leave the EU; accord democratic legitimacy to the new PM; and shift the balance back from ‘direct democracy’ to ‘representative democracy’.
The truth is, however, that having a general election ‘about the EU’ is an exceptionally bad way of achieving the above. First, it is anti-democratic to have a general election about a single topic. Second, it is not at all clear what this single topic could be. Third, the result will not reflect the majority will because the first past the post system constantly fails to reflect the majority will.
A One-Topic General Election is Anti-Democratic
The main purpose of having democratic elections is (or should be) to allow ‘the people’ to express their political preferences by casting their vote to the candidate or party which is more likely to realize them. Political preferences are normally complex. Also, not all voters care about each issue to an equal extent. An opinion poll by YouGov showed, for example, that in three points in time during 2015, an average of no more than 25 per cent thought that ’Europe’ was one of the three ‘most important issues facing the country at this time’.
It is true that we can expect a different answer today; it is also true that leaving the EU will affect other areas such as immigration and the economy. But this does not affect my main argument: general elections should not reduce the complex preferences of voters regarding numerous issues to one narrow question about one specific issue.
Many voters may prefer that the UK would leave the EU – but for many other valid reasons they may also prefer to vote for a political party that happens to support ‘Remain’. It will be unwise to assume that all those who would vote for a party that supports ‘Brexit’, in fact support ‘Brexit’. If it is made clear for voters that any vote for a party that supports ‘Brexit’ is in fact a vote for ‘Brexit’ and nothing more, voters may be forced to vote for parties which do not reflect any of their other preferences – or to vote for a party which does not represent their preference about the EU, rendering the election almost meaningless.
Forcing voters to ignore their political views and preferences, and perceiving these voters as one-dimensional political persons who only care about ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ diminishes their political personality and makes any such election anti-democratic.
A one-topic General Election – about what exactly?
A referendum is a dreadful way of making conclusive political decisions but it does put forward one agreed question. If we have a general election soon, we can reasonably assume that it will be ‘about the EU’. But what does it mean? Will the election be about whether to Leave or Remain? About who has the authority to trigger Article 50? About the necessary conditions that must be met before we decide to leave the EU? Or perhaps about trusting Theresa May and Boris Johnson to make the right decision?
Having a general election about ‘leaving the EU’ without knowing what the election is really about is a recipe for confusion and superficial public debate. Ultimately, it will not solve any ‘democratic legitimacy’ problems and will add very little to the barely legitimate referendum’s result. Since we can’t really have an election about one specific and agreed issue, any other decision that will be made by the new elected government will be exposed to arguments regarding its own democratic legitimacy. And then what? A second referendum? Yet another PM resignation and a new general election?
We went through this unfortunate exercise before. We know that the referendum’s result is not legally binding and we also know that we should accord the result limited political-moral weight. The current government – or better yet, Parliament – should make the decision and face harsh popular criticism for making it because that would be the case with or without more elections and referendums. And if there are doubts regarding the new PM’s democratic legitimacy then nothing has changed: David Cameron was also not elected by the majority of voters. Twice. And he was still the PM. Twice.
A Bonus: Why the UK is Not a Democracy
Even if ‘the people’ were happy to have an election about a single issue; even if the ‘question’ was specific and clear; and even if |
in the long run.
Online Travel Agents Revenue Growth – Source: iResearch
Market Share Distribution in 2015 – Source: iResearch
iQiyi
iQiyi is currently the most popular online video provider in China with two revenue model. The first model is an advertising model like Youtube where the user watches an advertisement to watch a video. The second model is an subscription model like Netflix where VIP users pay a small fee (19.8 Yuan – $3) every month for premium video content. So far, iQiyi’s strategy is to invest massively into its premium content, attract as many paying subscribers as possible. The strategy has been quite successful judging from the numbers. iQiyi overtook Tencent Video and Youku recent as the longest time spent video platform; iQiyi also boasts of 20 million paying members on its platform at the beginning of 2016. [x] In addition, the premium content created by iQiyi and licenced by iQiyi has gained a lot of traction in China. For example, “Lao Jiu Men”, an iQiyi produced show, has more than 8 billion views.
It will be only a matter of time before iQiyi becomes profitable since iQiyi is currently more focused in investing heavily into content in order to hit a certain critical scale instead of focusing on the profitability. Once the critical scale is reached in the next few years, iQiyi should become profitable as long as content investment stays relatively constant. It is incredibly hard to predict the future cashflows and profitability of the company. It is however assuring that if iQiyi were to reduce some of its investments into content, it would be profitable. Looking at the 2015 numbers, if iQiyi only spent $100 million on content in 2015 instead of $500 million, it would have generated an operating profit of $100 million dollar. Thus, iQiyi can achieve profitability in the near future, but it would take some time before their platform reaches the desired scale and their content investments curb down.
Source: iResearch
O2O Bets
Just like Google, Baidu has decided to make several large bets to diversify its search engine business. The two big bets that Baidu decided to pursue were takeout delivery and group buying. Baidu expanded into the group buying service by purchasing 59% Nuomi from Renren in 2013 for $160 million and the remaining stake in 2014. Baidu expanded into food delivery by starting its own takeout delivery service. These two businesses have great synergy with Baidu’s search and map services since Baidu can direct food and product inquires to its platforms while Baidu Maps can optimize delivery paths. Although both services are growing at an incredibly fast pace, they are still burning a large amount of cash and will likely burn more cash in the near future. [xi] The O2O bets are beneficial to Baidu because Baidu will eventually terminate the bets if they are not successful. If the bets are successful, the two divisions may be worth a large portion of Baidu’s current market capitalization. Thus, these bets are definitely worthwhile, but only time can determine if the two businesses will succeed in the future.
Source: Analysys International
Others
The other divisions of Baidu are mostly existent for the purpose of reinforcing the core services and advertising revenue stream. For example, Baidu Maps is existent to reinforce the search services and increase the advertising revenue. Users may use Baidu Maps when they are looking for a location on Baidu. Marketing customers may also advertise their businesses on Baidu Maps when people are searching for a location..
Although the other divisions of Baidu might not generate any significant amount of profits, they are still essentially to Baidu’s ecosystem and important to Baidu’s future endeavours. As an example, Baidu Maps was crucial in the Baidu’s O2O strategy and in the partnership with Uber.
Source: Baidu Investor Presentation – 2012
Recent Scandal and consequences
On April 12 2016, a student named Wei Zexi died of a rare form of caner, synovial sarcoma. Right before his death, he posted a post detailing his experience undergoing his cancer treatment. In the post, he sharply accused Baidu of advertising unproven treatments in its search results since the treatment that he received was not clinically proven. After Wei Zexi’s death, Baidu was flooded with public outrage and public discontent. The main concern on the mind of the Chinese public is Baidu’s lack of corporate responsibilities. From their perspective, Baidu would rather earn additional revenue instead of insuring the public’s best interest. [xii]
Right after the public scrutiny and the announcement of government investigation, Robin Li has called on employees to put values before profit in response. In a letter to employees, Baidu chief executive Robin Li wrote: “If we lose the support of users, we lose hold of our values, and Baidu will truly go bankrupt in just 30 days!” From that letter, the company has also announced the creation a veto group who can veto any unethical decisions and the creation of a 1 billion yuan fund to compensate users misled by paid ads [xiii]
As a resolution to the scandal, the government of China passed some advertising regulations on Baidu. From now on., Baidu has to clean up the healthcare advertisements in its search results, prevent medical institutions that had not been approved by the government from being promoted on Baidu, change Baidu’s search rankings so that credulity has a bigger weight than advertising fees and ensure that paid-for promotions do not consist of more than 30% of search results per page. [xiv]
Because of the new regulations and the temporary removal of unlicensed marketing customers, Baidu advertising revenue has decreased this year. In the third quarter, the online market advertising has decreased 6.7% compared to 2015’s third quarter. According to the third quarter earnings call, Robin Li said that the fourth quarter of 2016 should be the bottom of the decline since most marketing customers would have gotten the proper documentation to advertise online; the revenue from search should also recover in 2017.
By the share price of Baidu, it seems that there many facts that Mr. Market is forgetting or not considering some facts when it is valuating Baidu.
One fact that the market is forgetting is that the student’s death is not completely Baidu’s fault. Yes, the procedure advertised on Baidu is not clinically approved and is not a normal procedure. However, the survival rate of synovial sarcoma is around 50% to 60%.[xv] Thus, the fact that Wei Zexi died cannot be completely blamed on Baidu’s advertising.
The second fact that the market is forgetting is that this is the second that such incident has happened in the course of the Baidu’s history. Baidu was involved in a similar scandal in 2008. China Central Television (“CCTV”), the largest state-owned television network in China, reported in its program “News in 30 Minutes” that Baidu had been including websites of medical companies that do not hold proper licenses in its paid search listings for some popular medical terms, while excluding certain websites which did not buy keywords. Baidu resolved the incident by removing the unlicensed marketing customers from their platform. Eventually, Baidu allowed some customers to resume access to Baidu’s P4P paid search platform once their relevant licenses are provided to and reviewed by Baidu.[xvi]
After the 2008 incident, Baidu voluntarily created Phoenix Nest, which is algorithm that cleaned up most of Baidu’s advertising. In the words of the company, Phoenix Nest “is an enhanced algorithm that generates more relevant online marketing and provides customers with additional tools and information to help them better manage their spending and achieve higher ROI”. [xvii] In the end, the effects of the incident were short-lived and Baidu was able to recover quickly as shown below. The previous incident may indicate that the market is overexaggerating the impact of the current scandal.
The third fact that the market is forgetting is that the new regulations may actually be better for the user experience and be better for Baidu in the long run. Having more relevant advertising and less advertising load is better for the user experience. Once the user experience has improved, more users would use the search platform and the platform will become sticker. Better advertising is also better for the advertising customers since their advertising will have a higher ROI. Google realizes this insight and insures that their advertising is always relevant to the user. This insight is shown in the book, How Google Works, Google ranks its results using relevance metrics and not only using monetization metrics for a better user experience because they believe the user experience is most important thing. A search engine with many users can eventually be monetized, but a search engine with no user cannot be monetized at all. The short-term monetization with misleading advertising can jeopardize the long-term sustainability of the search platform. Therefore, the new regulations may actually improve Baidu’s results in the long run although it is hard to observe the benefits of better advertising currently.
Finally, the Baidu platform is much more resilient than what the market is assuming. As shown below with the StatsCounter and in the appendix, the market share of Baidu has not decrease drastically and Chinese public is still using Baidu as their search engine.
Source: StatCounter
Management
Many of Baidu’s critics doubt that Baidu has good corporate governance, Robin Li’s commitments and Robin Li’s abilities to lead Baidu.
Firstly, I do agree that the corporate governance of Baidu is weaker than other tech companies. However, the structure will undergo many changes in the future. From the memo that Robin Li sent to the employees, an oversight committee will be established to monitor and veto the company’s actions.[xviii] This committee would prevent unethical incidents to reoccur in the future and would strengthen Baidu’s corporate governance.
Secondly, Robin Li is an incredibly competent and passionate CEO. Here is a man who was always on top of his class for computer science in China, had the luck and intellect to emigrate to US for his postgraduate degree, patented ranking data retrieval system called hyperlink analysis in 1996 before the Google was created and went back to China to initiate the search market in China. Each individual task listed above required a large amount of intellect, resiliency and competence that Robin still possesses to this day.
Thirdly, Robin Li is still incredibly committed to Baidu and passionate about his job. To this day, with more than $8 billion in net worth, Robin is still waking up every morning at 5am thinking about Baidu’s strategy and Baidu’s next move. He is still paranoid about his company that he founded years earlier and worried about Baidu’s role in the constant changing technology environment. [xix] In addition, Robin’s stake in the company has not changed since 2007; he still has more than 16% of the economic ownership and more than 50% of the voting right of the company. Baidu is Robin’s brain child and Robin will do his best to protect his brain child.
Baidu’s management is more shareholder friendly and more ethical than the market perceives. This is shown by the cancellation of the management buyout of iQiyi. Robin Li initially wanted to take iQiyi private and relist in China because iQiyi’s investment into content was a drag on the earnings of Baidu and relisting in China would give iQiyi more value. Since most sell side analyst use Baidu’s earnings to come up with a price on Baidu, Baidu’s shares have not moved much in the past few years as new ventures are eating into Baidu’s earnings. From Robin’s perspective, if he could take away iQiyi’s cash burn from Baidu’s financial statements, Baidu would be valued at a higher price by the market. However, the price that Robin offered was lower than the comparable prices that other video streaming platform were value, so Acacia Partners wrote a letter to Robin (shown in the appendix) and asked Robin to either to come up with a higher price or try to keep iQiyi within Baidu. After reviewing the letter, Robin listened to Acacia Partners and cancelled the management buyout. He could have easily gone through with the buyout given he had the majority voting right, but he instead listened to his shareholders. The ethical cancellation showed Robin’s shareholder friendly attitude and his willingness to listen to shareholders.
Finally, Robin Li sometimes very misunderstood because he is single mindedly focused. When Baidu was first founded, the internet portals were the hottest trend in tech. Many tech companies and tech entrepreneurs were focusing on creating a great internet portal. However, Robin firmly believed that time that search has the most potential since more people would eventually want to find information online. Therefore, he did not pay attention to the internet portal craze. Instead, he focused on creating the best search engine in China. This single-minded focus can be seen today by Baidu’s actions. Baidu is not pursuing the next hot venture, but is deliberately choosing few ventures that have synergies with their main search business. People search for travel deals – Qunar, for videos – iQiyi, for deals – Nuomi and for food takeout – Baidu Takeout. On a TV show, he said that he would let others pursue popular ventures while he would pursue ventures that he thinks are the most promising. [xx]The market seems to completely miss Robin’s vision since Robin has a hard time communicating his vision and is an inner score board type of person.
Capital Allocation
Baidu has a good track record of good capital allocation decisions.
From the inception to late 2000s, Baidu has mostly reinvested its capital into its search business which yielded very high returns. From my previous calculation, the return on capital of Baidu has been around 50% for the past years. Thus, most of the capital reinvested into Baidu have been growing at a rate of 50%.
Baidu’s acquisition strategy has also been very opportunistic. Baidu rarely make acquisitions, but when Baidu decides to acquire a company the acquisition has shown to be very accretive. For example, their acquisition of Qunar and iQiyi have been paying off nicely with IRR above 20% while their acquisition of 91 Wireless has propelled their mobile expansion.
In terms of return of capital, Baidu has never paid any dividends. However, for the first time in history, Baidu bought back $1 billion of its shares at around $164 last year. If my valuation was correct, under my base case, Baidu bought back its shares at around 30% discount to its intrinsic value.
Valuation
Here is my estimate for Baidu’s valuation using a multiple for the search engine and a sum of parts for the whole company.
Search Engine
To be conservative, the multiples ranging from 10 to 17 are used since Baidu’s search engine is a high quality business and should be worth more than 10x EBIT. Putting a multiple of 10x EBIT implies that an investor with an opportunity cost of 10% is assuming that Baidu Search’s cashflow stream will only be growing around 10% each year for the next 10 years. With advertising trends growing at around 20%+ a year, it is very likely that Baidu’s cashflow will grow at a much higher pace than 10% a year for the next decade.
In addition, compared to other search engines, the multiples do not look unreasonable. Using the comparables, Baidu should be worth much more than 15x EBIT.
Source: Used company data and some assumptions to arrive at the multiple and the growth
Ctrip Stake
Baidu’s stake in Ctrip can be calculated using the share price of Ctrip. In the SOTP, the assumed share price of Ctrip is $42. The proportional Ctrip shares can always be shorted and separated from Baidu’s valuation.
Didi Stake
Baidu has a 2.3% stake in Didi. Given the merged company will be worth around $35 billion dollar, Baidu’s stake should be worth around $805 million.[xxi]
iQiyi
As the bear case, the takeover offer of $2.8 billion made by iQiyi’s management is used to value the iQiyi stake. As the base case, the comparable takeover offer of $4.8 billion for Yokou Tudou is used to value iQiyi. As the bull case, 86Research’s $5.8 billion valuation of iQyi is used to value iQiyi.
Baidu Takeout
Baidu Takeout Delivery was valued at $2.5 billion dollar in the last round of financing. [xxii]
Excess Capital
Baidu has an incredible amount of cash and short term securities on its balance sheet. Therefore, taking account the excess capital (cash+short term investments-debt) in SOTP would be reasonable.
Downside protection – Valuating Search Engine using conservative DCF
Baidu’s current valuation has a large downside protection. If the search engine is valued using a conservative DCF instead of a SOTP, the valuation would look like the chart below. The assumptions for the DCF would be that Baidu’s search engine would only have a lifespan of 10 years and would only grow at a clip between 12.5% to 20%.
Bull Case
Base Case
Bear Case
Risks
Replacement of search engines: All in one apps like WeChat may harm Baidu in the long run since people would not use Baidu’s search engine to search within WeChat.
Obsolescence of technology: Baidu’s technology may become obsolete and lose market share to its competitors.
One man risk: Robin Li is a crucial executive in Baidu. If something were to happen to him, Baidu may decrease in value.
Currency Risk: The Chinese currency may fluctuate. However, in the long run, these fluctuations should not matter.
Catalysts – Free options
Recovery from the scandal: At the end of 2017, Baidu’s revenue and share price should have recovered. New marketing customers and higher price for advertising should offset the loss of customers from tougher regulation.
AI Potential: Baidu is one of the first companies developing Artificial Intelligence technologies in China. The current successful utilization of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in language search and image recognition assures that Baidu will be in the lead in the development and monetization of AI. In the future, many new applications for AI will likely emerge and expand AI’s potential.
New Investments: Baidu will be start a $200 million venture capital unit that invests in early stage AI, AR and VR projects. Baidu is also establishing a $3 billion investment fund focused on mid and late stage deals in the internet sector. The investments could be beneficial for Baidu in the long run.
Self Driving Car: Baidu already has plans of a commercially viable vehicle by 2019 and a mass production driverless electric cars in five years. [xxiii] If Baidu can successfully build a car that can drive itself, it will be incredibly lucrative for the company. Assuming Baidu can sell 10,000,000 cars at around $30,000 each and assuming that Baidu has a 15% margin on the cars, the earnings from the autonomous cars would add up to Baidu’s current market capitalization.
Geographic Expansion: Baidu intends to expand into Europe where Google is under heavy governmental scrutiny and take market share from Google. This expansion may or may not be successful since Baidu tried to enter Japan in the past and failed.
Other Business Expansion: Baidu can expand into other fields using its currently available technology. For example, Baidu Maps has been critical for Baidu’s O2O business and could lead Baidu to other businesses.
Cut Costs: After reading many sell side analyst report, many analysts like to look at Baidu’s earnings. Thus, if Baidu slows down its expenditures on its investment in content and O2O, Baidu would have a higher earnings and a higher stock price.
Conclusion
At the current price, Mr. Market is underestimating Baidu’s worth. The market is valuing Baidu as a standalone low-growth search engine while Baidu is actually a high-growth search engine with multiple valuable subsidiaries. The market should reflect Baidu’s true value in a few years (most likely by the end of 2017) as revenue and brand image recover from the scandal.
Disclosures
The information contained herein is not represented or warranted to be accurate, correct, complete, or timely. This report is for information purposes only, and should not be considered a solicitation to buy or sell any security. Redistribution is prohibited without written permission.
The author owns shares of Baidu and may decide to buy or sell without notice.
The author is not receiving compensation for the report. The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this report.
Appendix
Desktop Search Market Share since 2012 (Stat Counter)
Mobile Search Market Share since 2012 (Stat Counter)
Letter from Acacia Partners to Robin Li:
July 18, 2016
Dear Robin,
We write as shareholders of Baidu since September 2012; we presently own more than 2.6 million shares of the Baidu ADRs worth over $400 million. The holding period of our investments typically exceeds seven years, and we hope to be shareholders of Baidu for far longer, as we have long admired your management of the business from a startup to a market leader.
One of your early board members told us that “Robin loves the company like his own child.” And indeed, for the nearly eleven years Baidu has been listed, we have watched you nurture Baidu with the same care, love and integrity with which we would all aspire to raise our own children.
That sense of nurturing therefore leaves us surprised and puzzled by your bid to privatize and purchase Baidu’s online video subsidiary, iQiyi.
We strongly believe that the purchase by you of iQiyi is against the best long-term interest of Baidu and its shareholders, for the following reasons:
We are convinced that the short-term improvement to Baidu’s earnings produced by iQiyi’s sale to you is trivial compared to the potential long-term value created for Baidu shareholders of owning iQiyi within Baidu. We believe the price you have offered for iQiyi is far too low. We are concerned that Baidu’s huge ramp-up in investment in iQiyi this past quarter is tantamount to a big donation by Baidu shareholders to future iQiyi shareholders (including you and your partners in the bid).
We worry that embracing what is an inherent conflict of interest will lead to damage to the reputations of both you and Baidu. It is better for Baidu to be regarded as a key institution, not the extension of the pocketbook of one man.
As long-term investors, we fully grasp that smart, long-term CEOs with good operating skills and a sense of net present value can be frustrated by the stock market’s impatience for good results.
Baidu’s prior investments in desktop search, mobile search and online travel all demonstrate a long record of successful operations and patient investment, and we are therefore confident in iQiyi’s long-term promise as well.
As Baidu has itself said over the years of financing the iQiyi investment, iQiyi should be a valuable part of the Baidu ecosystem and an important contribution to Baidu’s value proposition to its users. The experience of Google and YouTube has taught us that the growth of online video advertising is making content and the ability to judge user intent more and more valuable and important.
The loss of iQiyi would deal a blow to Baidu’s ability to become a full-fledged ecosystem for its partners and users. Baidu has talked about continued close cooperation with iQiyi after privatization, but we see that as both operationally challenging and facing many potential long-term conflicts of interest.
Baidu has shared virtually no operating data on iQiyi, so it is difficult for investors such as us to value it and evaluate the merits of your bid. However, from analyzing publicly available information, we are disconcerted by the price you have offered.
Independent research group 86Research issued a report on May 2nd valuing iQiyi at $5.8 billion, more than twice the $2.8 billion valuation that you have put forth in your bid. iQiyi competitor Youku was acquired by Alibaba for $4.8 billion late last year. Third party data suggests that iQiyi leads Youku on a number of important metrics, while growing much faster. Therefore 86Research’s valuation appears directionally plausible to us.
Finally, we have been disturbed to observe what appears to be a huge ramp in investment in iQiyi last quarter. In the four quarters through March this year in which Baidu has disclosed the impact of iQiyi content investment on Baidu profitability, iQiyi investment has consumed 5.1%, 5.4%, 5.9% and then suddenly 8.7% of Baidu’s revenue.
That spike in investment could be perceived as a big donation by Baidu shareholders to future iQiyi shareholders. It is akin to an infusion of cash made after your purchase price had been determined but before the deal has been consummated. This strikes us as particularly disappointing, as Baidu shareholders will never see the benefits of this investment if you privatize our subsidiary.
To date, no one has explained why Baidu should sell iQiyi rather than keep it, or alternatively capitalize it separately and maintain a controlling stake, as Baidu did with Qunar and Baidu Takeout (Waimai). We believe that any of these five choices would be preferable to your proposal of buying iQiyi:
Baidu could keep iQiyi, with enhanced disclosure to ensure iQiyi is valued fairly. Baidu could directly finance iQiyi as it has Baidu Nuomi. Baidu could take iQiyi public via an IPO while maintaining a controlling stake as it did with Qunar. Baidu could spin off iQiyi to shareholders with some cash in it, and Baidu could maintain partial ownership in order to retain the valuable synergies between them. Baidu could do a rights issue permitting all Baidu shareholders—not just special ones—to have a chance to benefit from ownership in iQiyi on equal terms.
Any of these options would help capture the value of iQiyi while enhancing its financing flexibility, ensuring it remains part of the Baidu ecosystem and providing Baidu shareholders with maximum potential value. All of these options seem preferable for both Baidu shareholders and for the reputation of both the company and you personally. Could you please consider one of these options?
Short-term shareholders focused on earnings in the next few quarters may like the idea of reducing long- term investment in Baidu’s future and selling a very valuable asset at a low price.
As long-term owners of Baidu, we think selling iQiyi would be a grave mistake. Your offer to buy out iQiyi is rife with conflicts of interest that we believe in a few years will paint a picture of Baidu corporate governance that is much uglier than the current admiring and respectful view.
Should your buyout of iQiyi succeed for you financially, it is critical for you to understand that the price will not just be the $2.8 billion valuation you have offered for the video subsidiary, but also Baidu’s reputation for good corporate governance, and your personal reputation.
We believe this reputation is worth far more than $2.8 billion, and we hope that you do, too. Thus, we respectfully urge you to withdraw your bid for iQiyi, for the best interests of the company and the many shareholders who believe in you.
Many thanks for the opportunity to share our thoughts.
Sincerely Yours,
Acacia Partners and related Acacia entities
Segment Reporting (2013-2015)
[i] Lessons From China: The Evolution of The Globe’s Largest Search Engine; A Stanford speech in 2009
[ii] Google’s brand is worth $229 billion according 2016 Brandz Top Most Valuable Global Brands
[v] In the Plex. How Google thinks, works and shapes our lives.
[xv] Diagnosis and management of soft tissue sarcoma Author(s): Shiba Sinha and A Howard S Peach Source: BMJ: British Medical Journal, Vol. 342, No. 7789 (15 January 2011), pp. 157-162 Published by: BMJBerkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild — author of the best-selling book Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right — wrote her first book when she was nine years old. You could think of Colleen the Question Girl as a prequel to Strangers in their Own Land, which tries to make sense of why Trump supporters in Louisiana’s ‘cancer alley’ feel loyal to the oil companies who pollute their air and water, while despising the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Why don’t bears have horns?” “Why aren’t zebras plaid?” “Why are some houses so big and others so small?” Hochschild wrote in her first book. Even as a child — and Hochschild readily admits that Colleen was modeled after herself — she was asking difficult questions. “It was about a little girl who was trouble to the adults in her life,” she said. “She’s a little radical, and she was always trying to get her father’s attention.” Colleen starts out as a girl who asks too many questions but, eventually, she becomes the town’s question girl. “Question-asking spread all over town,” the young Hochschild wrote. “And over the years to come, questions flew out of Colleen’s dreams into a wind that blew all around the world.”
As it turns out, Colleen — first published in 1974 by the Feminist Press and now reprinted and available on Amazon — was prescient. Hochschild started teaching at the sociology department at UC Berkeley in the 1970s, at a time when there were precious few female sociologists. From the get-go, she started asking the kinds of questions that were not on her male colleague’s radar screen. Why is “women’s work” less valued than men’s work? What happens when traditional “women’s work” (such as childcare and elder care) is outsourced to strangers? And, more recently, how can blue-collar workers be so blind about billionaires?
Hochschild revels in these seemingly intractable questions. In between Colleen and Strangers in their Own Land, Hochschild wrote several other groundbreaking books, including The Second Shift, The Outsourced Self, The Managed Heart and The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. But her latest book has been her most successful yet: it has spent time on the New York Times bestseller list, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It has been so popular that it was unavailable for three weeks before Christmas because Amazon could not keep it in stock. (Hochschild is still irritated about that.) “I have written 10 articles since the book came out: I never imagined I’d be doing all this,” she said.
But timing is everything and, once again, Hochschild was prescient. “Five years ago, here in Berkeley, I began to sense a terrible divide,” she told a gathering at the Hillside Club recently. “Not because the left was becoming more left, but because the right was becoming more right.” Look at a Republican such as President Eisenhower, she said. “He was a great sponsor of public infrastructure. Reagan was for gun control. Goldwater’s wife was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. Nixon brought us the Environmental Protection Agency. And now we hear that the nominee to head the EPA is a climate-change denier.”
In Louisiana, Hochschild — who sheepishly told her interviewees she came from “Bbbbbbb … Berkeley” — encountered true Southern hospitality. She was served lots of sweet tea and gumbo. She was invited to family dinners and community barbecues and was taken out for leisurely boat rides on the (highly polluted) bayou.Hochschild began the research with one of her trademark questions: “How is it that the poorest states in our country, with the worst levels of education, the worst health, the lowest life expectancy — and states that take more aid from the federal government than they give back in taxes — how is it these states revile the federal government? I didn’t understand.”
She was also called a “communist,” an “environmental wacko,” and a “femi-Nazi” by her subjects. “Luckily, they always laughed after they said that,” she recalled. But she added that, “people in Louisiana were also concerned about the divide. They felt they were a fly-over state, and that they were considered uneducated and wrong-headed and Southern and redneck. They were glad I came down to see who they really were.”
Hochschild began the research with one of her trademark questions: “How is it that the poorest states in our country, with the worst levels of education, the worst health, the lowest life expectancy — and states that take more aid from the federal government than they give back in taxes — how is it these states revile the federal government? I didn’t understand.”
Louisiana was the poster child for this paradox: in 2004, Hochschild says, it was the poorest state in the union, and 44% of the state budget came from the federal government. “And they are very strongly Tea Party,” she said. “By the end of my journey, I discovered that they are enthusiastically for Donald Trump. For five years, I had been studying the dry kindling. When I went to New Orleans to see a Trump rally in 20016, I saw the match.”
Hochschild has always been interested in studying feelings and not just data, so it’s not surprising to hear her say that “we need to understand who the Trump supporters are, why that vote makes sense to them — without presuming they are deplorables.” The people Hochschild interviewed felt “culturally colonized [by liberal values] and marginalized. They felt like a minority group, that was unnamed and couldn’t — didn’t — want to name itself. They were victims, they felt, but couldn’t claim victimhood.”
They felt that Hillary Clinton’s economic and trade policies would push them further back, while Trump told them, “we’re’ making you great again, I am recognizing you, blue-collar people.” These communities felt looked down upon as a region but also as a social class. “There was a lot of despair and depression” among Trump supporters, Hochschild said, “and Trump was like an anti-depressant. He’s very good at drilling down for anxiety and deploying it. He said, ‘I will get you un-depressed.’”
But how can a billionaire from Queens understand the situation of blue-collar workers in Louisiana? “He’s been watching it out of the corner of his eye for 25 years,” Hochschild said. “He watched [George W.] Bush put on a cowboy hat and pretend to be a cowboy,” and he attempted a similar feat.
Democratic party policies, meanwhile, were not helpful to blue-collar workers, Hochschild said. “Raising the minimum wage does not help blue-collar workers,” she said. International trade agreements were not helpful to the people she interviewed, and government regulations sometimes made their lives more difficult rather than easier. “The Democratic Party has relied on Silicon Valley for support, but paradoxically many of the interventions that will come out of Silicon Valley will put blue-collar people out of work,” she said. She added that many public institutions actually benefit the middle class “a lot more than the poor.” In addition, she said, progressives don’t want to see that “some public things are not functioning well. Some regulations have gone haywire.”
And, though many Berkeleyans feared that five years of repeat visits to Louisiana would cause Hochschild to go native, exactly the opposite has happened: Hochschild moves right into Berkeley mode when she returns from her field work. “Berkeley is my home,” she says. “It has allowed me to exhale, to take more chances, be more creative.” And so, Hochschild now tells anyone who will listen that Berkeley needs to go back to its activist heyday to respond to the Trump phenomenon. “We need to move on from despair and recover in the spirit of the ’60s,” she said at the Hillside Club.
Hochschild said that in these troubled times progressives need to engage in “some peaceful and massive demonstrations. I think we do need to fight. I want to see a lot of ’60s activism out there.” Progressives need to fight — and file massive lawsuits — against any policies of a Trump administration that would hurt the environment, or civil rights, or women’s rights, or other progressive values and principles, she said. “We need a large vision, and we need to set up a loyal opposition.”
At the same time, she said, progressives should engage with individual Trump supporters and try to find areas where we are in agreement. “We need to stand up, assert our values, and have conversations. We need to reach out to Trump supporters who a mere eight years ago voted for Barack Obama. They aren’t so far away, and we can’t just hurl epithets at each other.”
Hochschild, in fact, is still in conversation with her ‘friends’ in Louisiana. In fact, she is about to embark on another trip to the Bayou, this time with her son David Hochschild, one of five members of the California Energy Commission. David has a background in solar energy and works to promote renewable energy for the state of California. Hochschild’s radical plan is to put David together with Mike Schaff, an ardent Tea Party member and Trump supporter, who is also a major character in Strangers.
Schaff’s house and community were basically destroyed when a 37-acre sinkhole opened up and swallowed up much of the neighborhood. Those houses that still stand, including Schaff’s, are filled with dangerous levels of methane gas. This oil industry disaster could have been prevented, she says, with better regulation by both state and federal agencies, yet Schaff is vehemently opposed to regulation. (Read Hochschild’s essay on Schaff.)
“I thought it would be good to get Mike together with my son,” Hochschild says. “You couldn’t find two more different people. But my idea is to get them in Mike’s boat and see whether people with such different political philosophies can find common ground on the environment.” Hochschild plans to be a silent witness in that boat, recording the conversation.
Hochschild refers those who are interested in embarking on a Left-Right dialogue of their own to a new website called LivingRoomConversations.org. This site was founded by Joan Blades, a co-founder of MoveOn.org, who also appeared with Hochschild at the Hillside Club. Living Room Conversations provides a format for people from opposite sides of a variety of issues to seek common ground. The group will be launching another site called MisMatch.org in the near future, so people with different views from different geographic areas can begin online conversations, also to seek |
, who was sort of a favorite of DARPA.
And he had proposed this particle beam that DARPA sponsored in the early days. And every DARPA director who sponsored it said, well, we knew it wasn't ever going to really work, but it was marvelous science. Well, now we're at the early 1980s with Ronald Reagan. And Reagan says, we're going to try to make it work. And DARPA is suddenly, you know, like, what? You're going to build this thing that was just sort of an idea? They were shocked.
GROSS: Was President Reagan a little naive about the science that it would take to create the Star Wars defense shield that he was promoting and made it seem like this is really within reach?
WEINBERGER: I don't think he cared. So naive is one word that you could use but also that it wasn't - he wasn't about the technological reality. He really kind of came from this, you know, Hollywood vision, sort of, you know, say you can build it and maybe you can build it. One of the most shocking things about the Star Wars history was that he hadn't even, you know, before making his announcement, he hadn't even consulted or listened to the top people in the Pentagon.
I remember from some of the interviews I did and received for the DARPA book, you know, there was these descriptions of Caspar Weinberger, then the defense secretary, just sitting there slack-jawed hearing Reagan announce they were going to build this system because, you know, Weinberger himself had said, you know, what you want to do is just not feasible. The same thing with the DARPA director, the same thing with the Pentagon's chief technologist. They were just in shock.
Reagan had not consulted with him, had not listened to them when they were saying this is not feasible. I think Reagan really had this vision, not so much that you could make it a technological reality but he could make people believe in it. And for Reagan, that was enough.
GROSS: So how much money did the U.S. spend on the Star Wars initiative?
WEINBERGER: Oh, my, well, don't forget, it never really ended even to this day. Now, this sort of impressive shield that Reagan talked about, I mean, I think there are numbers in the hundreds of billions that have been invested in Star Wars and all of its sort of component programs. I can say this much. There has been an incredible amount of money that has gone into missile defense based on a belief system.
Even today when you look at the missile defense programs that are being built and used operational, the ones that are supposed to stop intercontinental ballistic missiles, they are doing such a small, small part of either what the particle beam weapon in 1958 was proposing or what Reagan was proposing in the 1980s. And yet we're still spending money on it.
GROSS: So DARPA was initially very focused on the Cold War and then also on the war in Vietnam. So the war in Vietnam ends, the Cold War ends and DARPA has had to figure out its place in the U.S. in the era of terrorism. So what has DARPA been working on in the era that we're in now?
WEINBERGER: Well, so there's two transitions that took place there. One, of course, as you mentioned, was the end of the Vietnam War, which was, you know, it had caused untold problems for the Pentagon, it'd become a lightning rod for DARPA. Congress was becoming very critical of DARPA. So DARPA took all of its technologies from the Vietnam era and renamed the office the Tactical Technology Office, i.e. an office that has nothing to do with Vietnam.
And they really began to focus, as you get into the 1980s and the height of the Cold War, on weapons - precision weapons, you know, drones, stealth aircraft. So then we get to the end of the Cold War. And here is DARPA for the past decade been building weapons to fight the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union goes away, and it's sort of left just stranded and not knowing what to do. It is often called an agency that is supposed to stop technological surprise. Technological surprise meaning mostly from the Soviet Union.
So what is your mission in the 1990s when that is no longer an issue? And DARPA really struggled to find its place. At one point, they renamed it back to ARPA, looking at it, well, maybe it can be sort of an engine of civil innovation. And really the 1990s were not a great period for DARPA. They did not have a lot of successful programs. Things were not going well for the agency. Then 9/11 happens, and things change again.
GROSS: How did they change?
WEINBERGER: Well, so the director who came in right before 9/11, Tony Tether, really had a vision. He had been at DARPA prior to that. And so he basically said, look, you know, 9/11, terrorism is clearly going to be one of the number one if not the number-one threat facing the United States in the coming years. We need to address this problem. And when he looked at what happened on 9/11, he said, this is a problem of data, that we probably had all of the information we needed to stop this attack, but we didn't have a good way of integrating it, of centralizing it, of analyzing it.
And he said, this is the area we need to get into, data mining, data analysis, pattern recognition. And that's what he did. He - things went downhill from there.
GROSS: My guest is Sharon Weinberger. Her new book about DARPA is called "The Imagineers Of War." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GROSS: Let's get back to my interview with Sharon Weinberger, author of the new book "The Imagineers Of War" about the history of DARPA, the Pentagon agency that designs futuristic weapons and defense technology. The agency was created in 1958 during the Cold War, when the focus was defending against a Soviet nuclear attack. During the Vietnam War, DARPA also focused on jungle warfare.
After 9/11, the agency focused on combating terrorism and tried to find ways to mine and analyze public records with the goal of discovering terrorists before they attacked. DARPA organizes the TIA - Total Information Awareness - program designed to mine data, including from American civilians and kind of, you know, coordinate and read the data. And there's a huge uproar over that.
WEINBERGER: Well, exactly. One of the first things that happened was that Tony Tether, the DARPA director, hired John Poindexter. By way to refresh people's memories, this was the national security adviser to Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal. He had - Poindexter had been convicted of lying to Congress, although that conviction was tossed out. And what people sometimes forget is that Poindexter had been trained as a physicist, really had a reputation for being quite brilliant. He had had a longtime interest in computers, had helped modernize the White House back in the day, introducing email, introducing networking.
And so after he had sort of faded back into the Washingtechnocracy (ph) after the Iran-Contra scandal, he had been working in data mining. This was the very area he was working in, how do you predict terrorist attacks? And he'd been working under a DARPA contract. Well, after 9/11, Tony Tether thought no one's going to care. Like, people want - people realize how important this is. This is like a Sputnik moment, that you have to do whatever it takes to win the war. And he didn't think it would be a problem to hire John Poindexter in at DARPA to run this program called Total Information Awareness.
GROSS: It did not work out.
WEINBERGER: It did not work out. You know, it sort of for a few months seemed to go along fine. You know, Poindexter being hired at DARPA was a bit of a blip. And really the focus was on 9/11. You were starting a war in Afghanistan. You know, that the nation was turning to sort of, what was this threat? But there were already privacy advocates who were looking at what DARPA was proposing to do and saying this is just crazy. Poindexter had originally proposed to DARPA that there would be a two-track program. One would be a black program, meaning a heavily classified program in data analysis. And then there would be a white program, an unclassified program called Total Information Awareness that would involve academics looking at data mining.
When I interviewed Poindexter, what he told me was that the black program never actually took place is what he said, that it was all a white world unclassified program that Poindexter and others began to speak very publicly about, saying, you know, we're going to take data from everything - it might be credit card records, it might be pharmacy records, travel records, car rental - and combine that with government information - might be classified information - mine it all and try to predict terrorist attacks. Now, what Poindexter's very careful to say was that they weren't actually - it was an experiment. It was research. They were not working with real world data.
Instead, they created this simulation initially called Vanilla World, which was made-up data where, you know, it was, you know, millions of households in the United States and a few terrorists. And they brought in experts to sort of what's called red team it. You know, there will be some who pretend to be terrorists. And they would see if you could recognize the terrorists ahead of time.
GROSS: So the program was ended. The public part of the program was ended, but it ended up going underground as a black program, as a program that's secret from the public.
WEINBERGER: Well, exactly. So after The New York Times and others wrote about it, it created this huge media firestorm of, you know, people called it an Orwellian program that was going to, you know, look at all of your, you know, personal data. The very fact that it was trying to find terrorists in the United States using what people consider very sensitive data was extremely controversial. So Congress got involved and started, you know, calling up people to talk about what was going on and eventually shut down the program.
Now, what Poindexter argues to me now is that in essence the nation got the worst of both worlds, that rather than an unclassified program that was also sponsoring what he considered to be privacy protection. They were looking at tools that could mask data. Instead, the privacy work was shut down. And the bulk of the program was transferred over to the National Security Agency. It, quote, unquote, "went black." In his argument, you know, the exact opposite of what he wanted, which is basically highly classified work involving data mining.
GROSS: DARPA has been working on issues related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to figure out ways to deal with traumatic brain injury, dealing with people who come home and having lost one or more limbs. So what's some of the progress they've made in that? I know they don't like to be identified as a device laboratory. On the other hand, they've created devices and created some really practical things that are really helping people.
WEINBERGER: They are. I mean, this work has actually been ongoing at DARPA for a number of years. In a sense, this dates back to the 1970s work on brain computer interface, which went on and was really quite successful in laying the foundations of a scientific field. Well, now we get to the early 2000s. And there was again a revival of this brain computer interface work under Tony Tether at DARPA. Only it was really phrased as, you know, we're going to create weapons. You know, we're going to create drones and robots that will be controlled directly by the human mind. It was a very, very sort of science fiction vision.
Well, after sort of the scandal around Total Information Awareness, there was a lot more scrutiny of DARPA programs. So suddenly this talk of yeah, we're going to be controlling drones with the human mind, it sort of was, you know, that went away. And so when DARPA over the past three or four years got back involved in neuroscience, the language was couched very differently. And in fact, the motivations were quite different because what we were seeing at that point were big problems with traumatic brain injury, big problems with post-traumatic stress disorder.
And so a lot of the DARPA work is linked to that earlier work. It's talking about brain chips and neuroengineering and brain implants. Only instead of controlling drones, they're talking about how to recover memories, how to treat depression, how to treat traumatic brain injury.
GROSS: It might be too soon to answer this question, but I'm wondering what DARPA is doing in this era of the Trump administration and if the Trump administration has had any direct communication with DARPA yet about its goals. And specifically I'm wondering about border wall technology. One of President Trump's big issues is building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. We've yet to see what, if anything, will happen with that. But has DARPA come up with things that are likely to be used if that wall is built?
WEINBERGER: Well, in fact, a lot of DARPA's Vietnam-era technology is used today along the U.S.-Mexican border. The two biggest things are sensors. The sensors that are used along the U.S.-Mexican border date back directly to DARPA's work, first from its nuclear test detection technology, but then to the electronic barrier it helped with in Vietnam. There are also tethered aerostats, basically blimps that are tethered to the ground along the U.S.-Mexican border which had come - which again comes directly out of DARPA work in Vietnam.
You know, DARPA has a lot of experience in this area. It forwarded the first proposals in 1964 for creating a barrier to basically cut off the supply of weapons and people coming from North Vietnam into South Vietnam. This eventually developed into what was called the McNamara Line, which was again supposed to cut off people and weapons and failed rather spectacularly. So there are a lot of lessons you can learn about, you know, what it takes to build a barrier and what goes wrong. It is very, very hard, expensive, complex and sometimes rather ruthless if you want to cut off people, supplies that are very determined to cross a border.
And these are lessons one hopes are taken into account along the U.S.-Mexican border. But what's interesting about the current administration is they're not even talking about technology. The most that the wall has ever been expressed in by Trump or people around him is literally in bricks and mortar. A wall on its own doesn't do anything if it's not monitored. So it will have to involve some sort of sensor, some sort of surveillance system. But it's really too soon. We don't know. We've only heard bricks and mortars.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Sharon Weinberger, author of the new book "The Imagineers Of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, The Pentagon Agency That Changed The World." We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Sharon Weinberger, author of the new book "The Imagineers." It's about the Pentagon agency called ARPA, which then became DARPA, which was created in 1958. It was initially dedicated to getting the U.S. in space and then turned to tech innovation in the defense field. Innovations credited to DARPA or based on DARPA research include the first communication satellite, stealth aircraft, drones, the driverless car, the robot vacuum cleaner and the internet.
So Siri, the famous, like, Apple voice recognition technology who you can ask questions to and sometimes she can answer them (laughter) - so you say that she is a spinoff of a DARPA project. So when you look at DARPA you have these kind of, like, crazy schemes, crazy high-tech schemes that billions of dollars are spent on that don't pan out. But you also have things like, you know, drones for warfare, robotic technology that we're using in daily life, whether it's a vacuum cleaner or, you know, like, voice recognition technology like Siri.
So you have this mix of, like, you know, grand schemes that work and schemes that end up in things that not only work for defense but that you can use, you know, in the palm of your hand or in your apartment, in your car because the driverless car is another example of something that came out of DARPA research. So when you look at the big picture, what conclusion do you draw about DARPA and its way of operating and the amount of money that's been spent on its research?
WEINBERGER: I have two thoughts on that. The first is that what we consider a success and failure really has to be broken down into two things. So the name "The Imagineers Of War" is really based on how I saw DARPA in its early days where it was trying to think about, you know, how is the U.S. going to be fighting wars now and in the future, and how do we come up with, you know, imagineer solutions to those problems?
And so if we talk about drones being a success, let's actually think about that for a second. Drones are certainly a technological success not only, you know, for what it does in the military and the civil field. Has it helped us prosecute our wars more successfully? You know, have 16 years of drones and armed drones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, other countries helped win these wars? I think that's a much more controversial statement to make to say that was a success. So it goes back to the central question I ask in my book of what is it that you want DARPA to do?
If you want DARPA to solve national-level problems, to sort of solve warfare or make us more safe, then it changes the picture a lot. If you want DARPA to be an agency that produces cute technological novelties like Siri or, you know, driverless cars, to some extent - it's a great thing, but that doesn't really change, you know, the national security for the country - then it can do that. Do you want DARPA to be a science fiction agency that does nifty gadgets or do you want it to solve national-level problems? That is always the tension of DARPA and where it's supposed to go. And in that its legacy is mixed.
What challenges are worthy of a DARPA-type agency? It is arguably the world's most successful research agency. So where do you want to sort of channel those talents? What do you want it to achieve? I certainly hope that it's more than just producing gadgets for the military, that the White House or the Pentagon gives it challenges to solve. I think neuroscience and the challenge of helping people with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, those are very noble missions and I think DARPA can contribute a lot.
But if you look at the larger problems that we're facing after 9/11 and 16 years of war, I don't think that really anyone is asking, what can DARPA contribute? What can it do to sort of stop the threats that we're facing today? And that's the unfortunate part of DARPA, this tremendously successful research agency which isn't being used the way it was in its early days to address warfare.
GROSS: Sharon Weinberger, thank you so much for talking with us.
WEINBERGER: Thank you for having me.
GROSS: Sharon Weinberger's new book about DARPA is called "The Imagineers Of War." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger, who has been covering North Korea's nuclear and missile tests and the Trump administration response. North Korea claims that it's preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the U.S. I hope you'll join us.
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GROSS: And now for something I've put off doing because I haven't wanted to face the fact that it has to be done. I have to say goodbye to our producer John Sheehan, who has accepted another position. John has edited zillions of interviews, produced years of our opening billboard - that's the minute-long introduction to the show - and has produced our Weekend Edition. He's an audio wizard. And in the past year, he's written, produced and directed a wonderful podcast that's a comic adventure series for kids called The Radio Adventures Of Eleanor Amplified.
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UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: From WHYY in Philadelphia.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: In a world of no-goodnicks (ph), hucksters, charlatans and flim-flammers (ph), she's checking facts and taking names. It's The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified.
GROSS: Eleanor Amplified is about an investigative reporter who's trying to take down Angela Brant, the nefarious head of a giant tech company called Megablurg that's trying to take over the world. In addition to the great professional actors John has used, he's drawn on the extraordinary acting talents of the FRESH AIR family. Listen as the whole staff collectively gasps.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character) I'm almost ready to rest my case, congressman. I just have one final witness. I call Eleanor Amplified's Megablurg 5,000 limited edition SL smartphone.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Gasping).
GROSS: We did good, right? John channeled the true acting talents of Amelia (ph) and Lena (ph), our producer Ann Marie Baldonado's two daughters. Here they are quarreling in a scene from Eleanor.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As Hannah) Hey The Rook, can we play with Norad (ph) again?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #3: (As The Rook) Hannah, get out. Mom, Hannah's in my room again.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As Hannah) Mom, The Rook is yelling at me.
GROSS: Nice work, girls. So the good news for us is that John's new job is requiring him to move only as far as one flight up in the WHYY building where we work. He's WHYY's new manager of on-demand audio and podcasts. And part of his job is continuing to create new episodes of "Eleanor." Even so, we're heartbroken he's no longer part of the FRESH AIR crew.
I want to close today's show with the best FRESH AIR ending ever, which was of course conceived and produced by John. It's from last summer, when he came on the show as a guest to talk about the premiere of "Eleanor." And he came up with this way to end our show.
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GROSS: (As herself) FRESH AIR's executive producer is...
(SOUNDBITE OF COMPUTER CRASHING)
GROSS: I don't know. Danny, are we still on the air?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As Angela Brant) FRESH AIR's executive producer is me, Megablurg CEO Angela Brant.
GROSS: (As herself) What is this? What's going on here?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As Angela Brant) Why, we're stealing your show, Terry Gross.
(LAUGHTER)
SCOTT JOHNSTON: (As Professor Ignomi) Now your listeners will hear only Megablurg-approved programming.
GROSS: (As herself) No, you can't. You won't get away with this.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As Angela Brant) Professor Ignomi, show Terry Gross your hypnoray.
JOHNSTON: (As Professor Ignomi, laughing) With pleasure, Ms. Brant.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLASTING)
GROSS: (As herself) FRESH AIR listeners, would you like to hear the latest deals on internet shopping or maybe some celebrity gossip?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As Angela Brant, laughing) Got you, Terry Gross. That'll show you for denying my interview request.
(LAUGHTER)
CHRISTA D’AGOSTINO: (As Eleanor Amplified) Not so fast, evildoers.
SCOTT JOHNSTON AND UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As characters, gasping) Eleanor Amplified.
D’AGOSTINO: (As Eleanor Amplified) I won't let you turn FRESH AIR into a Megablurg mouthpiece. It's a good thing I brought this anti-hypnoray.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLASTING)
JOHNSTON: (As Professor Ignomi) No.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As Angela Brant) Curse you, Eleanor Amplified. You've spoiled my plans again.
GROSS: (As herself) Eleanor, where am I? I don't think I can finish the show. I don't think I can even remember the names of our producers.
D’AGOSTINO: (As Eleanor Amplified) Don't worry, Terry Gross, I've got this. FRESH AIR'S executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer is Audrey Bentham. The interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, John Sheehan, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden and Thea Chaloner. Molly Seavy-Nesper is associate producer of online media. Roberta Shorrock directs the show.
GROSS: (As herself) Thanks, Eleanor.
D’AGOSTINO: (As Eleanor Amplified) Sure thing, Terry Gross.
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GROSS: I'm back to add Mooj Zadie's name to the credits. He wasn't yet here when we recorded that. And to thank you, John, for sharing nine years of your life with FRESH AIR. See you in the hall. I'm Terry Gross.
Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.LONDON — THE mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who was born in New York and holds both American and British passports, recently said that he would not pay a tax bill from the United States on capital gains from the sale of his home in the London borough of Islington. Mr. Johnson pointed out that he hasn’t lived in America since he was 5. He’d like to renounce his citizenship, but said the process was “very difficult.”
It is, but I am doing it. My “in-person final loss of citizenship appointment” is scheduled for Jan. 14 at the United States Consulate here. My British passport, acquired in 2012, will be my only one.
Some 3,000 Americans gave up their citizenship last year, a tiny number that’s nevertheless been soaring. Yes, a few expatriates may be trying to avoid future taxes, as Senator Charles E. Schumer accused the Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin of doing two years ago, when Mr. Saverin, who lives in Singapore, surrendered his passport ahead of the company’s initial public offering.
But most, like me, are not tycoons. We’re responding to the burden and cost of onerous financial reporting and tax filing requirements that are neither fair nor just. (Living and working in London, I pay higher taxes, to Britain, than I would in New York.)Image caption Thousands of hours of BBC footage have been used to train the lip-reading system
Scientists at Oxford say they've invented an artificial intelligence system that can lip-read better than humans.
The system, which has been trained on thousands of hours of BBC News programmes, has been developed in collaboration with Google's DeepMind AI division.
"Watch, Attend and Spell", as the system has been called, can now watch silent speech and get about 50% of the words correct. That may not sound too impressive - but when the researchers supplied the same clips to professional lip-readers, they got only 12% of words right.
Joon Son Chung, a doctoral student at Oxford University's Department of Engineering, explained to me just how challenging a task this is. "Words like mat, bat and pat all have similar mouth shapes." It's context that helps his system - or indeed a professional lip reader - to understand what word is being spoken.
"What the system does," explains Joon, "is to learn things that come together, in this case the mouth shapes and the characters and what the likely upcoming characters are."
Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Human lip-readers are not likely to be replaced by computers just yet
The BBC supplied the Oxford researchers with clips from Breakfast, Newsnight, Question Time and other BBC news programmes, with subtitles aligned with the lip movements of the speakers. Then a neural network combining state-of-the-art image and speech recognition set to work to learn how to lip-read.
After examining 118,000 sentences in the clips, the system now has 17,500 words stored in its vocabulary. Because it has been trained on the language of news, it is now quite good at understanding that "Prime" will often be followed by "Minister" and "European" by "Union", but much less adept at recognising words not spoken by newsreaders.
A lot more work needs to be done before the system is put to practical use, but the charity Action on Hearing Loss is enthusiastic about this latest advance.
"AI lip-reading technology would be able to enhance the accuracy and speed of speech to text," says Jesal Vishnuram, the charity's technology research manager. "This would help people with subtitles on TV, and with hearing in noisy surroundings."
Right now the system has limitations - it can only operate on full sentences of recorded video. "We want to get it to work in real time," says Joon Son Chung. "As it keeps watching TV, it will learn." And he says getting the system to work live is a lesser challenge than improving its accuracy.
He sees all sorts of potential uses for this technology, from helping people to dictate instructions to their smartphones in noisy environments, to dubbing old silent films.
In many cases, the AI lip-reading system could be used to improve the performance of other forms of speech recognition.
Where the Oxford researchers and the hearing loss charity agree, is on the fact that this is not a case where AI is going to replace humans.
Professional lip-readers need not fear for their jobs - but they can look forward to a time when technology helps them become a lot more accurate.Marc blogged the other day about the New York Times editorial board’s endorsement of repealing federal marijuana prohibition, just months after having rejected that step. Now, this isn’t quite the same as endorsing marijuana legalization – just returning it to the states – but it is a significant step nonetheless. Still, they are well behind the rest of the country. An absolute majority of Americans favor legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana more or less like alcohol. Liberal Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor.
Fivethirtyeight recently showed how out-of-step the New York Times is by comparing their position to that of representative Americans with a similar demographic profile. Money quote:
[P]eople with this demographic profile are somewhere around 25 or 30 percentage points more supportive of marijuana legalization than the average American. That implies that back in 2000, when only about 30 percent of Americans supported legalization, perhaps 55 or 60 percent of these people did. The margin of error on this estimate is fairly high — about 10 percent — but not enough to call into question that most people like those on the Times’ editorial board have privately supported legalization for a long time. The question is why it took them so long to take such a stance publicly.
The political class everywhere, regardless of left-right ideology, has been vastly more opposed to marijuana legalization than equivalent Americans. Here in New Hampshire, Democratic governor Maggie Hassan has not only opposed and promised to veto recreational marijuana legalization, she has also opposed and threatened to veto marijuana decriminalization and even allowing terminally ill patients to grow their own medical marijuana plants. Her spineless copartisans in the state senate have gone meekly along. And is anyone really surprised that government bootlicker David Brooks opposes legalization? It’s no accident that the only two states to legalize recreational marijuana so far have been states with the popular ballot initiative. It’s also no accident that medical marijuana started in states with the popular ballot initiative. The people have had to go around the controllers and neurotics in office.
Now the Brookings Institution has come out with a study of marijuana legalization in Colorado. Their quick synopsis? The regulatory implementation has worked. In other words, the state has overall been successful in its efforts to implement the regulations on marijuana as written. The study takes no position on whether marijuana legalization was a good idea or not, limiting itself to investigating how effectively the state is enforcing marijuana regulations. However, the evidence so far also suggests that crime has fallen as a result of marijuana legalization. (Of course, the biggest beneficiaries of marijuana legalization are likely to be ordinary people in Mexico and Central America.)
You don’t get any more “establishment” than Brookings, but I have found that their scholars generally go where the evidence leads them. How long can it be before the control freaks in office bow before evidence and the will of the people?The path from saviour to scapegoat is a short one at Anfield. Jurgen Klopp has to be careful that his career does not go down a blind alley.
Liverpool's 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat by Leicester City is not disastrous but it adds to the pressure building on him. The Reds return to the King Power Stadium in the Premier League on Saturday and the spotlight will be on the 50-year-old. Nearly two years into his tenure on Merseyside, questions remain about Liverpool's direction and there are no easy answers.
Klopp's attack has been seductive and exciting. They have also been wasteful. Dominating matches is not enough if the ball is not going into the opposition net.
At the other end, the defence is insecure. They leak goals with predictable regularity. The same mistakes occur again and again. Klopp came to Anfield renowned as a manager who improved players, but the pattern of errors by his back four threaten that reputation.
The main concern is that the Liverpool manager appears to have been in denial. After the Leicester match he said he was "sick of this," when talking about his team's capacity to leak goals. Is this finally a wake-up call?
For the first few weeks of the season, Klopp expressed surprise (and irritation) that the focus was on his defence and not his attack. That would be a legitimate argument if Liverpool were piling up the goals. If they were winning 5-2, then the back-line's lapses could be overlooked. The problem is that Klopp's team are not killing off the opposition.
Too often their approach work is impressive but rival teams have learned to let Liverpool play in areas where they cannot do damage. In their last Premier League game, Burnley came to Anfield with a plan. Sean Dyche flooded the zones around the penalty area and let Klopp's men have the ball 25 or more yards out. Shots from that range are considerably less dangerous than efforts inside the penalty area. Burnley were compact, rode their luck and looked to exploit Liverpool's weaknesses on the break.
It's true that the visiting side were lucky in one respect to come away with a point in the 1-1 draw. On the other hand, Dyche's team had two late chances -- from set pieces, Klopp's Achilles Heel -- and could reasonably claim that they could have seized the three points.
So much of Klopp's appeal is his personality. On the Kop, the urge to "support and believe" is strong. He has always made a point of connecting with fans and his attempts to rouse the crowd have drawn a largely favourable response, but belief begins to ebb away when results go wrong.
Klopp's brand of heavy metal football is looking less and less thrilling given recent results.
The Liverpool manager responded to criticism of the summer's transfer policy and the inability to sign a central defender when the Virgil van Dijk deal fell through by saying that there were no defenders available that he considered as upgrades to the current squad. If this is true, it defies belief. The back four is a shambles. It is one of the worst defensive units in the Premier League. Van Dijk would not have solved all the problems, of course, but in a summer where Liverpool were prepared to invest £150 million more than they eventually spent, it goes against all football logic that they could not find three or more defenders who would improve the team.
The focus on strengthening the squad is lopsided. Attacking players have arrived on Merseyside and look spectacular. Liverpool's forwards display trickery, imagination, pace and intelligence but the balance is not quite right. They are creative, but not clinical.
Daniel Sturridge, who has the ability to be one of the sharpest goal scorers in the division when fit, has taken to shooting from distance or dribbling into traffic. Sturridge thrived in space behind opposition defences. His movement, pace and guile stretched them; now, though, teams know that by sitting deep they can suffocate Klopp's side. The England striker has taken to ranging outside the box in search of the ball and shooting from distance.
The first angry calls for Klopp's head are appearing on social media, but it's too early for that. He was the best manager available to Liverpool two years ago and remains superior to any viable candidates. He retains the support of the club's owners, Fenway Sports Group, who have bought into Klopp's adoration as much as (if not more than) |
where they have that urban legend quality where you can’t trace them back to a specific origin—you just kind of heard from somebody who heard from somebody else that if you watch these particular YouTube videos, it causes your brain to suddenly shut down or you start seeing images out of the corner of your eye, so don’t watch this video—so you know people will instantly go watch that video.
The idea of forbidden footage or haunted image or anything where somehow embedded in the code of the story is something paranormal—those are the ones that do the best and it’s fun to report on those as if they were real, because then your reporting can take on the angle that you’re being affected by what you’re writing about. Translating that to video is going to be challenging but I’m already starting. I’ve got a couple in the pipe already that are going to be taking off within the next couple of weeks–little two or three minute short films that we’ll put up on the site.
Creepypasta is obviously a wealthy mine of material and with the success of Channel Zero (2016) on Syfy these fictionalized stories play in the creepypasta sandbox—that’s one way of approaching it and that really doesn’t intrude on what I’m trying. I’m hoping that my pseudo-journalistic approach to creepypasta could find it’s own audience.
I’ve tested the waters and people have said that “yeah I’d be into something like that” so I’m hoping that it does find an audience, a good dedicated following so we could prove to the higher-ups that it’s got some legs to it.—creepypasta is a big thing now, really huge.
Looking to the Future
FFC (MS): Are there any other interesting projects at Blumhouse you would like to discuss?
Gregory Burkart: As far as stuff coming out of Blumhouse Tilt, I would say the one I’m most excited about is The Belko Experiment (2017)—it’s one to keep an eye out for. Writer James Gunn is going back to his Troma roots in a big way, but with a nice production gloss to it. Imagine the Troma level of outrageousness, but on a budget beyond Troma’s wildest dreams. The Belko Experiment (2017) is just off the hook. You’re not even gonna believe how crazy that movie is.
Get Out (2017) features the directorial debut of Jordan Peele. We had a sit-down with him and I already knew from Key and Peele (2012) some of the skits about The Shining (1980)—they are huge horror fans. I think Get Out (2017) is rethinking the genre in a major way and it’s really gonna shock a lot of people.Did you know that the dragons in Skyrim can’t actually fly? That’s to say, if they were real, those magnificent beasts simply wouldn’t be able to leave the ground. It’s one of the many little secrets I learned about the game talking to Jonah Lobe, former Character Artist on Skyrim, and the guy who designed not only the game’s dragons, but also its giants, mammoths, trolls, dragon priests, and a bunch of other creatures. “My job was to try and fabricate nightmares,” he jokes. And while this is clearly a spot of wry humour from a guy who worked on some of Bethesda’s biggest, most celebrated RPGs, I’d actually argue that the reverse is true. Lobe created dreams during his time on Skyrim (and Oblivion, and Fallout 4); fantasies that spark the imagination of the player, yet live perfectly realistically within the world around them. Obviously his monsters aren’t real, but they’re an essential and magnificent part of Skyrim’s eco-system, and the game wouldn’t exist without them.
Before Skyrim, however, the thought of having something as massive and fiercely animated as a dragon was a dream in itself. Putting something of that scale (pun intended) inside a game as vast and technically demanding as Elder Scrolls 5 was a huge, intimidating job. “I was definitely worried about how it would work out but because dragons were... they were non-negotiable,” explains Lobe. “I was very excited and I didn’t doubt that we could do it - I just knew that it would be painful!” Lobe himself is a character artist, not an animator or a coder, so the onus wasn’t on him to actually implement the creatures within the game. His role was to create believable monsters that would wow with not only size, but the way they looked and fitted together. Crucially, they had to feel like they all belonged in the same place, alongside the player, intimidating but never immersion-breaking.
Skyrim concept art by Adam Adamowicz
“The goal for me was to try to create these giants and these dragons and these mammoths and not to just make a super-epic monsters that had... all these crazy features, it was much more… my goal was much more to convey a sense of realism. That’s why I didn’t make the giants hulking or mean-faced or any of that stuff. What I was going for was this: it’s the sheer size of these things that really wows you, but if I can create, within that, a sense of believability; the way you look at these things and you can see weight, and you can see age and you can see personality, and you can see that they have lived a life – if I can convey that then my job is done.” You see this in every aspect of the game’s bigger monsters. The giants, rather than being savage or overly humanised, are rather sad old creatures that carry the weight of long lives in every aspect of their demeanour, from the way they lollop across the world, to the way they turn instinctively yet alertly towards you whenever you approach their mammoth herds. Their behaviour reflects this too - they’re essentially territorial beasts protecting their turf - and their shabby, rugged appearance fits right in with Skyrim’s harsh landscapes. And their craggy faces? Well, Lobe admits: “I think the biggest visual inspiration for the giants may have been my father, because they actually look like my father…”
What about the dragons themselves? Where did they spring from? Lobe’s initial inspirations were the concept art works created by Adam Adamowicz, which show the creatures as lithe, bird-like beasts, bristling with sharp edges and flicking limbs. “Adam’s concept art was a huge inspiration for me,” says Lobe “And I looked to a lot of the concepts that he looked at as well. So various kinds of lizards, herons as one kind of creature... alligators... I looked at cats as well and bats of course. And also the movie Reign of Fire I think was viewed a couple of times.” While Reign of Fire isn’t seen as a cinematic masterpiece, it was better than the contemporary alternative. “It was that or Dragonheart, though Dragonheart doesn’t really hold up in retrospect.”
Skyrim concept art by Adam Adamowicz
It’s easy to look at Skyrim’s dragons and recognise aspects of all these animals that Lobe studied. When it takes off, you see the great, wide, flapping wings of the heron. When it lands and crawls around the floor spitting fire, it’s easy to see the bat inspiration (and yes, I know, bats don’t breathe fire). Because there’s no reality to dragons, they can be created as fantastically as you like, and many video games tend to favour showmanship and savagery over a sense of realism. Even Lobe’s dragons, realistic and well researched as they are, had to be compromised from their original visions in order to fit in with both game world and gameplay.
“There was a lot back and forth, initially, with the animation of the dragons and the size and shape, because a lot of the original concepts had the dragons with very, very long necks,” says Lobe “It turned out that in a first person shooter, when you put a creature with a very long neck in front of the character, with the way that perspective works… all they see is just a big head and then 30 yards away, very distantly, the rest of the body. So we had to change. I think it took something like three months to create the very first dragon, and... yeah, just getting those proportions to work out fine was hard enough.”
And then there is the thing about them not actually being able to fly. I’m perhaps being unfair to Lobe when I question him about this, because hey, it’s a video game, but it’s a neat little fact nonetheless. “A lot of things that sound like a good idea in the game, don’t actually look good in the game. So... proportionally the wings on the Skyrim dragons are quite small compared to what they need to be, but we couldn’t make them much larger than they were.” When I ask if that means one of Skyrim’s dragons wouldn’t be able to fly in reality, he replies, with a laugh. “Yeah, it probably would not. I worked as hard as I could to make it as accurate as possible, but at a certain point technical limitations got in the way, yeah.”
Those technical limitations have been made, for lack of a better phrase, slightly less limiting, thanks to the increased power, memory, capacity etc of PS4, Xbox One and more modern PCs. Skyrim Special Edition is partly an example of what the game could have been if the team were working with more powerful hardware in mind, although it isn’t as simple as that. It’s infinitely possible that Skyrim created fresh for PS4 would be a very different game to the one originally made for PS3. In any aspect of video game creation, you aim as high as realistically possible using the tools and resources at your disposal. As such, Lobe has a more reflective stance when I ask about whether he’s envious of the increased power of the current crop of gaming machines, and if he’d change anything about his dragons.
Skyrim art by Jonah Lobe
“I certainly am jealous of the power, and the expansion of technical limitations. I try not to think about it, because as an artist in a technical field, you’re always going to be limited by either your own abilities or technical abilities. So while Skyrim was certainly one of... it may be my most proud project... you can’t look back too much, you can’t look back and wish if things had been different because nothing you ever do is going to be perfect. And I think with a game like Skyrim, or any large project, you have a vision of it in your mind, you have a vision of what it’s going to look like beforehand, and then what you have in the end is both greater than you had ever hoped, and also not quite what you hoped either. That’s definitely how I feel about Skyrim where it wasn’t... the masterpiece I originally envisioned; it ended up being a completely different kind of masterpiece.”
That’s certainly the truth, and is a common story in video game development as a whole. However, the stars all seemed to align on Skyrim, and what was created by the team at Bethesda is still an enduring, magic experience half a decade later. It may have been given a visual make-over, and a boost to stuff like audio and load-times, but this is very much the same game I fell in love with back in 2011. Perhaps I’m looking back at my experience with the game while wearing the rosiest-tinted of glasses, but the world of Skyrim and all its inhabitants has yet to be bettered. The Witcher 3 is a phenomenal game, with a rich and beautiful setting, but it doesn’t quite spark the imagination and desire to explore as Skyrim. Dragon Age Inquisition is a vast, technically deep RPG, but I couldn’t imagine living in its world. With these two of Skyrim’s main rivals, you feel at odds with the environment, like you’re there to conquer it and bend it to your will. With Skyrim, you’re a part of the world, and while your actions do have an impact, you’re left with the sense that it existed before you, will exist after you, and doesn’t really care whether you nurture or burn it.
That’s perhaps the biggest praise I can give Lobe and the team who created Skyrim’s flora and fauna. Indeed, Lobe’s main aim wasn’t to scare or provoke the player, but to spark their imaginations. He explains: “Every time I create a creature, I don’t dream of how it’s going to look fighting you, I dream of how it’s going to look when you’re hanging out with it or something. When I made the mammoth and the dragons, I very much hoped that I would be able to ride them. When I made the giants, I hoped that the player would be able to talk to them, that they would... I hoped that there was at least one giant in the game that you could actually befriend and hang out with. There was nothing I wanted to do more than eat ten pounds of mammoth cheese and hang out with a giant, it seemed so fun! The process of making a creature takes a long time. It takes about a month to make a really big creature, and you spend that time as an artist just you and your monster. So, while you’re working on it, you think about all the different kinds of interactions you could have, and you try and think about its real life and how it lives its life when the player is not around. I would fantasise about interacting with these monsters all the time.”
Given Lobe’s earlier statement about “fabricating nightmares” it might seem odd that one man would want to spend so much time hanging out with monsters. But when your ‘monsters’ are so wonderfully realised, and the place they live so utterly welcoming, it’s not so strange after all. In fact, the question then becomes: why would you ever want to leave?
Jonah Lobe is an Artist and a Writer. He’s currently working freelance on the remake of System Shock, as well as finishing a novel and part-time Streaming for Adobe. You can catch him on Twitch or at @JonahLobe on Twitter.One of the primary concerns about a human mission to Mars is: We simply don't know how the human mind responds to spending months or years in an alien environment millions of miles from the other members of your species. "In space, you're in a form of sensory deprivation," says Kim Binsted, one of the HI-SEAS project leaders. "You don't see the colors you're used to. There's no real-time communication." So how can long-duration astronauts maintain a sanity-shielding link with humanity? Delicious, familiar food is crucial.
The study will culminate next year in a rigorous mission during which the astronauts -- six final participants chosen from the nine here today -- will spend 120 days isolated in a Martian habitat high on Mauna Loa, a volcanic mountain in Hawaii, with no vegetation in site, cooking and eating exclusively dehydrated and shelf-stable foods using skills and recipes they're developing together this week. The kitchen here at Cornell is crammed with space-ready ingredients of all kinds: freeze-dried beef and chicken chunks, freeze-dried shredded cheeses of various kinds, dehydrated fruits and vegetables, powdered spices, seaweeds and agar, and a concentrated butter with all the moisture centrifuged out of it. From these building blocks, the crew will have to creatively feed themselves for four months.
The project, called HI-SEAS, is intended to help build a strategy for feeding a human Mars colony, analyzing energy and resource requirements and nutritional parameters, and exploring the hypothesis that giving astronauts a choice of tasty foods and allowing them to prepare their own space cuisine will significantly improve morale.
We are at Cornell University, in a culinary classroom, where nine elite trainees are preparing for a simulated space mission. They are spending a week here learning how to cook on Mars. Today's lesson is on baking bread and pizza from scratch.
The instructor, Rupert Spies, is reassuring. "Or, if you don't want épi de blé, you could just leave the dough as a regular baguette."
"Turn it just like this," the uniformed instructor tells the alert crew of trainee astronauts gathered around the workspace. "And then this next piece twists in the other direction." The first trainee approaches the table.
But it's not easy. In order to survive a trip to Mars, Earth food has to be shelf-stable for at least a year -- dehydrated if possible, canned if not. Making matters worse, the human sense of taste and smell diminishes dramatically in space. Crewmembers on the ISS and other missions get in the habit of drenching every meal in hot sauce to compensate.
"Deep frying is not compatible with life in a remote habitat on Mars."To that end, Binsted and her collaborators, including Spies, a senior lecturer at Cornell's hotel school, and Jean Hunter, a professor of biological engineering who helped develop the process for manufacturing Pop Rocks, are working with the carefully selected crew to explore ways of making dehydrated space food compelling. Teaching the crew to cook is essential, providing variety and choice in the diet, as well as a focused, pseudo-domestic communal activity for the team. The kitchen in the simulated habitat will include equipment chosen for energy efficiency and minimal space requirements: a convection oven, an induction cooktop, a pressure cooker, an immersion blender. They can cook whatever they want and are encouraged to experiment -- within certain engineering limits.
"Deep frying is not compatible with life in a remote habitat on Mars," says Hunter: with atmospheric pressure on Mars being about half of what it is on Earth, reduced air resistance to spattering oil would result in droplets throughout the confined crew quarters. In the Hawaiian simulation, the crew will be permitted 8 minutes of showering per week, and the habitat, while not completely sealed, will have very limited air exchange, so the atmosphere is expected to be far from fresh.
That, Binsted explains, is a possible explanation for astronauts' reduced sense of smell, which is not fully understood. It could be simple saturation, that the nose's sensitivity shuts down when it's cooped up with strong odors. Binsted was a simulated astronaut herself in an FMARS mission in 2007, when, she recalls, "when the final bell rang, we all went outside and breathed the fresh air for an hour or so; and then, as soon as we got back into the habitat, we realized it stank!"
The leading explanation, though, is the physiological effects of microgravity. At the same time as the Hawaiian simulated mission, another group will undergo simulated microgravity in Texas, spending four months straight on mattresses inclined at 6 degrees so their heads are lower than their feet. Their muscles atrophy, their faces puff up, and -- most important -- their nasal tissues swell, reducing airflow and the ability to smell. Both groups will be regularly tested with acoustic scans and airflow meters to see how the shape and function of their nasal cavities change over time.
Many of the crew members here have little to no cooking experience, but they're eager to learn. Simon Engler, a roboticist who developed a remote explosive-hunting robot called Prairie Dog when he was deployed in Afghanistan, has never made bread before. "I always felt, the only time you think about food during a mission is if the food's not good." But he's excited and proud of his edible creations today.
"I think this is the best pizza I've ever tasted," says Yvonne Cagle, an Air Force colonel, MD, and qualified NASA astronaut. "But maybe that's just because of the feeling that we made it together."
Personally I think it's the latter. The hot, yeasty crust is excellent, but the toppings of reconstituted potato slices, reconstituted freeze-dried cheese, reconstituted garlic and such may take a little getting used to. And that's what the mission is all about -- practicing, developing, polishing a new kind of cuisine for outer space.
"I will never go to Mars," says Jean Hunter, "but I hope they'll be eating my recipes."BY: Follow @DavidRutz
Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) wasn't hearing a liberal blogger's dismissal of him as being a mere minority "prop" on Wednesday, the day Republicans celebrated passing an overhaul of the nation's tax system.
In a now-deleted tweet, HuffPost contributor Andy Ostroy noted Scott appeared alongside President Donald Trump—and dozens of other lawmakers—at the White House after the Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
"What a shocker … there's ONE black person there and sure enough they have him standing next to the mic like a manipulated prop," he wrote.
Scott, the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate, had a ready retort that won widespread praise, pointing out to Ostroy he was instrumental in the bill's passage and hitting him for only seeing his skin color.
"Uh probably because I helped write the bill for the past year, have multiple provisions included, got multiple Senators on board over the last week and have worked on tax reform my entire time in Congress. But if you'd rather just see my skin color, pls feel free," he wrote.
Uh probably because I helped write the bill for the past year, have multiple provisions included, got multiple Senators on board over the last week and have worked on tax reform my entire time in Congress. But if you'd rather just see my skin color, pls feel free. https://t.co/KLLNXqIZ3i — Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) December 20, 2017
Ostroy deleted the tweet and apologized, writing there "many other ways I should've and could've made my point," although it's unclear what that point was.
.@SenatorTimScott, earlier I tweeted something that I now agree was unfair. Senator, I regret that tweet & apologize for it. There were many other ways I should’ve and could’ve made my point. — Andy Ostroy (@AndyOstroy) December 21, 2017
Scott spoke at the White House celebration and thanked Trump for getting assistance to distressed communities through the legislation.We start our projects with a small core team but as we proceed further down the rabbit hole we add team members to support planning and delivery activities. Then as work streams get completed, team size shrinks until we reach project closure where we are back to the original core team. On large, multi-phase projects, team expansion and contraction occurs frequently but even with much smaller projects, it is common to have team members exit before the project itself is completed. Some times this could be the result of their assigned activities being completed, but it can also be caused by external factors such as their being required on a higher priority project or a financially motivated decision to shift their work to a cheaper resource.
There are three things which you should do before any team member departs.
Recognize them publicly
Hopefully this isn’t the first time you’ve taken the opportunity to do so, but it’s especially critical that you thank them publicly and reference specific accomplishments before they leave the project. This will ensure that they will depart on a positive note and will also demonstrate to the team that you are aware of the hard work they are doing.
If project budgets and organization policy permit, give the departing team member a gift card or similar small token along with a small greeting card signed by the whole team. You could also consider sending a note of thanks to their people manager to reinforce the positive relationship you would like to build with that stakeholder and to provide input into the team member’s performance appraisal.
Solicit their feedback
My number one peeve with how project lessons get captured in many organizations is that we wait till the end of a project to harvest this knowledge. That milestone could occur months after a team member has left taking potentially valuable lessons with them!
Take the time to ask the team member how their onboarding experience went, what they liked and disliked about their tasks, and if there was one thing which they would like to see changed about the team’s work practices what that would be. By soliciting this information while the project is running you have the opportunity to eliminate hurdles which might be frustrating other team members.
Facilitate knowledge transfer
How many times have you left a project mid-stream only to find yourself called to provide support days or even weeks afterwards? This is usually caused by poor transition planning and execution.
We tend to think about transition planning when a team member departs before their assigned work has been completed, but even when someone leaves after their scope has been delivered there is still the need to transition project awareness to another team member or to the team as a whole. This could include knowledge of where their deliverables and working artifacts are stored, transfer of system or document access control from them to others, and contact lists of any stakeholders or subject matter experts outside of the project team whom they had been frequently interfacing with.
Closing a phase or the entire project usually involves some formality when it comes to taking the team through the adjourning stage of Tuckman’s Ladder but when team members leave our projects mid-phase we should perform these three transition tasks to avoid realizing the risk in Dave Mustaine’s quote “Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.”
AdvertisementsWhen Berserk Games’ Tabletop Simulator leaves Steam Early Access this June 5th, SUPERFIGHT will be available as DLC! Tabletop Simulator has built-in games ready to play but has shown it’s real value as the ultimate tabletop game sandbox. Players can create and mod their own games to their heart’s content. We’re really proud to be amongst the first DLC packages available for the game. The Superfight DLC will be available day of launch (June 5th, 2015) for $9.99. The release version of Tabletop Simulator will be priced at $19.99 and you can grab it on Steam for PC, OSX, or Linux.
Look! A press release:
Tabletop Simulator To Leave Early Access
May 19, 2015: After a little over a year and 50 patches on Steam Early Access, Berserk Games announces the official release of Tabletop Simulator on June 5, 2015. Tabletop Simulator started off as a small physics platform with 15 built in games to choose from and has now grown to a complete sandbox modding tool for anything tabletop related.
Create your own original games and rules, import 3D models & cards, set up complete dungeons for an RPG gathering, manipulate the physics, create hinges & joints, and of course flip the table when you are losing the game. All with an easy to use system integrated with Steam Workshop. Most importantly, you can do anything you want in Tabletop Simulator. The possibilities are endless!
Available for PC, Mac, and Linux, Tabletop Simulator can be purchased on Steam at: http://store.steampowered.com/app/286160 complete with Steam Workshop, Trading Cards, and Achievements. The price at release will be $19.99 for an individual copy or $59.99 for a 4-pack.
Check out the Tabletop Simulator gamplay trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBqernEHjUc
In addition to our release, we’re proud to announce that we’re partnering with Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment to bring Superfight into Tabletop Simulator as official DLC. Superfight is a hilarious card game based on fights between characters with superpowers and super problems. Superfight will be available on release, June 5, 2015 for $9.99.
Dan Murray, President of Skybound Interactive states, “The entire Skybound team is thrilled to expand the universe of Superfight with Tabletop Simulator. We look forward to seeing Superfight live in the digital world for years to come.”
Read about and purchase the box set of Superfight at http://www.superfightgame.com
About Skybound:
Since opening its doors in 2010, Skybound Entertainment has grown into a multiplatform entertainment company. CEO Robert Kirkman is creator of the award-winning The Walking Dead comic book series, the inspiration for the hit TV show of the same name where he serves as creator and executive producer. To date The Walking Dead is the #1 show on television among the coveted 18-49 demo.
Skybound is actively creating content across multiple mediums including television, film, interactive, VR, and beyond.
About Berserk Games:
Berserk Games is an independent game company founded in January 2014, composed of two experienced modders who wanted to make new and exciting experiences.
Check out Tabletop Simulator’s latest updates:
Webpage: http://berserk-games.com
Press Kit: http://berserk-games.com/press
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tabletopsimulator
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BerserkGames
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/tabletopsimulator
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BerserkGamesAfter the United States women’s national team’s stunning run to become the 2015 World Cup champions, many fans around the world thought the USWNT was poised to be the first team to win a World Cup and Olympic gold in consecutive years. After all, the USWNT had won gold in the previous three Olympic tournaments.
However, not only did the USWNT fail to win Olympic gold in Rio, but they failed to even medal, being eliminated by Sweden in penalty kicks in the quarterfinal round. It was the earliest exit ever by the USWNT in a major world tournament.
Previously, the worst result for the USWNT in a major tournament was third place, where the USWNT finished in each of the 1995, 2003 and 2007 World Cups. The worst Olympic finish for the team was silver, which the team earned in the 2000 Olympics after falling 3-2 to Norway in the gold-medal match. Because of the team’s prior Olympic history though, even fans who were skeptical of the USWNT winning gold thought the team would at least return to the medal podium for the second time in just over a year.
The team seemed well on their way to do just that, opening their Olympic tournament with a strong showing against New Zealand. The USWNT played some of their best soccer all year, looking much more cohesive than in any of their previous matches. Carli Lloyd scored the game-winning goal in just the ninth minute, while Alex Morgan scored an insurance goal in the first minute of the second half to defeat the Football Ferns, 2-0.
However, the second match of the group stage did not go as smoothly for the USWNT. France was a much stronger opponent than New Zealand, and the U.S. suffered some of the same problems that had plagued them for much of the year. While the U.S. had trouble connecting passes and maintaining possession of the ball, France seamlessly controlled the ball in their own offensive half for much of the match. France also outshot the U.S. 14-7, but Hope Solo made five big saves to preserve the shut out. Lloyd also came through with the game-winning goal in the 62nd minute to once again win the game and put the U.S. at the top of their group.
{MORE: Solo hits milestone, gets fired in ’16 | Germany snag elusive Olympic gold}
Group play ended with the USWNT facing Colombia, who on paper should have been the easiest opponent the U.S. faced but turned out to be the most difficult. Unlike in the previous match against France, Solo seemed off her game and made a number of goalkeeping errors, allowing two shots by Catalina Usme to slip by. Luckily for Solo, Mallory Pugh and Crystal Dunn each scored a goal, ending the match in a 2-2 draw and progressing the USWNT into the elimination stage, where they would take on Sweden.
Sweden proved to be a dauntless opponent for the USWNT, and the U.S. attack was unable to penetrate the bunker-style defense implemented by former USWNT coach Pia Sundhage’s side. The match remained scoreless throughout the first half, but goals by Sweden’s Stina Blackstenius and Alex Morgan saw the match tied 1-1 at the end of regulation. Two goals negated by the offside flag and a lack of finishing by the USWNT saw the match still tied at the end of extra time, and the game was sent to a penalty kick shootout. Both Morgan and Christen Press failed to convert, while only Linda Sembrant failed to convert for Sweden. Sweden outshot the U.S. 4-3 in the shootout, sending them to the Olympic semifinal round and sending the USWNT home early.
Although the result counted as a tie and the USWNT would finish 2016 technically undefeated, the failure to medal in an Olympic Games undoubtedly felt like one of the most painful losses the USWNT and its fans have ever suffered.A boy pauses on his bike as he passes an oil field that was set on fire by retreating Islamic State fighters ahead of the Mosul offensive on Oct. 21 in Qayyarah, Iraq. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
On the face of it, the Islamic State is already in retreat. Over the past year, the militant organization lost territory and key bastions in Iraq and Syria, and is being squeezed out of its greatest prize, the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Its ranks are dwindling, its access to illicit smuggling networks have shrunk and its viability as a rogue political project is evaporating. But its capacity to launch brazen terrorist attacks around the world and inspire extremists through the Internet means that it is far from finished.
Even if the Islamic State loses all or most of its territory, suggests a new study, “ISIS would still be able to exploit Sunni discontent and foment sectarian tension over the next five to ten years in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and potentially beyond.” The report, titled “The Jihadi Threat: ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Beyond,” was published Dec. 12 by the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, federally funded organization based in Washington. (ISIS is another name for the extremist group.)
President-elect Donald Trump signaled throughout the election campaign his intent to wholly destroy the Islamic State. But as the study reveals, truly quashing extremism would require a level of engagement in the region and policy nuance that Trump has so far not demonstrated.
[Trump's response on Mosul shows how little he knows]
“Eliminating an extremist group physically does not defang its ideology or change the underlying circumstances that allowed the group to gain traction in the first place,” the report concludes. It was co-written by journalist Robin Wright and a who's who cast of Washington's leading experts on the Middle East. “Reconstruction, rehabilitation, and particularly reconciliation are just as important as any military counterterrorism campaign in building societal resilience against the appeal of extremism. Failure to carry out these steps has been a recurrent problem.”
At a speech in North Carolina last week, Trump decried the “destructive cycle of intervention and chaos” triggered by the United States in the Middle East, most notably following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with,” Trump said. “Instead, our focus must be on fighting terrorism and destroying ISIS.”
It's not clear yet how Trump's policy in the region would mark a real departure from that of the current administration. President Obama has hardly “raced” to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose imploding nation became fertile ground for Islamic State activities. Despite tepid support for a number of Syrian rebel factions, the White House staked its hopes for peace in Syria on a fitful and largely unfruitful process of diplomatic talks. Meanwhile, it has waged a withering air war on Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria.
Trump's desire to detach from the geopolitical intricacies of the Middle East — and focus purely on a military solution — ignores the circumstances that gave rise to this extremist insurgency. In both Iraq and Syria, shoddy governance and deepening sectarian divisions in societies where coexistence had largely been the norm fanned the flames of Sunni extremism.
“Marginalizing extremism requires creating a political environment in which jihadism has less and less appeal over time,” the report says. It also warns that we ought to expect more, not less, Arab political instability in the years to come: “Virtually every type of government — including the new democracy in Tunisia, the military-based government in Egypt, the fragile republic in Iraq, and dynastic rule in the Gulf — is vulnerable.”
Instead, Trump and some of his top advisers have harped on the ideology of the militants, linking their rise to pathologies within Islam, writ large. They speak less of the complex range of social factors outlined in the report that drive extremism, including youth unemployment and growing disillusionment in societies with flagging economies and asphyxiating politics.
(Courtesy of the United States Institute of Peace)
The Islamic State's “propaganda specifically outlines a strategy to destroy peaceful coexistence within diverse societies,” says the report, nodding indirectly to anti-Muslim rhetoric among nationalist politicians in the West. “Increased hostility towards Muslims in the United States, including refugees fleeing wars in Muslim countries, could fuel radicalization or push those who are already radicalized to act violently.”
The report also suggests that a heavy-handed military approach — Trump's proverbial “bomb the s--- out of them” method — could backfire.
“In the future, the militant agenda is likely to be heavily defined by where and how — and how much — the outside world intrudes,” it reads, as was the case in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. “The larger the intervention, especially by the West, the greater the reaction.”
Trump is right in arguing that the crises of the region are not for the United States to solve alone. But in his messaging about the Middle East, he has yet to communicate an appreciation of the tangled rivalries that frame its conflicts.
A different report put out last week by the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank, warns that pushing too hard against the Islamic State in eastern Syria could trigger a new conflagration involving the Syrian regime, Turkey and rebel Kurdish factions backed by Washington.
“The United States has little choice but to fight Islamic State with one hand and, with the other, try to avoid a confrontation that could destabilize Turkey and provide a new opening for Islamic State,” writes Sam Heller, a fellow at the Century Foundation.
As the conflict rumbles on, the United States will have to reckon with the ongoing humanitarian calamity in Syria and Iraq, which could spawn untold havoc in years to come.
“Syria’s war has already deformed Syrian society and the broader Middle East. Many of the war’s destructive effects — in particular, the physical and psychological damage done to the Syrian people — are impossible to fully reverse,” Heller writes. “But what is done to alleviate and mitigate them will be hugely important both in human terms and for the future stability of the region.”
That's a challenge that Trump — who has reacted to Syrian refugees far more out of fear than empathy — may be unwilling to meet.
More on WorldViews
Trump's view of the Middle East would make sense if nobody lived there
The lies |
see what it is like from the players’ area.
"The cricket tragic in me will also be super keen to learn what I can from Brendon McCullum who has been so successful in all formats of the game across his career."
QUICK SINGLE Axed Klinger to leave WA for BPL T20 stint
Heat coach Daniel Vettori said he'd taken note of Renshaw's form for Queensland in the recent JLT One-Day Cup, in which the left-hander struck two half-centuries.
And while he's made his name as a gritty opening batsman who takes few risks at the crease, Vettori was confident Renshaw would be able to adapt to the shortest format.
Renshaw gets summer rolling with solid knock
"As a Test and first class player primarily, Matt Renshaw probably has his L-plates on when it comes to T20, but we think he has shown he has the skills and mental toughness to adapt his game to the BBL," said Vettori.
"He has scored a few half centuries for the Bulls in the one-day games he has played so far and as a 21-year-old batsman, we think he will evolve his skills the further he goes in his career.
"We expect Matt will be available for the back half of the BBL and look forward to working with him when he is with us."
QUICK SINGLE Hurricanes lure Moody from the west
Doggett meanwhile adds some firepower to a bowling attack already featuring the likes of Pakistan sensation Shadab Khan, fellow leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson and allrounder Ben Cutting.
The 22-year-old right-armer, who was the Heat's community rookie for the past two BBL seasons, last week made his JLT Sheffield Shield debut, becoming the first Indigenous player to represent Queensland since the 1980s.
Debutant Doggett takes four for Bulls
He picked up five wickets in his first red-ball outing with the Bulls, while he also played in four of Queensland's JLT Cup games this season.
"Brendan is an impressive young man who was a pleasure to have around when he was with us," Vettori said.
"From what I saw during the one-day competition, he’s coming along nicely and as a genuine pace bowler, will be a handy addition to the squad."
The Heat have now filled 15 of their available 18 roster spots for BBL|07.
Brisbane Heat BBL|07 squad: Joe Burns, Ben Cutting, Brendan Doggett, Jason Floros, Sam Heazlett, Shadab Khan (OS), Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Lalor, Chris Lynn, Brendon McCullum (OS), James Peirson, Matthew Renshaw, Alex Ross, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson.A common misconception is that Jack Daniels No. 7 is a Tennessee sipping whiskey. In reality it's a train whose only stops are Nashville, jail, and Hell. In that order.
Just The Facts
Jack Daniels' signature whiskey is the Old No. 7 brand. There were not 6 previous incarnations, and the secret of the 7's real meaning died with the original Mr. Jack Daniels. Jack was one of the few distilleries to survive prohibition. Moore County, Tennessee, where Jack is distilled, is still a dry county. However, the distillery is exempt from the law and sells Gentlemen Jack in its gift shop. Jack Daniels distillery was founded in 1866, The first batches were sold in large, ceramic jugs with big 'X's printed on the side. If anyone has ever told you that you smell like Jack Daniels, it's time to seriously reevaluate your life.
How Jack Daniels No. 7 Whiskey Is Different From The Stuff Your Grandpa Makes In His Basement: A Practical Guide
The Nashville/Jail/Hell Express. The engineer looks like the bad guy from "Raising Arizona"
Jack features premium yeast, cave drawn water, and top quality corn. It does not feature the yeast from a do-it-yourself bread kit, 6 gallons of tub water, and several cans of Del Monte cream corn.
Jack's iconic square bottle never originally held mayonnaise.
Jack will only render you blind if you break the bottle and jab it into your face.
Jack is distilled to a consistent 40 percent alcohol, whereas grandpa's home blend could unclog a stopped up sink, which we have to admit, is a point for grandpa.
Jack Daniels ceased production during prohibition. Your grandfather, meanwhile, owns an invoice signed by Al Capone.
A glass of Jack no. 7 makes listening to a Hank Williams record more authentic. A glass of grandpa's homemade'shine makes the experience MUCH more authentic.
Both Jack and Grandpa will leave a gaping hole in your memory which will no doubt hide one of the more eventful nights of your life.
Cookin' With Jack
The Jack Daniels website includes a curious section that features recipes, in an apparent attempt to kill people by including their oak-soaked gasoline in every facet of every meal. However, to the great dismay of boozehounds and aspiring Topic page writers everywhere, many of the recipes featured don't actually include Jack Daniels as an ingredient. If nothing else, we here at Cracked take pride in our ability to correct other people, so we will adjust one of the recipes off the Jack Daniels site to include the Old No. 7. To save time, we will type the recipe up in real time as we prepare it.
APPLE CRISP COFFEE CAKE (CRACKED REVISION)
Drink a shot of Jack. Chop one cup of pecans. Core, peel, and dice 2 Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples. Soak in 1/4 cup of Jack to prevent browning. Drink a shot of Jack. Preheat oven. In a 9 inch baking pan, combine pecans with 3/4 cup flower, 3/4 cup colored sugar, butter, one stick of cimanon, and 1-4 tablespoons of salt. Combine with fork. Drink Jack shot. preheat oven, cake is 2 cups, sugar, liqid butter 1 cup, 1 thing sour cream, 3 eggs beaten whole, vanilla, and apples jack Jack shott mix and pour caje in pan. jack sho.t cook pan in box for owww use mits and cook pan in box. top with jack drink jack bake as yo contemplste yourr life.Jack. crry/./ sleepon sopfa unrtil donn e Wake up several hours later to the sound of the smoke alarm. Put out fire in oven with fire extinguisher. Locate aspirin.
Needs more whiskey...
The Tennessee Squire Association
The Tennessee Squire Association (TSA) is a group of people from the 16th state who love 80's arena rock staple Billy Squier.
Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!
Okay, we totally made that up, although I'm sure many members of the TSA have an appreciation for the crowd-pleasin' sounds of Mr. Squier. Especially since they drink a lot. In fact, that's the common denominator to become a member: drink obscene levels of Jack Daniels hooch. Many groups like the Elks, Shriners, and Junior Achievement, do a lot of community service to distract the public from their real reason for existing, which is to assemble in a large room and drink heavily. The TSA cuts out the crap, and goes directly to the inebriation part of the program. That's not to say the Squires don't do a lot of community service, it's just that theirs is almost always court-appointed.
Pictured: Former Black Sheep guitarist and Tennessee Squire Slash getting run over by a car he was driving
As a member of the TSA, you are entitled to some benefits... no, we need to word that better... as a member of the TSA, the club inundates you with garbage. Primary among the crap is a deed to a mysterious plot of land located somewhere within the Jack Daniels compound. Information on the plot is fleeting, so we have to make wild assumptions about its true nature:
The secret ingredient in Jack Daniels Single Barrel Whiskey
Here is a small gallery of other, actual junk Tennessee Squires have received over the years as "benefits" of being members of a club run by drunks:
A miniature sculpture made from poop
A collection of godawful music from singing legend Winifred Smith
Rocks
28 black-eyed peas plus cooking instructions. I Gotta Feeling this gift is really stupid.
A lump of crap in a dirty, cut sock. Draw your own conclusions about the letter.Nuclear power had a great, and shockingly bipartisan, week.
The Department of Energy announced major new investment in advanced nuclear reactors Friday shortly after the Democratic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his state would support existing nuclear reactors to help slow global warming. Meanwhile, Republicans rolled back state regulations against nuclear plants and boosted Congressional support for cutting-edge nuclear research earlier this week, in the face of intense opposition from environmentalists.
Environmental groups have always heavily lobbied against nuclear power, but it seems doubtful they’ll be able to continue increasing the cost of nuclear plants and creating artificial delays in construction. Organizations like The Sierra Club, still oppose nuclear energy as they believe it leads to “energy over-use and unnecessary economic growth,” but new pro-nuclear environmental groups, like the Breakthrough Institute, are growing in statute.
Despite environmental opposition, most scientists and engineers agree that nuclear power is actually great for the environment.
“Among the environmentalist community, there has traditionally been a lack of recognition of nuclear energy plants’ contribution to reducing carbon emissions,” Evan Bayh, a former Democratic Senator from Indiana and current co-chair of Nuclear Matters, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “[T]he good news is that this has taken a significant turn and we’re seeing growing recognition from all stakeholders that if you want to ensure a cleaner energy future, nuclear must be a part of the mix.”
Nuclear power has enormous environmental benefits, so here are the top 7 reasons nuclear power is actually really good for the planet.
1: Nuclear Is The Largest Electricity Source That Doesn’t Emit Carbon Dioxide
“Nuclear energy is good for the environment because it is the largest source of electricity that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases. In fact, nuclear accounts for 63 percent of the electricity from zero-carbon sources,” Mitchell Singer of the Nuclear Energy Institute told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
A single nuclear reactor can prevent 3.1 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions annually. The Economist calls nuclear energy “the most cost-effective zero-emission technology.” The Wall Street Journal agrees that “[if] the world intends to address the threat of global warming and still satisfy its growing appetite for electricity, it needs an ambitious expansion of nuclear power.”
2: American Reactors Are Incredibly Safe
“There is also a common misperception that nuclear is not safe,” Evan Bayh, a former Democratic Senator from Indiana and current co-chair of Nuclear Matters, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “To the contrary, U.S. nuclear plants are held to exacting standards of safety – they are operated by highly skilled and trained workers and are designed with multiple layers of redundant back-up safety systems.”
Nuclear power, even with the two high-profile nuclear accidents, is statistically the safest way of generating electricity. Coal power in China kills 280,000 people for every trillion kilowatt hours it produces. Rooftop solar kills 440 for the same amount of electricity. Nuclear energy only kills 90, by this measure, including deaths from disasters.
Deaths from nuclear power, are very rare relative to deaths from industrial accidents, mining accidents, or pollution.
Even before the Chernobyl meltdown in the Soviet Union, US reactors had already implemented safety procedures that would prevent a similar event from happening here. Before the Fukushima disaster occurred, American reactors had already implemented safety procedures that would prevent something similar from happening. The reactor at Fukushima could not be cooled without electrical power, but American reactors elevate a reservoir of water to cool the reactor without back-up power in an emergency.
New nuclear reactor designs are much safer and emit less radiation than the coal plants they replace.
3: Attempts To Kill Nuclear Power Almost Certainly Increase Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Germany’s government decided to abandon nuclear energy after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan galvanized opposition. Recent attempts by Germany to increase use of solar and wind power while decreasing nuclear power actually caused carbon dioxide emissions to increase. This is because they had to rely more heavily on coal plants to cover the power demand in the evenings when “green” energy doesn’t produce much power.
Nuclear power’s decline in Germany created an opening for coal power. Coal now provides 44 percent of Germany’s power, despite the fact that coal ash is actually more radioactive than nuclear waste. This shift caused Germany’s CO2 emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year after the country’s nuclear policy changed.
In 2000, nuclear power made up 29.5 percent of Germany’s energy. In 2015, the share dropped down to 17 percent, and by 2022 the country intends to have every one of its nuclear plants shut down.
The cost of replacing Germany’s nuclear power with wind and solar is estimated by the government to be over a trillion euros, without any assurances that the program will actually reduce emissions.
4: Nuclear Power Is Ready To Go And Can Use The Existing Power Grid
“Today, it’s beyond dispute that if we are to have any hope of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, we will have to utilize nuclear energy,” Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute told The DCNF. “And yet, the Green [activist on the] Left — and in particular, groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and 350.org — continue to deny this fact. Those groups are the real ‘deniers.'”
In order for the power grid to function, demand for energy must exactly match supply. Power demand is relatively predictable, and nuclear plants can adjust output accordingly. Solar and wind power, however, cannot easily adjust output.
The three power grids that supply the United States with energy are massive and expensive pieces of infrastructure. The power grids are valued at trillions of dollars and can’t be replaced in a timely manner. It takes more than a year to manufacture a new transformer, and transformers aren’t interchangeable, as each one must be individually built specifically for its location. At a time when the U.S. government is more than $18 trillion in debt, building power grids that can handle solar and wind may not be feasible.
5: High Energy Costs Disproportionately Hurt The Poor And Ethnic Minorities
Electricity from new “green” energy is nearly four times as expensive as electricity from existing nuclear power plants, according to analysis from the Institute for Energy Research. The high costs of “green” energy are passed onto ordinary rate-payers, which has triggered complaints that poor households are subsidizing the affluent.
The poor and ethnic minorities tend to spend a higher proportion of their incomes on “basic needs” like groceries, power bills, clothing, housing and gasoline. As essential goods like electricity become more expensive, the cost of producing goods and services that use electricity increases, effectively raising the price of almost everything. Consumers, not industries, ultimately pay for the increase in costs.
Increases in the price of electricity harm ethnic minorities far more than they harm the average household, according to a study by the Pacific Research Institute. Further EPA regulation is expected to cause the average annual electricity bill to rise from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent of annual income for the average household. For the average African-American household, annual spending on electricity will rise from 4.5 percent to 5.8 percent of household income. Lower-income black communities will bear an even larger burden and could spend up to 26 percent of their household income on electricity.
6: Nuclear Waste Can Be Recycled
Most nations that use nuclear power carry out some measure of spent fuel reprocessing, which involves separating the useful atomic nuclei from waste. The United States does not currently reprocess due to the Carter administration’s fears over potential plutonium proliferation, which could be used to build more nuclear weapons. Thus, America is the only nation with a massive spent fuel problem.
Additionally, making nuclear waste safe can be done these days with a particle accelerator.
“Production of neutron radiation from particle accelerators is a known and proven technology,” Doctor Jeffrey Eldred, a particle accelerator physicist who works at Fermilab, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Since 2006, the US completed a $1 billion research facility known as the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) in Oak Ridge Tennessee, that accelerates protons to high energies (1 GeV) and sends the 1 MW beam into a liquid-Hg target for efficient neutron production… The energy consumed in operating the particle accelerator to destroy nuclear waste is far less than the nuclear energy produced while creating the nuclear waste products.”
The European Spallation Source, which should be completed in 2019, has proposed a demonstration experiment which could render nuclear waste relatively harmless.
“The greater challenge that remains is to educate the public on new reactors and regain their trust in the institutions that shape our lives,” Eldred continued while describing new reactor designs that could eliminate problems with nuclear waste altogether.
7: Not All Environmentalists Are Against Nuclear Power, And Most Scientists Are For It
Environmental think tanks, like the Breakthrough Institute, believe that nuclear power is imperative to both economic growth and solving global warming. The Breakthrough Institute believes that “anyone truly concerned about climate change will need to reconsider their opposition to nuclear. It is the best chance we have to make big reductions in carbon emissions quickly.”
Nuclear plants are more environmentally friendly in many respects than wind or solar plants as they take up far less space and don’t require new development.
Opinion polls show that the more people know about nuclear power, the more likely they are to support it. For example, a majority of scientists support nuclear power, as opposed to a majority of the general population.
Former NASA climatologist James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tom Wigley of the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution signed an open letter in 2013 that said “there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power” because “green” energy sources like wind and solar “cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires.”
If Democrats and environmentalists continue to attack Republicans for ignoring the opinions of scientists on global warming, they should be careful not to dismiss the solution those scientists recommend.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.The first NHL Draft Lottery including the Vegas Golden Knights went as poorly as possible for the NHL’s newest team.
The video below is the actual footage of the Lottery from the war room in Toronto where it went down. The league did once again use the 14 ball system yielding 1000 possible outcomes. Remember, the Golden Knights were assigned 103 of those 1000 possible combinations and none of them were selected in the three lotteries.
Bettman gives an extended explanation of how Vegas is integrated into the lottery. Still kind of surreal to hear him referencing Vegas as a part of the league and not dancing around it like he’s done for the past three years or so.
We have yet to locate the “random number look up chart” as referenced in the video. In 2015 and 2016 they released it so it should come out eventually. When we find it, we’ll post it. Apparently the Golden Knights were one number off of winning the 3rd pick. Hopefully we get to see the chart to see how close they were to first and second as well.
So, enjoy 14 minutes of lottery madness. Hopefully the next time Vegas is involved it doesn’t go this poorly.
(Video courtesy of NHL.com)
**If you watch this video and still think the lottery is rigged, you need to go get your head checked.**Questions remain about what chemicals spewed into Spring Branch Creek after a four-alarm warehouse fire on Thursday. The runoff was blood red because of pesticides and petroleum additives inside the A-1 Custom Packaging facility, killing fish, frogs and snakes in the creek."Seeing the dead animals, ugh. There's a soft shell this big that's dead and two yellow-bellied water snakes that are dead, too," Gina Disteldorf said. "That's all from today."She helped rescue 18 turtles at the creek on Saturday, Texas Parks and Wildlife asked her to stop because she has not had OSHA hazardous materials training."Watching them in there in the red sludge, poke their little heads up and just moving their little legs and trying to breathe and you get down there as fast as you can and they dive back under the water and you're like, 'No! Come back up! You don't want to die!'"The water was no longer red on Sunday evening, but a distinct smell lingered in the area."Smells like gasoline," Disteldorf said. She showered and threw away the clothes she used while rescuing the animals.On Sunday, caution tape and biohazard signs surrounded the water and piles of dirty clean up materials sat on the bank next to a bag containing dead snakes and a turtle. Exactly what kind of chemicals got into the water was still unknown.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Nov. 29, 2016, 1:31 PM GMT / Updated Nov. 29, 2016, 1:31 PM GMT
TRUMP TRANSITION WATCH: Price for HHS
Breaking last night: “President-elect Donald Trump will choose Georgia Rep. Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a high-level source familiar with the decision told NBC News Monday evening. The pick would insert one of Obamacare's most outspoken critics into the key position to help dismantle it and help Republicans implement their own blueprint for health care reform.”
More, from the New York Times: “The legislation Mr. Price has proposed, the Empowering Patients First Act, would repeal the Affordable Care Act and offer age-adjusted tax credits for the purchase of individual and family health insurance policies. The bill would create incentives for people to contribute to health savings accounts; offer grants to states to subsidize insurance for “high-risk populations”; allow insurers licensed in one state to sell policies to residents of others; and authorize business and professional groups to provide coverage to members through “association health plans.”
NBC’s Andrew Rafferty reports on Trump’s meeting with former CIA chief David Petraeus.
The New York Times writes that Kellyanne Conway’s public airing of concerns about Mitt Romney isn’t an act of insubordination in Trumpworld. “What some saw over the weekend as an act of political defiance by Ms. Conway — undermining a potential cabinet nominee — was seen by Mr. Trump as a demonstration of loyalty, according to people who had talked to him. Her criticism of Mr. Romney articulated a view her boss had at times expressed: that Mr. Romney had tried to “hurt” him during the campaign and had yet to fully acknowledge it or apologize.”
The Wall Street Journal: “The real-estate company controlled by Jared Kushner, President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans outstanding from domestic and foreign financial institutions, markets condominiums to wealthy U.S. and foreign buyers and has obtained development financing through a controversial U.S. program that sells green cards. Those and other business activities could raise conflict-of-interest issues if Mr. Kushner is named to a staff position in the Trump administration.”
TRUMP AGENDA: Information flow
From NBC’s Benjy Sarlin: “As a candidate, Trump's often unsubstantiated attacks on political opponents, foreign governments, election officials, law enforcement, a federal judge, news outlets and Muslims shattered political norms and sowed division. As president, his decisions will carry the full weight of White House policy, raising concerns about where he gets his information and whether he might act on false or flawed reports.”
“If president-elect Donald Trump and Republicans push for broad changes to American's voting laws, they could face an impediment — state and federal court judges who are increasingly striking down GOP-passed voting laws, casting them as intentionally discriminatory,” writes Perry Bacon Jr.
Restarting waterboarding? It will be a lot harder for Trump than just a declaration, writes the New York Times.
The New York Times, on “the Trump effect” : “Around the world, his election is already shaping events — or at least perceived to be shaping them — even though he will not take office for seven more weeks. Companies hoping to profit from Mr. Trump’s economic policies have seen shares soar. Countries fearing his anti-trade stance have seen the value of their currencies plunge against the dollar. Governments are recalibrating policies on trade, defense and immigration.
DEM WATCH: Recount watch
The New York Times has the latest on the last-ditch recount effort.Mark Your Calendars for 2/25 to Hear LB Mayoral Candidates Discuss Livability
Longbeachize will be hosting the Livable Streets Mayoral Forum at the Art Theatre on February 25 at 7PM. This forum will be a chance for the top contenders for mayor to discuss everything from how they would increase transportation options to improving air quality to bicycle rights. Essentially, it is a forum to discuss how they plan to make Long Beach a better place to live, work, move, and play. The event is free and open to the public.
Confirmed candidates include: Robert Garcia, Bonnie Lowenthal, Doug Otto and Gerrie Schipske; Damon Dunn was also invited but had to decline due to a scheduling conflict. Spanish translation will br provided on site by the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities.
We recognize that not everyone can make it to the Art, so our sister-site Streetsblog Los Angeles will be Live Streaming the event at Streetsblog TV. Bookmark this link to watch the event live. The following day, Streetsblog will post the entire debate on their YouTube channel.
Questions from readers and the public are encouraged and can be done by leaving a comment below or hopping on either Twitter or Facebook and using #LBMayoralForum. The topics we are focusing on are: Parks, open space, & the environment; Bicyclist rights & infrastructure; Streets, urban design, and public infrastructure; and Sidewalks, transit, and pedestrian rights.
It will be moderated by Alan Crawford, former Mobility Coordinator for the City of Long Beach, and hosted by Brian Addison, an editor and writer with the Post and Longbeachize.
The event is free and open to the public, but it would make our lives a little easier if you RSVP on EventBrite or through our Facebook event page. Any donations made will benefit Longbeachize.
The forum is co-sponsored with Bikeable Communities, the Long Beach Post, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Pedal Love, Streetsblog Los Angeles and Pocrass and De Los Reyes Attorneys at Law.Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for an ideal spot to dump a body.
Residents of a waterfront Staten Island community awoke Friday to find a man pushing around a metal dolly with a wrapped-up load that looked extremely suspicious.
And their hunch was right on.
Not only was he pushing around a body — it allegedly turned out to be his long-suffering wife.
Neighbors on Post Lane in Mariners Harbor first saw Anthony Lopez, 31, allegedly pushing his deceased cargo toward the aptly named Kill Van Kull around 7 a.m.
But rather than call 911, one of the local residents instead rang up an off-duty detective buddy to come by and take a look.
As soon as the cop got out of his car, Lopez ditched the corpse of his 26-year-old alleged victim — who was still on the bloody dolly — in the front yard of a small brick home and bolted.
“I was taking my nephew out to catch the school bus, and I saw her. She was dead — strangled and hit upside the head. She was topless but had jeans on,” said a neighbor living at the home where the body was dumped.
He added, “I could see blood on the cart.”
Police sources said the woman’s nose was bloody and there were marks on her neck.
Rhonda Coleman was stunned to learn the strange crime had unfolded yards from her front door.
“This is my home. This is crazy. My plans for the day were ruined,” she fumed, adding that she hadn’t been allowed to leave the taped-off crime area.
The off-duty officer who scared off the thug recognized him from past gang-related crimes, according to police.
Lopez is a member of the Bloods gang and has been arrested 52 times on charges including domestic violence, police said.
He confessed to his brother that he had killed his wife, according to cops. He was still at large on Friday evening.
In 2007, he allegedly punched his girlfriend in the face and locked himself in his home. Three years later, he was convicted of criminal contempt and was sent to prison for two years.
Local residents were stunned.
“This is a quiet neighborhood. Maybe that’s why he decided to dump the body here. No one would expect it,” said Denise Johnson.
The name of Lopez’s wife had not yet been released, and her cause of death was undetermined Friday.
Additional reporting by Audrey WilliamsExtending git with Ruby
Filipe Correia Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 2, 2017
At Runtime Revolution all our projects use git as part of the development workflow, which is why I think its important to find ways of extending git to make our lives easier. There are two built in ways for extending git: git hooks and git commands. We can use these to improve our workflow by automating any repetitive steps like:
Checking that the projects dependencies are up to date when we pull new code. Triggering a deploy when new code is pushed. Synching branch naming with your project management tool Anything that you can imagine or is useful to you, really!
In this blog post I’ll do a quick explanation on both of them followed by some practical examples written in ruby.
Git hooks and where to find them
If you want something to trigger on an action you take on git (like pulling, pushing, checkout, etc…) hooks are what you’re looking for. They can be used to run bundle install after a pull, or lint your code to reject a push.
To create a hook all you need to do is place a binary in your repos hook directory $REPO_DIR/.git/hooks/ with the name of the event you want to hook to.
Git has a bunch of hooks available and depending on what you want to automate you have to pick the right hook. For instance, if you want to run bundle install every time you pull new code, you’d use the post-merge hook, this hook is run after a merge is completed.
To see this in action, just create a file named post-merge and add it to.git/hooks/. Make sure to give it run permissions( chmod +x $REPO_DIR/.git/hooks/post_merge) and paste the following contents:
bundle check || bundle install
Now there’s no more need to check if new gems have been added to the project every time you do a git pull. Other git hooks let you stop something from happening, the pre-push hook, for example, lets you stop a push if the hook fails by returning a non-zero value.
Setting them up as ruby scripts
This is cool and all but I hate writing shell scripts. By adding #!/bin/env ruby to the top of the file you can use a ruby script instead of a shell script (also don’t forget to give the file run permissions ( chmod +x file_name ).
Example #1: Getting the pull request link for the current branch:
Now for the promised practical example, bitbucket has a fancy feature that github is missing where it logs the url for the PR you’re working on every time you push. What we’re going for is this flow:
% git push
Create a New Pull Request: https://github.com/empire/deathstar/compare/DS-101-fix-obvious-weakspot
% git push
Current Pull Request is: https://github.com/empire/deathstar/pull/1
This can be achieved with a pre-push hook, by the following snippet <sidenote> it depends on the git-pulls gem</sidenote>:
Git commands and how to write them
The other extension point for git, custom git commands, is just as simple to set up. Git comes with several built in command: git push, git pull, git commit. But we can extend it with our own commands like: git fetch-coffee, git buy-groceries, etc..
To do this all you need is to have a binary in your path with the proper name. Basically if you want to have a git command available you just need to have a binary file in your PATH called git-command and git will pick it up.
Lets start with a simple hello world command that prints Hello Git World!!(Very Original) when you call git hello. To get something like:
% git hello
Hello Git World!!(Very Original)
create a file called git-hello (with run permissions) and with the following content:
#!/bin/env ruby
puts "Hello Git World!!(Very Original)"
All thats left to do is make sure that git-hello is in your PATH and you have your first git command.
Example #2: git command to generate branch name from a ticket title
If you use an issue tracker(which you should) like JIRA, PivotalTracker or asana, one common convention is to identify branches with the ticket that they address. This helps the ticketing system match a ticket with the corresponding work on github, for this example we’re going to use JIRA. The usage flow we want is something like this:
% git ticket DS-101
DS-101-fix-obvious-weakspot (copied to clipboard)
When we run git ticket with the id of the ticket we started working on, the command fetches the tickets title from from JIRA and generates a branch name off it. The branch name is copied to the clipboard and outputs so we check it doesn’t look weird.
To access the rest api provided by JIRA we need to have the credentials and url stored somewhere, the git config command is perfect for this. It’s a key/value store that is tied to the git repo which can fallback to a global config (set with the --global flag). The following code snippet implements the git ticket command :
This was a very superficial view of some of the extension points that we can use in git, and how we can use them with ruby to make our lives easier. Hopefully it’ll help you out with improving your development workflow without having to meddle in shell scripting and bash wizardry.
Further Reading
If I’ve got your interest piqued here’s some links you can follow up.West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D) seems poised to enter the race for outgoing Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) Senate seat.
Sources close to Tennant say she plans to jump into the race on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post, and will start making stops in key cities around the state.
Tennant, a longtime West Virginia Democrat who ran unsuccessfully in the 2011 gubernatorial primary, is highly anticipated in a race that Democrats worried may open themselves up to a key loss in the Senate. Tennant faces a tough race in a conservative state against Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the likely Republican nominee for the seat.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already signaled its enthusiasm, sending an email blast Friday morning highlighting Tennant’s decision to return $3 million of unused funds in her capacity as secretary of state. The email didn’t mention Tennant’s plans to run for Senate but the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm clearly wants Tennant to be on the radar of its supporters.
On Aug. 30, West Virginia’s The Charleston Daily Mail published the results of a poll showing Tennant would make the race more competitive. The poll, conducted by the Daily Mail and R.L. Repass and Partners the week of Aug. 15-22, found 45 percent of those surveyed would pick Capito in a Capito-Tennant matchup. Meanwhile, 40 percent said they would pick Tennant and 15 percent said they were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 4.9 percent. According to local news outlet MetroNews, Tennant was encouraged by the poll.
Tennant stands to attract the backing of national Democratic groups, including Emily’s List, which previously backed her in her 2011 governor’s race. Tennant also attracted attention as West Virginia’s first female secretary of state.
A graduate of West Virgnia University and former television anchor, Tennant has previously served on the boards of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and The American Heart Association.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid signaled Tennant’s entry into the race in mid-August when he said in a Nevada radio interview that Democrats would be “very competitive” in West Virginia.(CBS) After making five starts while serving as the sixth rotation member for the past several weeks, Cubs left-hander Mike Montgomery is headed back to the bullpen.
Starting Monday night, Montgomery will again serve as a reliever as the Cubs want to get him back in rhythm for what his postseason role will be. Although Montgomery is back in the bullpen, the Cubs are still going to fill the sixth starter spot with one more “bullpen day” to keep their five starters fresh, manager Joe Maddon said.
“He won’t get a start necessarily,” Maddon said of Montgomery. “He’ll be a part of a bullpen day. We have to establish a bullpen day … We want to get him in the bullpen a little bit.”
Maddon anticipates Chicago’s bullpen day coming at some point in the four-game series at Pittsburgh from Sept. 26-29.
“It’s getting back to normalcy for these guys, except when we get to Pittsburgh, I think that’s where we’re going to interject the sixth guy,” Maddon said.
“You still have the whole week before the playoffs begin, so you still have plenty of time for rest for a lot of these guys. As it’s played out to this point, we felt comfortable with getting some guys back on normal rest, knowing that the off day (Thursday) is going to kick it and also that the day in Pittsburgh will be relevant also.”
Montgomery is 4-5 with a 2.66 ERA and 1.17 WHIP this season.Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
In what seems to be a new form of parental control, New 3DS consoles will come with a pre-installed filter which limits what websites can be visited using the built in web browser.
The filter can |
more than two dozen monuments and sanctuaries designated and expanded by his predecessors. The most controversial is the Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, which Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended for reduction, despite more than 1 million comments supporting it.
Zinke recommended putting aside a final determination on Bears Ears until other monuments, such as Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Gold Butte in Nevada, Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico, San Gabriel Mountains in California and Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado, can be reviewed later in the year.
Conservation groups have said the president’s legal authority to dramatically alter monuments is dubious, and vowed to sue to preserve Bears Ears and other sites.
Read More
As Zinke explores monumental divide at Bears Ears, Natives feel unheard
Trump orders review of national monuments, vows to end ‘these abuses and return control to the people’
Zinke defends thousands of proposed job cuts at Interior: ‘This is what a balanced budget looks like’Sex hormones impact reward processing, which is dysfunctional in schizophrenia; however, the degree to which testosterone levels relate to reward-related brain activity in healthy men and the extent to which this relationship may be altered in men with schizophrenia has not been determined. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural responses in the striatum during reward prediction-errors and hormone assays to measure testosterone and prolactin in serum. To determine if testosterone can have a direct effect on dopamine neurons, we also localized and measured androgen receptors in human midbrain with immunohistochemistry and quantitative PCR. We found correlations between testosterone and prediction-error related activity in the ventral striatum of healthy men, but not in men with schizophrenia, such that testosterone increased the size of positive and negative prediction-error related activity in a valence-specific manner. We also identified midbrain dopamine neurons that were androgen receptor immunoreactive, and found that androgen receptor (AR) mRNA was positively correlated with tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) mRNA in human male substantia nigra. The results suggest that sex steroid receptors can potentially influence midbrain dopamine biosynthesis, and higher levels of serum testosterone are linked to better discrimination of motivationally-relevant signals in the ventral striatum, putatively by modulation of the dopamine biosynthesis pathway via AR ligand binding. However, the normal relationship between serum testosterone and ventral striatum activity during reward learning appears to be disrupted in schizophrenia.
Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.For years it has been said that Soviets were behind the times - and now we know!
Red-faced Soviet officials have admitted that they haven't kept the correct time in more than six decades, a mistake dating back to the Stalin era when clocks should have been turned back an hour.In 1930, the Soviets introduced summer time and moved the hands of the clocks one hour ahead - but then did not announce winter time in the fall of 1930. For unknown reasons, summer time was not reintroduced in the spring of 1931.
Then in 1981, summer time was again mandated, giving the country two extra hours of sunlight during the summer months.
So now in a frenzied effort to set things right, officials are skipping the Soviet version of daylight-saving time this summer - but clocks will still "fall back" an hour in the autumn.
In theory at least, this process will put their clocks back in sync.
That means that March 31st, the day on which clocks usually are moved forward an hour for summer time in 11 time zones, was to pass without a time change. The only problem is that in those well-known rebellious republics of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldavia - the ones that have rejected communism and want independence - clocks did move ahead just as before.
Even the decision to skip daylight-saving time was made in a time warp. The Soviet Cabinet adopted the change on Feb. 4 but didn't announce it until March 20, only a few days before clocks were to change.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that it explains a lot of things. The Soviets have been out of sync for about 61 years!
They have had a lot of trouble ever since the Stalin regime, when the dictatorship became especially authoritarian. After Stalin, the Soviet people tried to forget and even erase from their history books Stalin's barbaric actions.
Finally, in the current era, Gorbachev made an attempt to open up the system and democratize it. But he was not pleased with the results and tried to backtrack. Unfortunately for him, the rebellious republics still want independence, which has led Gorbachev to get tough again - like in Stalin's day.
Sound like a time warp?
In the meantime the Soviet economy is in a shambles, and Soviet leaders seem not to have the slightest idea how to fix it.
A sense of timing could be the answer to all of these problems.
I have two suggestions that might help Soviet leaders bring their country out of total chaos. First, they should rent from the United States the Christopher Reeve movie "Somewhere in Time," in which Reeve's character successfully used a technique allowing him to go many years back in time so he could fall in love with a certain beautiful woman whose portrait fascinated him.
If the Soviets could successfully utilize Reeve's technique they might be able to go back to Stalin's day and reset the clock - sort of start over. While they were at it, they could scrap the whole communist system and fix the economy - which would make the future a lot easier!
My second suggestion is this: The Soviets could divert the funds that might ordinarily go for weapons systems or those big fur hats and order instead millions of day planners from Utah manufacturers. If Soviet leaders and citizens were ordered to use Day-timers or Franklin Planners, they would get their sense of timing back and become addicted to planners just as Americans are!
That would also be a much simpler way of converting to a democratic system than the complicated approach they have been using. Forget economic and political revolution - just become time-management fanatics!
Now, maybe none of this will completely solve Soviet problems - I don't know. But you must admit that it couldn't be any worse than the unfortunate mistakes they've made so far.
The moral to the story is that you should never mess with daylight-saving time - certainly not this weekend. It is a time-honored principle.About a week after Nevada dispensaries began selling legal marijuana, the state’s government is considering emergency legislation to address a shortage of weed.
The Nevada Tax Commission will vote this Thursday on new rules potentially expanding the number of stores that can legally sell marijuana, according to Salt Lake City's Fox 13. The commission reported in a statement that many of the state’s 47 dispensaries had already run out of pot.
The vote will decide whether liquor wholesalers will be allowed to sell the drug, bringing to a head a legal battle between the state and the local liquor retailers, who have been fighting to profit on the newly legalized marijuana industry.
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"Based on reports of adult-use marijuana sales already far exceeding the industry’s expectations at the state’s 47 licensed retail marijuana stores, and the reality that many stores are running out of inventory, the Department must address the lack of distributors immediately," the statement said. "Some establishments report the need for delivery within the next several days."
Within the first weekend of legal recreational marijuana, sales totaled around $3 million, according to the Nevada Dispensary Association.
Dispensaries in the state celebrated the change by opening their stores at midnight the day the sales became legal, expecting large crowds in the stores and even setting off fireworks.
Nevada voters approved the legalization in November, and sales began on July 1.But did you know from witness reports inside the bank the loudest person there was the undercover cop that later came out and arrested that woman?
But what was unknown to us and to a lot of people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.
How did you know he was an undercover cop?
He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.In an excerpt from a CNNMoney interview, Tesla boss Elon Musk says that the self-driving car — or "autopilot," the term he prefers — is basically just months away from retail. Here's the language:
Autonomous cars will definitely be a reality. A Tesla car next year will probably be 90 percent capable of autopilot. Like, so 90 percent of your miles can be on auto. For sure highway travel.
How's that going to happen?
With a combination of various sensors. You combine cameras with image recognition with radar and long-range ultrasonics, that'll do it. Other car companies will follow.
But you guys are going to be the leader?
Of course. I mean, Tesla's a Silicon Valley company. If we're not the leader, shame on us.
Many automakers and suppliers have congealed around 2020 as reasonable guidance for when publicly available cars are capable of running in a substantially autonomous mode, though key features of self-driving cars are coming sooner — GM has promised a hands-free mode for some 2017 models, and Audi has been making the PR tour this year for its "piloted driving" features. Hands-free highway driving is easier to process than rat's nests of traffic- and obstacle-filled surface streets, which helps explain his "90 percent" target.
Possibly related, Musk has a set of Tesla announcements lined up for October 9th, where he has promised "the D and something else." It's not known what either of those reference, but the company is expected to release an all-wheel-drive version of the Model S and the production version of the Model X in the near future.ADVERTISEMENT
I had imagined a darker ending for Breaking Bad — a version of this story in which Walt's money remained, Ozymandias-like, in a hole in the desert, serving as a reminder of how meaningless all his terrible crimes really were. A version in which Skyler, the woman who has been forced to carry the weight of Walt's crimes around like a ball-and-chain, would end up serving time in prison for her reluctant role in them. A version in which Breaking Bad dutifully followed the arc of the classical tragedy it seemed to be for so much of its five-season run: The story of a desperate man attempting to save his family, who ends up destroying it instead.
Instead, we got tonight's "Felina," a series finale in which everyone we care about got exactly what they wanted — or, at the very least, the best they could hope for at this very late stage of the game. Skyler now has enough leverage to cut a deal with the DEA and make a clean break. Marie will get to recover Hank's body and give it a proper burial. Jesse got to kill Todd and escape to whatever kind of life he can piece together now. Walt managed to ensure that his own children would actually benefit from the fruits of his labor and — perhaps most pivotally, for a man who's been dying of terminal cancer since the series began — got to end his life on his own terms.
At this point in Breaking Bad, Walt's life has long been divided between two personas: Walter White, a "sweet, kind, brilliant man" who Gretchen Schwartz declared dead at the end of last week's episode, and Heisenberg, an elusive chemical genius who delivered high-grade methamphetamine to Europe long after the actual "Heisenberg" had retreated to a remote cabin in New Hampshire.
In theory, Heisenberg could have lived long after Walter White was dead — but "Felina" gave us the definitive ending of both. By the end of "Felina," Walter White is dead. But more unexpectedly, so is the international meth empire Walt unwittingly set in motion when Breaking Bad first began. By dispatching both his distributor Lydia and Todd — the imperfect Frankenstein monster he created — Walt has also ensured that Heisenberg's greatest legacy will die with him; no one is left to cook and sell any more of his now-legendary blue meth (unless Jesse has a serious change of heart at some point in the future).
Meanwhile, all Breaking Bad's "bad guys" are dead, from Uncle Jack (who took a bullet to the head) to Todd (who took a chain to the throat) to Lydia (who was undone by her inability to distinguish Stevia from ricin). "Guess I got what I deserved," is the first lyric of Badfinger's "Baby Blue," which serves as the final song in a long line of pitch-perfect song choices for Breaking Bad — and it’s tough to argue that any of the show's clear-cut villains didn't deserve their grisly fates.
But did Walter White get what he deserved? Series creator Vince Gilligan originally pitched Breaking Bad as a show that would take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface, and he was true to his word: The end of "Felina" sees Walter White unleash his own little friend on all of the Nazis, defeating the last in a chain of enemies that began with low-level dealers like Krazy-8 and reached the heights of major players like Gus Fring. After a brief period of exile, Walter White successfully returned to Albuquerque and proved that he's the king again; he may be dead, but he's dying with a smile on his face in a meth lab.
I've always believed that Breaking Bad takes place in a rigidly moral universe — a place in which Walter White's sins manifest themselves as a plane crash over Albuquerque, and where an attempt to destroy a potentially incriminating laptop with a magnet ends up giving the police the definitive evidence that was hidden behind a picture frame. "Just get me home. I'll do the rest," says Walter, in a kind of desperate prayer, as he sits in a stolen car at the beginning of "Felina" — and suddenly, like manna from heaven, the car's keys fall into his lap from the vanity mirror. What kind of divine intervention can be interpreted from that?
Don't get me wrong. It's been a long time since I've actively rooted for Walter White, but I didn't want to see a finale that spent an hour rubbing his nose in the dirt for all the terrible things he's done over the course of the series. Breaking Bad's previous two episodes, "Ozymandias" and "Granite State," have taken Walter White to harrowing lows that carry the full weight of his crimes, and "Felina" rightly gives him the chance to atone for some of them.
But there's a difference between redemption and triumph. On the "redemption" front, "Felina" offered several scenes that were an unqualified success. Let's flash back all the way to Breaking Bad's pilot episode, which featured Walter's first near-death confession, as he stood in the desert after his disastrous early attempt at cooking. Walter ended that self-shot video confession by speaking directly to his family, promising them that "no matter how it may look, I only had you in my heart."
Since that first episode we've heard Walt proclaim, ad infinitum, that all of his crimes were for the good of his family. It wasn't until "Felina," in his last-ever conversation with Skyler, that we heard him finally confess the true motive that's been clear ever since he turned down Gretchen and Elliott's money in Breaking Bad's first season. "I did it for me. I liked it," said Walt, in the episode's best scene. "I was good at it. I was really… I was alive."
It was, finally, a true confession from a man who'd spent so much of Breaking Bad spinning an endless web of lies. Just as importantly, it was a moment that felt honest — the truth from a man who'd run out of reasons to lie, and who spent much of "Felina" wandering around, purposefully but emotionlessly, executing his own final will and testament as he prepared for the death he knew was coming.
But the unqualified victory that Walt achieved in this final hour is a harder pill to swallow. From the moment the car keys fall into his hands, Walt's hastily conceived master plan goes off without a hitch. His drug money won't be for nothing; while Walter Jr. will never know it wasn't from Gretchen and Elliott, Walt can die knowing he truly did leave something for his family. Walt gets his final moments with Skyler and Holly because he manages to evade DEA surveillance, though it's not entirely clear how. Walt's victory over the Nazis relies on a series of lucky breaks: Kenny doesn't object when Walt parks his car away from the space he's been told, and Jack inexplicably feels the need to prove he wouldn't team up with a "rat" before killing Walt anyway.
Even Walt's last-minute improvisations end in success: Though it's clear he doesn't decide to spare Jesse until he realizes Jesse is being kept prisoner, Walt manages to save his former partner from the gunplay as the rest of the room is busy being shot to death. Jesse rightly refuses to shoot Walt, telling him to do it himself. But even in that key moral decision, Walt is given an out: He's already gut-shot from the machine gun stowed in the trunk of his car, which ensures that he won't serve time for his crimes while sparing him the weight of a deliberate suicide.
After so many crimes, "Felina" was surprisingly easy on Walt, and I suspect the show's ultimate moral message will be a source of debate and controversy as critics and fan continue to hash out Breaking Bad's legacy in the years to come. ("The whole thing felt kind of shady, like, morality-wise," said Skinny Pete, in a quote that could easily serve as an epigram for "Felina.") It was undeniably rousing to see Walt achieve that last victory, but it lacked the bravery of an episode like "Granite State," which might have offered a more fitting end for our antihero: Dying alone, next to a pile of useless money, thousands of miles away from anyone and anything he ever loved.
Instead, Walt got what I suspect many Breaking Bad fans were looking for: A chance to say goodbye. Over the course of "Felina," we see Walt visit a number of the people he's loved and relied on at different stages of his life: Gretchen and Elliott, Skyler and his children, Jesse Pinkman — even Hank makes an appearance, in a flashback to the moment that drove Walt to break bad in the first place.
But to its credit, Breaking Bad ends the story exactly where it should: In the lab, as Walt spends his final moments alone in the one place he's always truly belonged. The last time Breaking Bad offered a shot like the one that ends the series, it was at the end of season four's penultimate "Crawl Space," as Walt cackled maniacally at the desperation of his plight. Here, the same remarkable shot is deliberate and peaceful; after saying goodbye to the lab one last time, he sprawls on the floor and waits to die. For better or worse, this is where Breaking Bad's stunning, five-season story draws to a close. After so much struggle, Walter White managed to end on his own terms — and Breaking Bad, which defied expectations to the very end, managed to do the same.
Read more Breaking Bad recaps:By: Associated Press
June 11, 2017
GATESVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials are investigating the death of a corrections officer after a confrontation with an inmate at a Central Texas women's prison.
Officials say 41-year-old Shana Tedder complained of shortness of breath after a "use of force" incident with a prisoner at the Crain Unit in Gatesville.
She walked to another area of the prison to rest and collapsed. Paramedics were unable to revive Tedder and she was pronounced dead at the prison Friday.
She'd worked for the prison system since 2005.
The agency defines "use of force" as measures taken during a confrontational situation to get an offender to comply or steps by officers to maintain a safe environment for offenders and prison staff.
The Crain Unit can hold about 1,500 female prisoners.How the Sequester Could Leave Actors Unemployed
The sequestration budget cuts that clicked in automatically after Congress failed to reach a deal before March 1 could lead to fewer roles for actors.
Small and mid-sized theaters from New York to Los Angeles are bracing for the across-the-board cuts to federal funding mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Those cuts will include the National Endowment for the Arts, which helps theaters fund production costs through grants.
The NEA is set to take a $7.3 million cut—5 percent of the agency's overall current budget—divided between its grants and administrative costs. Grants that have already been awarded won't be reduced, the NEA says, but rather it is future funding that will be scaled back to meet the new fiscal reality.
Theater executives who have been through government budget tightening before say it’s likely most organizations will see a percentage reduction rather than an outright elimination of their funding. Still, for small-to-midsized theaters a reduction of $5,000-$10,000 could mean one or two less Equity actors in a production.
“Our budgets are already so tight this will hurt,” said Tim Dang, producing artistic director at East West Players in Los Angeles. “We’re going to have to cut to the bone where it already is. It makes us think of small-cast shows.”
Since 1980, EWP has received NEA funding every year except for two. In 2012, EWP received a $60,000 grant from the NEA to help fund its production of "The Three-Year Swim Club." To help cushion the blow from the expect cuts to next year’s funding, it’s now scrambling to diversify. Dang encouraged other theaters to do the same.
“We need to be better at spreading out our funding so that if this particular chunk of funding drops out, we can still do the production,” he said.
Other theater organizations are large enough to absorb the funding reductions. A spokesman for the New Dramatists Inc., a New York playwrights’ lab that mounts staged readings with paid actors, said it would “swallow it” if its NEA funding isn’t renewed. In 2012, New Dramatists received $100,000 from the NEA to help their playwrights’ development process.
Jesse Berger, artistic director at Red Bull Theater, a New York theater company specializing in the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, said the NEA has tightened its purse strings in recent years. “I took that as a sign of ongoing cuts,” he said.
Red Bull recently received $10,000 from the NEA to mount “’Tis Pity She's a Whore,” a play about incestuous love by John Ford. The production’s total budget is about $300,000. Any reduction in funding would have to be made up, said Berger. “It’s not something that we could easily replace. You can shave around the edges with set budgets and fashion budgets, but we mount large-scale classical plays. It doesn’t get much cheaper than that.”
With the federal government’s fiscal crisis likely to continue, it’s possible further cuts to arts funding could happen soon. With that in mind, advocates are organizing a National Arts Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill April 9. The rally is meant to dissuade lawmakers from chopping arts funds in the name of cost savings.
Meanwhile, the NEA is waiting to see what its fiscal future holds. The sequester cuts are based the arts organization’s current $147-million budget, which runs through March 27, when the continuing resolution funding from the federal government ends. After that, everything may change. In the meantime, the shows will go on.Yeah, that should do it, and Slovakian rider Ivan Jakes recently went through that. It happened in the Salar Centenario area on the third stage of the Dakar Rally. The KTM rider was 186 miles from the finish line when he got struck during a storm.But contrary to your expectations, Jakes didn’t stop in his tracks. He was aware he’d been hit by the bolt of lightning and even had pain in his left arm. Still, he carried on and even managed to finish in 15th place.Now, you may be asking yourself how the hell did he stay alive after such a shock. The thing that saved him was the KTM motorcycle he was riding on, since the metal conducted the electricity into the ground. If he had had a foot down during the moment, it would have been him conducting all the current and things would have been much worse.After arriving at the stage finish, Ivan was sent to a local hospital for some checks where the medics discovered that he is ultimately all right. He even got green lights to start the next stage of the rally. Now that is passion!However, Jakes here was incredibly lucky that the bolt of lightning hit the motorcycle and not him. So remember folks, if you’re riding and a storm comes in start looking for shelters like an overpass, gas station or a store. Don’t sit under isolated trees and let the storm pass completely before getting back on the road.Breathe easy, “Bughead” fans: There’s no chance Riverdale‘s Betty is about to ditch Jughead for her old love Archie — at least not according to Lili Reinhart.
“I don’t think Betty has feelings for Archie anymore,” the actress tells TVLine. “I think that’s over and done with. She’s in love with Jughead, and is happy being with him.” She doesn’t rule out any feelings on Archie’s side, though — especially after that lingering look he gave Betty in last season’s finale. Reinhart chalks that look up to “wanting something that you can’t have… I definitely think Archie has some commitment issues. He has a wandering eye, you know?” There’s “a deep love” between Betty and Archie, she admits, but “I just don’t necessarily think it’s romantic.”
As for Betty and Jughead, Reinhart insists they’re still a “solid duo” in Season 2, despite all the challenges thrown their way, from Jughead’s new Southside Serpent status to the strong objections from Betty’s mom Alice. Reinhart points to Betty blackmailing Cheryl into defending Jughead’s dad in court as a sign of “Bughead’s” resilience: “[She] did what she had to do for her man, you know? I think Betty’s willing to put herself out on a limb, and put herself in some uncomfortable situations, in order to show her support for him.”
So was that bit of “fun girl talk” between Betty and Cheryl a sign that “Dark Betty” is back? Reinhart doesn’t think so: “It’s not really ‘Dark Betty.’ It’s more of just like ‘Assertive Betty’… She needs to put on her boss-ass woman pants and step into the role of being a strong and assertive woman. She’s a warrior for her friends.” But that doesn’t mean we won’t get an encore appearance this season from “Dark Betty”… or her signature jet-black wig. “You may see it again,” Reinhart says with a laugh. “I think she still has it in the back of her closet somewhere.”
Speaking of closets: There’s a big old skeleton hanging in Alice’s, in the form of Chic — Betty’s long-lost brother that Alice gave up for adoption years ago. We know Hart Denton (seen at right) is joining the cast later this season as Chic, and Reinhart hints that Chic’s arrival “definitely has a strong impact on the Cooper family,” adding that it “causes some drastic changes in dynamics within the Cooper family itself.”
Meanwhile, there’s a serial killer on the loose, making Season 2 feel like a horror movie at times — and Reinhart says that’s by design. “We’re treating this season very much like a dark thriller,” she says. “Even when we’re all having conversations as a friend group in the student lounge, or at Pop’s, there’s kind of an air of doom and gloom hanging over our heads.” She’s not too worried about Betty being the Black Hood’s next victim, though: “I think Betty’s safe. But you never know. Something could happen to any of us.”
Ratings for Riverdale (airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW) are through the roof — the Season 2 premiere doubled last season’s average — and Reinhart credits that to people discovering the show on Netflix: “The minute we went on Netflix, things kind of changed for us.” She and the rest of the cast are “thrilled” at the fan response, she adds: “It’s exciting that people are so invested in the show that they don’t even want to wait until it’s on Netflix. They’re actually watching live TV!”
OK, Riverdale fans: Do you still think a Betty/Archie romance is a possibility? Cast your vote in the comments.Hello, everyone. For this post, I decided to take a look at genetic engineering. This is an area I would be professionally interested in, so I wanted to flesh out my own views on one of the more controversial aspects of genetic engineering: the potential for genetic enhancement of humans. As the title suggests, I come down in favor of this possibility. The rest of this post is the paper I wrote, which should hopefully explain why I came to this conclusion. If you disagree after reading my paper, or think I missed something important, this is a topic I enjoy learning about, and I would like to hear what you have to say, so be sure to leave a reply.
At this point in human history, technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives, and its reach expands with every new development. Soon enough, even human enhancement could be within our grasp, allowing us to change ourselves more fundamentally than ever before. Enhancement can take many forms, but one of the more controversial ones is genetic enhancement (GE), the alteration of the human genome. All new technologies invite discussion, and GE is no different. As we develop techniques to make GE a reality, the question shifts from how to do it to should we do it. Is it ethical? What do we stand to gain? What might we lose? By looking at some of the consequences, we can begin to make a judgement. But while we examine the consequences, it is necessary to separate the myth of genetic determinism, a common pitfall for anyone considering GE, from reality. By acknowledging that our genes are only a part of what makes us who we are, it becomes clear that the drawbacks of GE are necessarily limited.
In separating myth and reality with regards to GE, the first step is to establish the reality. We need to understand what GE can actually do. To do this, a good place to start is with the current state of the technology. The Hinxton Group, which is made up of scholars in various disciplines “interested in ethical and well-regulated science,” recently released a consensus statement on human genetic modification (Chan et al 42). In it, they give a brief description of modern techniques, like CRISPR/Cas9, that make up the state of the art; these techniques work by directing a DNA cutting enzyme to specific genetic sequences, allowing for “very precise… easy, inexpensive, and, critically, very efficient” editing of a genome (Ibid. 43). However, the Hinxton Group also reached consensus on the fact that even these techniques are “not sufficiently developed to consider human genome editing” (Ibid. 43). The Hinxton Group ultimately suggests that further research into genome editing techniques be pursued, and that the possibility of human application of these technologies not be dismissed out of hand as unethical, instead encouraging discussion on the topic (Ibid. 42). This is a good starting point for the consideration of GE as well: being open to discussion in general, and looking at research in particular.
One area of research to examine is ageing. A phenomenon affecting everyone, the prospect of prolonging life and delaying ageing is tempting. And there is the potential to genetically impact how humans age. Research into the metabolic pathways of ageing has revealed a genetic component. A “physiological shift towards cell protection and maintenance… extends lifespan” (Kenyon 504). And genes are heavily involved in this shift; mutations which inhibit certain ageing pathways have already been identified in humans and linked with exceptional longevity (Ibid. 505). This suggests that using GE to select these genes could lead to longer human lifespans. Opponents of GE might suggest that this increase in lifespan comes with consequences. But according to Kenyon, this increase in longevity could come “without debilitating tradeoffs,” as evidenced by other species exhibiting both good health and long life in research studies (510). So, there is a clear potential in the future for GE to improve longevity without other losses, a definite benefit for anyone desirous of longer life. While longer-lived humans could have other consequences, these are less certain. There could be an increase in population growth (assuming no change in birth rate – by no means a sure thing), but this is not inherently a bad thing; it is only a problem if the additional population cannot be supported. To make this argument necessitates the assumption that we are at or very near the Earth’s carrying capacity for human life – which is also by no means a sure thing. For the most part, improved longevity is a clear gain made possible by GE.
Other research suggests there is potential for enhanced muscle development. In a study published in Cell, Yamamoto et al found that muscle-specific deletion of a gene lead to “increased muscle mass, associated with a strikingly improved exercise capacity” and “an improved intrinsic quality of the muscles” (835). This gene produced NCoR1, a biological regulator of muscle mass (Ibid. 837). This demonstrates that genes can produce compounds that inhibit muscle development, which in turn means that deletion of certain genes can improve muscle development. In other words, GE has the potential to allow improved muscle development. While muscle is not the only measure of athleticism and fitness, it can help contribute to both of these positive qualities and increase what an individual is capable of. It would be necessary to determine other potential impacts of genetic alterations, but it is clearly feasible to genetically manipulate muscle growth and performance.
A third area of research where GE shows promise is memory and learning. A study published in Nature ultimately found that “genetic enhancement of mental and cognitive attributes such as intelligence and memory in mammals is feasible” (Tang et al 64). In the study, mice were genetically modified to overexpress a gene responsible for detecting the co-firing of brain synapses, which lead to greater learning ability and memory (Ibid. 63). Tang et al demonstrated that with knowledge of how the brain works to form new connections and associations, could come the knowledge of how to genetically impact that process, thereby improving it. Intelligence is one of humanity’s greatest strengths, and improving it would allow for greater knowledge and innovation. With GE, this improvement is possible. And while there may be concern about unequal access to these various improvements, there is an important distinction to be made. As Sandel states in his article “The Case against Perfection”, which will be further considered later, “the fundamental question is not how to ensure equal access to enhancement but whether we should aspire to it in the first place” (52). We need to focus on the value of the technology itself, without getting lost in the mire of implementation.
So far we have seen some of the many possibilities presented by GE, supported by actual research. But what if there is something just as real, if less tangible, that we may lose? Next we must consider what the opponents of GE say we have to lose.
Perhaps the most worrying prospect of GE is the loss of our humanity. To determine if this is something we truly will lose, we first need to define what we mean by human. This may seem to be an easy task, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Many scholars faced with this question argue for flexibility. For instance, Harriet Ritvo, an MIT professor of history whose areas of study include human-animal relations, argues that humanity ought to include the great apes, as detailed study has revealed the barriers between human and ape are not quite so high as we once imagined; indeed, she says the similarities have “destabilized the assumptions on which the dictionary definitions of human and humanist have been based” (74-5).
Maybe we could consider an extension of humanity in the other direction as well. José Cordeiro, a member of several major futurist and transhumanist organizations, makes this argument. Cordeiro states that humanity “can no longer be regarded as a stable category… On the contrary, humans must be understood as a tenuous entity” (236). Even as we continue to change, these changes will not make us anything less than human. As Cordeiro puts it, we will still be “corporal, cognitive, and agency-laden,” seeking answers to “the ultimate scientific and philosophical queries” (Ibid. 236, 237). Humanity has already undergone major changes, and as these changes continue, we need to recognize that what we are and what we will become are not two different things, but different versions of the same thing.
Significantly, both Ritvo and Cordeiro, while arguing very different things, agree that we need to accept flexibility in our definition of human and humanity. The things that make us human do not have hard lines, but gentle spectrums. The question of whether GE will make us lose our humanity is an important one, but in answering it we need to recognize that it can only take away our humanity if we let it, both in terms of definition and in terms of identity. After all, we are already genetically different from one another, but the idea that these differences make some of us inhuman would be vehemently rejected by most.
So, if GE will not necessarily make us lose our humanity, the next thing to consider is if it will lead to other losses. One potential worry is the loss of autonomy; societies with genetic engineering are popularly portrayed as dystopias where everyone has an assigned role, dictated by their genetic design. Upon closer inspection, however, it is clear that this dystopia is more a product of social structures than of genetic engineering itself. If people are still free to decide what they would like to do with their lives, there would be no issue of assigned roles. Opponents of GE may still argue that if we are allowed to genetically design children before they are born, they will have no true choice in what they do with their lives. But such arguments discount the |
president, days after the ex-FBI director testified that Trump sought to derail the Russian probe.
"I believe the James Comey leaks will be far more prevalent than anyone ever thought possible," Trump wrote in an early morning tweet. "Totally illegal? Very 'cowardly!'"
Sacked FBI chief Comey delivered his bombshell allegations at a Senate hearing Thursday, saying in his sworn testimony that he had asked a "friend" identified as a Columbia University law professor to release a memo of his conversations with the president to the press.
Comey said he had hoped releasing the information via the media would prompt the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Russia probe, a ploy that ultimately proved successful.
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He branded the president a liar and said Trump urged him to abandon the investigation into the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, an allegation Trump has denied.
On Friday, Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski criticized Comey as not "man enough" for having leaked the memo via his friend rather than doing it himself.
"He gave his notes to a Columbia law professor because he wasn't man enough to give the notes directly to the media when he wanted them out to the media," Lewandowski told NBC's morning show "Today."
Though Trump has lambasted Comey as a "leaker," he also claimed "total and complete vindication" following the ex-FBI chief's testimony, focusing on Comey's confirmation that Trump was not personally being probed.The Bellevue City Council voted Monday night to move forward with plans to build a permanent men’s homeless shelter in Eastgate, but will also take 45 days to look at two other sites.
The Bellevue City Council on Monday night voted 4-3 to move forward with plans to build a permanent men’s homeless shelter in the Eastgate neighborhood near Interstate 90.
But after a lengthy discussion and public testimony, the council added a 45-day period to analyze two alternate sites — one on city-owned property near downtown where the current winter shelter is located and another in a Sound Transit maintenance yard in BelRed.
The decision represented a compromise between three council members who were ready to approve the Eastgate site and develop additional design, financing and safety plans, and three council members who said they wanted answers to those and other questions before selecting a site.
“Forty-five days from now we can look at this with better information,” said Councilmember Ernie Simas, who cast the deciding vote after being appointed to the council just three weeks ago. “If it takes a year longer to build than at Eastgate but it’s a better site, that’s the way we should go.”
City leaders pledged that any new shelter would reflect Bellevue values, including expectations that it would help the men become self-sufficient and exit homelessness and that the city’s quality of life and public safety be maintained.
The Eastgate site is adjacent to a county public-health clinic, a Metro park-and-ride lot and down a wooded hillside from Bellevue College. The council also agreed to create a project advisory committee made up of neighboring businesses, residents, the police and local congregations to help guide the city’s work on shelter design and operations.
The proposed 100-bed facility would be the first permanent men’s shelter on the Eastside. Bellevue’s current emergency shelter is open from November through April and has had to move four times since 2008 as its temporary sites were sold or redeveloped.
The proposal, which also includes a day center with support services and 50 to 60 units of affordable housing, had strong support from the city’s faith communities. Several dozen members of Eastside congregations packed the standing-room-only council meeting wearing red to show their support for the project.
A formerly homeless man, Robert Odom, told the council that it’s hard to find a job when you show up for an interview with a backpack and a bed roll. He said Congregations for the Homeless, which has operated a year-round men’s shelter that rotates through 12 Eastside churches since 1993, gave him and other men a stable place to move forward with their lives, find jobs and housing.
A representative from Bellevue College’s student association, Jahkari Singh, said some students, faculty and staff have faced housing insecurity and want to partner with the shelter operators and police to make the shelter a safe environment.
“It could be a great service learning opportunity for students,” he said.
The men’s shelter was adamantly opposed by some residents who worried that it would transform their clean, relatively crime-free suburb into a blight of tent encampments and a concentration of dangerous men.
Kathryn Kitchen said she could never have imagined that the city would potentially import crime and hazardous waste to her south Bellevue neighborhood.
“The homeless do have problems with addiction, drug use, alcohol. The homeless do bring an increase in crime. I’m not against the shelter. I’m concerned about the location and the proximity to our neighborhood,” she said.
Opponents also objected to the shelter’s low-barrier entry criteria, which don’t exclude men who have addictions, mental-health problems or criminal records.
John Carlson, conservative radio host and Bellevue resident, called the Eastgate site, below Bellevue College, “totally inappropriate.”
“A day center that does not check for criminal backgrounds or outstanding warrants located at the base of a wooded area next to a lightly policed college campus? What could possibly go wrong?” he asked.
More than 2,800 people signed a petition opposing the Eastgate location, citing their concerns about lowering property values and the threat to public safety.
Mayor John Stokes warned the other council members that any alternate site would provoke similar neighborhood opposition and said he didn’t want progress toward building a shelter to languish in an “endless churn” of city deliberations.
Stokes, Deputy Mayor John Chelminiak and Councilmember Lynne Robinson joined Simas in voting to give preliminary approval to the Eastgate site, while also considering the two other locations. Councilmembers Jennifer Robertson, Conrad Lee and Kevin Wallace voted no.
Bellevue staff evaluated five sites that were publicly owned, near transit and with access to health care and other services before recommending the Eastgate location.
Steve Roberts, managing director of Congregations for the Homeless, said that until a site is finalized, it will be difficult to engage neighbors in how to make it work.
He said men in the shelter must adhere to rules that prohibit drugs, alcohol and weapons and are asked to leave if their behavior becomes disruptive. He said shelter staff do inform police about residents’ sex-offender status and inquire about outstanding warrants in an effort to help the men clear up any legal issues, but he said the information is self-reported.
Last year, the City Council unanimously approved establishing a permanent homeless shelter to be ready in winter 2019.
Bellevue city staff have spent hundreds of hours during the past several months researching best practices for similarly sized men’s shelters. Additionally, they and city police visited shelters in Tacoma and Portland to learn about design, safety and interactions with neighbors.
City Planning Director Dan Stroh briefed the council this month on their key findings, which included building strong relationships between service providers and clients, a strong association between the shelter and local law enforcement, and active engagement with the surrounding neighborhood.Fans of Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will not be wanting for new footage in the next couple months. In addition to the three-hour 'Ultimate Cut', the DVD and Blu-Ray will have over two hours of features to explore. Thanks to the Australian retailer JB HI-FI, we now have an idea of what the bonus content will focus on.
Check it out below...
- Uniting The World's Finest
- Gods and Men: A Meeting of Giants
- The Warrior, The Myth, The Wonder
- Accelerating Design: The New Batmobile
- Analysing A New Legacy Of Design: Superman
- Analysing A New Legacy Of Design: Batman
- Analysing A New Legacy Of Design: The Batcave
- The Might And The Power Of A Punch
- The Empire Of Luthor
- Save The Bats
We should note that this list has yet to be confirmed, and JB HI-FI have since removed it from their site. They do sound legit though, and if it does end up clocking in at two hours long that's a lot of bang for your buck. We'll doubtless get more details as the home entertainment release date nears.
Directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, and Amy Adams, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray later this year.
Images: Warner Bros.Holy Crap, Do You Know What A Compact Ring Is?
Posted by Tom Leinster
You know how sometimes someone tells you a theorem, and it’s obviously false, and you reach for one of the many easy counterexamples only to realize that it’s not a counterexample after all, then you reach for another one and another one and find that they fail too, and you begin to concede the possibility that the theorem might not actually be false after all, and you feel your world start to shift on its axis, and you think to yourself: “Why did no one tell me this before?”
That’s what happened to me today, when my PhD student Barry Devlin — who’s currently writing what promises to be a rather nice thesis on codensity monads and topological algebras — showed me this theorem:
Every compact Hausdorff ring is totally disconnected.
I don’t know who it’s due to; Barry found it in the book Profinite Groups by Ribes and Zalesskii. And in fact, there’s also a result for rings analogous to a well-known one for groups: a ring is compact, Hausdorff and totally disconnected if and only if it can be expressed as a limit of finite discrete rings. Every compact Hausdorff ring is therefore “profinite”, that is, expressible as a limit of finite rings. So the situation for compact rings is completely unlike the situation for compact groups. There are loads of compact groups (the circle, the torus, SO ( n ) SO(n), U ( n ) U(n), E 8 E_8, …) and there’s a very substantial theory of them, from Haar measure through Lie theory and onwards. But compact rings are relatively few: it’s just the profinite ones. I only laid eyes on the proof for five seconds, which was just long enough to see that it used Pontryagin duality. But how should I think about this theorem? How can I alter my worldview in such a way that it seems natural or even obvious?
Posted at August 20, 2014 11:54 PM UTCAfter the next two games, the Seattle Seahawks must cut their roster down from 90 to 53 players — there is no longer a first and second round of cuts.
With two preseason games in the books, here’s a quick look at a potential final 53. It’s 100% accurate.
—-
QB - Russell Wilson, Trevone Boykin
Boykin over Austin Davis for obvious reasons. Boykin has played much better and well enough to hold off a veteran signing.
RB - Eddie Lacy, Thomas Rawls, CJ Prosise, Chris Carson, J.D. McKissic
McKissic over Alex Collins and Mike Davis because he can also return kicks. This is just a shot at what the running backs could look like, but Collins and Davis both have arguments for why they should stay. People felt the same way about Troymaine Pope being a “must-keep player” in the way that Davis has played (Carson has for sure earned a roster spot, I think) but most of those plays came against back-roster defenses.
WR - Doug Baldwin, Tyler Lockett, Paul Richardson, Jermaine Kearse, Kasen Williams, Amara Darboh
There’s no way to avoid tough cuts at receiver. In this case, Tanner McEvoy, Kenny Lawler, Cyril Grayson, and David Moore get disappointing news.
TE - Jimmy Graham, Luke Willson, Nick Vannett
It’s fair to wonder if Vannett could be released after only one season, but no tight end has stood out in the way that Brandon Williams did a year ago. Tyrone Swoopes gets left out.
OL - Luke Joeckel, Justin Britt, Germain Ifedi, Mark Glowinski, Ethan Pocic, Oday Aboushi, Rees Odhiambo, Joey Hunt, Jordan Roos
With George Fant out for the year, another lineman gets a job. The question is: Is that lineman currently on the roster? Maybe not. Roos gets a nod here while Justin Senior has missed too much time with injury.
DT - Ahtyba Rubin, Jarran Reed, Nazair Jones, Tylor Harris
Jones has stepped up in the absence of McDowell, who seems certain to at least miss a PUP-amount of time this season. Harris is selected here instead of Garrison Smith, Rodney Coe, or Greg Milhouse.
DE - Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Frank Clark, Cassius Marsh, Quinton Jefferson
Seattle consistently keeps four or five defensive ends. The top four are obvious, while Jefferson should be safe, if healthy. David Bass and Christian French get left out.
LB - Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, Michael Wilhoite, Terence Garvin, D.J. Alexander, Marcus Smith
The Seahawks have kept between four and seven linebackers under Pete Carroll. I chose Smith here because it’s more interesting than keeping Mike Morgan, who seems like a fair bet to maybe be released before Week 1 and then re-signed during the season. I’m not tied to Wilhoite, Garvin, or Alexander, but I’d put them in order of Garvin, Alexander, then Wilhoite.
CB - Richard Sherman, Shaquill Griffin, Jeremy Lane, Tramaine Brock, Neiko Thorpe
They’ve consistently kept five corners in every season with Carroll and John Schneider. This could be a year where they keep six, as DeAndre Elliott, Pierre Desir, and Mike Tyson get left out. With a rookie getting starting reps (Griffin) and Brock just getting into the system, it’s possible that Tyson, Desir, or Elliott stick, knowing that DeShawn Shead could be back in November.
S - Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Delano Hill, Bradley McDougald, Tedric Thompson
This seems like an obvious position to predict, but Seattle made a ton of moves at safety (some of which were negated) right before Week 1 last season. With McDougald potentially playing some corner, that could give them flexibility to only keep five cornerbacks again. Thompson is not a lock, but he’s close to a lock.
ST - Blair Walsh, Jon Ryan, Tyler Ott
Three special teamers, as usual (when Brandon Coutu isn’t around), and Walsh looks so good so far.
Injured - Fant, McDowell, Senior, Jordan Simone, Dion Jordan, Shead
Practice Squad Potentially: Grayson, Tre Madden, David Moore, Swoopes, (other team’s released offensive lineman), French, Otha Peters, Kache Palacio, Elliott
I tried to pick guys who might not get picked up on waivers by other teams. I assume Elliott, Tyson, and Desir could be popular options, but maybe one slips through.
Tough cuts: Davis, Collins, McEvoy, Grayson, Moore, Lawler, Marcel Reece, Bass, French, Dewey McDonald, Morgan, Elliott, Tyson, Desir.
There’s a 53-man roster projection. No one question that that’s what it is.Book cover art for "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, to be published Oct. 29, 2013.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who in May returned from the International Space Station as a veteran commander and social media star, has landed a two-book deal to share his space experiences.
In "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth," to be published this fall worldwide by Little, Brown and Company and by Random House Canada in his home country, Hadfield will take his readers "deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible."
Hadfield's "entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises" are used to explain "how conventional wisdom can get in the way of real achievement — and happiness," his publishers said in a description of the book. [Astronaut Chris Hadfield's Video Guide to Life in Space]
"His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff," the publishers added.
The book, which is subtitled "What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything," will be published on Oct. 29 as a 320-page hardcover and as an eBook.
An audio book version of "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth," read by Hadfield, will also be released by Hachette Audio.
Chris Hadfield made history as the first Canadian to command a space mission serving as the leader of the space station's Expedition 35 crew. His 144-day stay on board the orbiting outpost marked his third journey into space.
Hadfield earlier flew on two NASA space shuttles, Atlantis' STS-74 mission in 1995 and Endeavour's STS-100 flight in 2001. During his second mission, Hadfield became the first Canadian to perform a spacewalk, helping to install on the space station the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
It was during his latest expedition however, that Hadfield gained worldwide acclaim for his photos and educational videos about living in space. Posting to Twitter, YouTube and other social media websites, Hadfield shared his daily experiences from orbit and produced several music videos that quickly went viral.
A singer and guitar player (on Earth, Hadfield is a member of two bands, including the all-astronaut group "Max Q"), Hadfield's on-orbit rendition of David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" received more than 10 million views during its first three days online.
"That Chris Hadfield never lost his sense of wonder for the grand features and quirks of space is obvious to the millions who have watched the videos he beamed back from the International Space Station," John Parsley, Little, Brown's executive editor, said.
Anne Collins agreed. The publisher of the Knopf Random Canada Publishing Group, Collins cited Hadfield's capacity to "bring home the fascinating details of what it takes to be an astronaut and what it's like to live in microgravity."
"Imagine what his eloquence, and unique vantage point, will deliver at book length," she added. "Not only has there never been an 'astronaut book' like this one, there has never been another book like this one."
"An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" is the first of two books Hadfield will write under an agreement with Random House Canada. The subject and timeframe for the second book was not released.
Hadfield is among a handful of now-retired astronauts who are sharing their experiences in books. Seven-time shuttle astronaut Jerry Ross released "Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA's Record-Setting Frequent Flyer" in January. David Hilmers, a four-time space shuttle mission specialist who made his first flight on the maiden flight of Atlantis, penned "Man on a Mission," a children's book, published in April.
Former NASA astronaut Don Thomas' "In the Footsteps of Neil Armstrong and John Glenn," is scheduled for release in October, a few weeks before Hadfield's book arrives on store shelves.
Expedition 15 flight engineer Clay Anderson is also writing his biography, tentatively titled "Just Takin' Up Space!" to be published soon.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2013 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan and PEARL JAM guitarist Mike McCready have joined forces with ex-SCREAMING TREES drummer Barrett Strong to form a new project called LEVEE WALKERS.
The first two songs from LEVEE WALKERS, titled "Freedom Song" and "Tears For The West", also feature KILLING JOKE singer Jaz Coleman. Jaz is just the first in a handful of select singers who will be putting words and voice to the music of the LEVEE WALKERS.
According to Martin, LEVEE WALKERS' collaboration with Coleman took seed several years ago at the Classic Rock Awards. "We have been listening to his music for decades," Martin wrote "We were seated at the same table and introduced by our fellow bandmate Duff McKagan, and we immediately hit it off with a night of memorable conversation, which is how great collaborations usually begin."
Martin added: "A Levee Walker, by the way, is a phantom that occasionally appears on the tops of levees in the deep American South, which is the mystical heartland of all American music. And like a levee walking phantom, this band will appear, disappear and reappear again, as the musical inspiration suits us."
McCready and Martin previously played together in MAD SEASON, the '90s supergroup also featuring late ALICE IN CHAINS vocalist Layne Staley. McKagan and Martin were also members of WALKING PAPERS, which released its debut album in 2012.Say what you like about the umpire decision review system (and many do), it certainly moves the game on these days. Wickets tumbled here, 16 of them, and the lbw count rose ever higher like a stock exchange bull market: a further nine on Friday to go with the 26 already accumulated to the umpires' fickle finger in the first two Tests. The third umpire was the busiest man in the ground so thick and fast did appeals and reviews come: at this rate UDRS is a shoo-in for man of the series.
By the close, England held an advantage but, at 104 for six in response to Pakistan's 99 all out, it was a most tenuous one on a first day that appeared to get ever more frenetic as it wore on and which, had it been a county match, would have had the pitch inspector scurrying down the motorway.
When Misbah-ul-Haq made the decision to bat first on a pitch said to be drier than the last one here on which England were dismissed cheaply on the first day, he would not have foreseen the movement and occasional bounce that Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson managed for England. By lunch, his team were floundering at 57 for seven and Broad, bowling with what is now becoming habitual brilliance, had come perilously close to becoming the first Englishman since SF Barnes almost a century ago to take five wickets before lunch on the opening day of a Test. An hour and a quarter later, Anderson cleaned out Umar Gul and Pakistan were all out, the fourth time in the past 12 innings England have dismissed them in double figures, Broad taking four for 36, Anderson, who began the slide in the first over, three for 35, and Monty Panesar two for 25.
Little more than a year ago, in Melbourne, Australia were dismissed for 98 by England, who then completed one of the most one-sided opening days to any Test by scoring 157 without loss by the close. Halcyon days. Only when Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen were adding 57 for the third wicket, the captain battling away and Pietersen gradually starting to find his feet after a shaky start, did batting appear anything less than mental torture. But Pietersen, having made 32, with four good boundaries, became another victim of UDRS, much to his chagrin, and one had to sympathise: the original decision by Simon Taufel, one of the most respected of international umpires, could have been nothing more than guesswork, backed up on "umpires' call" by the slenderest predicted contact with the top of leg stump. Pietersen stomped off.
Around this partnership it was mayhem once again. Alastair Cook, in what was a retro-dismissal, hung his bat out to Gul and was well caught behind, and Jonathan Trott, looking to work the same bowler in habitual fashion to leg, was deemed lbw. He chose not to review it, presumably on the advice of Strauss, and had he done so would have been reprieved. England needed his unflappable steadiness. Pietersen's dismissal brought in Ian Bell, who, uncertain whether to stick or twist, chipped one aerial boundary down the ground in a 28-ball stay, and was then beaten by a Saeed Ajmal doosra, dragged his back leg and was stumped – just – by a rebound from the gloves of Adnan Akmal as he tried to scrabble it back.
England had decided to back the side that lost in Abu Dhabi, which meant Eoin Morgan retaining his place and, despite an ever-increasing crouch that would make Gilbert Jessop look like Graham Gooch, he looked to be playing more naturally than during his desperate efforts of the first two Tests. One sweet natural swing of the bat deposited Ajmal over the long-on boundary for six, and for a brief moment it appeared as if the shackles had been broken. Then, on the back foot, he tried to whip Abdur Rehman's left-arm spin through square leg, was struck on the pads, and on review by Pakistan, Taufel was shown to be in error once more. When Matt Prior was bowled by Rehman, maybe looking for the arm ball into his pads, England were still a run adrift and six down.
Through it all, Strauss had played bravely, carrying on his better play in Abu Dhabi. He stayed on the back foot unless he could get properly forward, used his bat, kept his pad out of the way, seemed to read the doosra and accumulated his runs. Had Pakistan been more alert with their reviews, he would have gone lbw as he attempted to sweep Rehman when 35, another Taufel mistake. Thus far Strauss has batted 120 balls for his unbeaten 41 with four boundaries.
In contrast, the England bowling was magnificent once again. As Broad and Anderson cut their swathe through the early Pakistan batting in the morning, there were thoughts that Steve Finn, rather than Panesar or indeed Graeme Swann, might have been the better selectorial option. But where there is seam movement, there is often spin as well, and from the off Panesar found some turn, sufficient to convince them that their balance was a sound one. Once again it was to the left-armer that Strauss had turned, looking to take the ball away from the right-handers and, as he managed twice, bringing lbw into play (of course). Only when the left-handed Rehman came to the crease did Strauss turn to his premier spinner. His second delivery was slogged straight into the air, a wicket maiden was the result, and Swann never bowled another ball. Asad Shafiq's 45, top score on a busy day, was a gem.OAKLAND — “What could you do for us?”
Rory Keller-Dean, who was trying to keep her boyfriend’s car from being impounded, said former Oakland police Officer Gary Romero asked her that question before driving her out to Coast Guard Island in Alameda. Behind a shed, Keller-Dean, a young prostitute at the time, claimed she was forced to perform oral sex on Romero and six other Oakland officers.
“I thought I was gonna be dead. I thought they were gonna kill me,” Keller-Dean said, tearing up as she recalled the events in a recent interview. “But then he hands me the keys to the Cadillac and tells me goodbye and not to say a damn thing.”
Keller-Dean, who sued and was awarded $350,000 by the city, said that night in 1997 started two years of forced sex with Romero while he was on duty. In 2002, after the settlement, then Deputy City Attorney Barbara Parker said the city’s internal investigation corroborated many of Keller-Dean’s claims. Romero denied the allegations throughout, calling the sex consensual.
Although she has tried to put her past behind her, Keller-Dean decided to share her story to support Celeste Guap, the teen at the center of a sex misconduct scandal involving Oakland police and other law enforcement agencies. Guap, 18, who portrays herself as a sex worker, alleges she had sex with 30 law enforcement officers, including several while she was underage.
“It’s been bottled up the past 18 years. When I see what was happening, I felt like I needed to say something,” Keller-Dean said. “I don’t know the girl, but I pray for her. I believe her 100 percent.”
Keller-Dean, now 47, sat on an Oakland park bench Thursday and shared her story — one that has taken a toll on the woman who has left the street life behind but can’t escape the memories.
She has lost relationships with her children, and 15 years of psychotherapy has not helped much, she said.
After the initial assault by Romero and others, she said, she would work her normal corners on International Boulevard, get into cars that would pull up, only to find Romero inside.
“Every time he would see me out there, he would snatch me up,” she said. “I was scared to death. He was always strapped with a gun.”
She claimed Romero would threaten to take her daughter from her if she didn’t comply. At times, Romero would come to her house and pay Keller-Dean’s then 8-year-old daughter $10 to leave in the middle of the night so he could have sex, she said.
“A police officer was having sex with a person while on duty and using his position to continue it,” her attorney, John Burris, said. “She became a sex slave to him.”
But that changed the night of Sept. 20, 1999. After Romero had sex with her in his undercover Suburban SUV, a scared Keller-Dean decided to tell someone. She backtracked to the corner of East 12th Street and Sixth Avenue, where Romero threw the used condom out his window, and found it on the pavement. She took it home, placed it in her freezer and called Burris the next day.
The DNA matched Romero, who had received a department award that same year for helping combat prostitution activity, and it became a key piece of evidence in the case, Burris said.
Romero — who was fired in July 2000 for untruthfulness, failing to adhere to rules and regulations and bringing the department into disrepute — denied the allegations at the time.
“It was a consensual relationship they engaged in, and she collected his condom and decided to cash in on it,” Romero’s attorney, Alison Berry Wilkinson, said.
The district attorney declined to prosecute Romero.”They couldn’t prove that it was illegal on his part,” Wilkinson said, adding that the oral sex claim with multiple officers never had “any evidence to support it.”
“If they were true, I’d be in jail right now,” Romero told the San Francisco Chronicle in a 2002 interview.
The lack of criminal charges still bothers Keller-Dean.
“It could have made it a lot better. It could have made it a lot easier,” she said. “They never do. They get slapped on the hand and sent home.”
Staff writer David DeBolt contributed to this report. Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.Monday night, Knicks star Carmelo Anthony was begging for someone else to make a shot. Wednesday night, it looks like Anthony might get some help.
Forward Amar'e Stoudemire (left ankle) and rookie guard Iman Schumpert (right knee) both practiced Tuesday and it will be a game-time decision for coach Mike D'Antoni if they will play against the Bobcats.
"I think both are day-to-day, game-time decisions, but it looks good," D'Antoni said after practice Tuesday afternoon. "We'll see what their reactions are (to practicing Tuesday) and all that, but they feel a lot better."
Stoudemire has missed two games with a sprained ankle.
"What I am going to do is I'll drive here to the training center in the morning, get another assessment to see how it reacts to today's activity," Stoudemire said. "I will get another assessment before the game and see how it feels."
Shumpert has missed four games with a sprained knee. He tested it with a hard pre-practice workout at the training facility Tuesday and said he feels ready to play.
"Earlier I worked out hard, a lot of shooting, a lot of cutting, a lot of jumping, just to see what I could get out of it," Shumpert said. "Everything felt good, everything felt stable.
"It's not 100%, but it will get there."
With Stoudemire (17.3 ppg) and Shumpert, who had 11 points in his pro debut against the Celtics Christmas day, possibly back in the lineup, Anthony will finally have some scoring help. He was desperately looking for any secondary scoring Monday night as the Knicks lost to the Raptors 90-85 despite Anthony's 35 points.
"Anybody who has an open shot, take it," Anthony said, adding that the Knicks have to maintain an offensive mindset. "It helps me, it helps everybody. Just have the confidence and take it."
Even without the secondary scoring the Knicks had a chance to tie it at the end, but there was a mix-up between D'Antoni and point guard Toney Douglas, who — with the Knicks down 88-85 with 17.7 seconds to go— took the in-bounds pass and fed Anthony near halfcourt. Anthony took three dribbles before missing a contested three-pointer. D'Antoni and Anthony downplayed the mistake, which had the coach saying the point guard "forgot the play," Monday night.
"We went over the play and we just didn't run it right. Doesn't matter who did it, we should have never been in that position. It's not one guy's fault, it just happened. We went over it today and it won't happen again," D'Antoni said. "With 17 seconds to go, we wanted to get a two, if a three presented itself and was wide open, we'd take it, but we wanted to go for a quick two and then look and see what happens. It didn't happen, there was some confusion, so be it. (Toney's) fine, he's good."I was sent this terrible statement reputed to be from the guy who calls himself “The Amazing Atheist”. There is, however, no evidence that he actually said these specific words, so the attribution was inappropriate. However, somebody still wrote this idiotic statement:
Nature already has an age of consent. That age is approximately 12-13, otherwise known as the onset of puberty. We don’t need Christian morals to set an arbitrary age on when a sexually mature human female can mate legally. We already have clear parameters on sexually maturity as established by the law of evolution, and acting within those parameters does not under any reasonable definition constitute “rape”. Moreover, because this irrational moral imperialism is almostly solely applied against males who pursue relationships with younger females, I do believe the change of age-of-consent laws should be a critical area of focus for Men’s Rights Activists.
So much wrong.
Nature does not set an age of consent. Nature doesn’t care. Nature doesn’t stop you from raping babies, and it doesn’t tell you it’s OK to rape 21 year olds, either. The age of consent is a social construct, made by people, intended to protect our children from exploitation during those difficult years when they are transitioning from childhood to adulthood.
The law of evolution (tell me, which one?) does not set clear parameters for sexual maturity. Humans have complex, prolonged development — we’re an altricial species, helpless at birth and requiring a long period of nurturing before fully independent. Ovulation is not a magic signpost that says you’re ready to be impregnated. It says your ovaries have developed, but humans live by complex social interactions and sex can be a difficult phenomenon, with obligations and responsibilities and privileges. We expect people to be able to be able to interact with each other in non-damaging social ways before they leap to bumping genitals.
The only way evolution comes into play here is in a pragmatic, rather than a moral sense. For instance, if the author were to promote the idea that since babies are plump, tender, and helpless, Nature’s Law says that we’re free, even encouraged, to eat them, it would be easy to see that any population that thought that would be quickly on their way to self-enabled extinction. Similarly, evolution doesn’t say that you can’t rape young children…it will simply and objectively pass a kind of operational judgment on your population, as the next generation grows up with fucked up, likely unstable and untenable, social structures.
The legal age of consent is arbitrary. Some people might be able to enjoy sex in a mature fashion at an earlier age, others might be best off avoiding it for a few extra years. But we don’t have a way to measure sexual maturity, so as social and legal animals, we abide by one arbitrary dividing line. But picking the moment of first menstruation is also arbitrary — it says nothing about human behavior, or the ability to be responsible for one’s actions, or readiness to cope with the burdens of a possible pregnancy.
Somehow, even worse, the author seems to think that the ability to get pregnant nullifies the concept of rape. That doesn’t follow. If a person has poor judgment because they are too immature to consider all of the consequences, that does not mean you’re allowed to freely have sex with them, as long as they say “yes” to a bowl of candy. We do not use the legal age of consent to dismiss the idea of rape — we don’t say, “she’s over 21, we can rape her now” (well, some people do, but they’re wrong.)
I’ll also condemn with equal severity older women who take advantage of boys. I know, the attitudes in our culture do trivialize sexual assault on boys and men, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss them. Maybe that would be a good goal for MRAs, to work to defend the sexual autonomy of young men and boys.
But that would be a rational and responsible approach. That last line is revealing: rather than |
cards serve as a backup plan both if you whiff your combo, and if you somehow overextend with your combo and end up at Level 1 with nothing but Level 3s in hand. More importantly, the skill in using this combo is in stopping this from happening, and to adjust the cards you play and the things you clock, just to cover your bases.
This card is truly ridiculous and utterly underappreciated.
3x “Candidate for Next Captain” Sasami
The next card is actually an extremely important secondary attacker for the deck. The requirements for being a backup attacker for this deck are simple – preferably be yellow, and cost nothing. It turns out that the occasional option to clock encore (when you cancel a lot, or when you just don’t have other costless cards) is a lot better than the additional 1k afforded by some of the other options, especially because 6k still isn’t very big unless you support it heavily, and because it really doesn’t matter how big you are when you’re siding for 2. A rather unassuming card, but it fulfills a thoroughly necessary role, and for that, Sasami, thanks.
2x “The End And the Beginning” Kyousuke
This is one of the cards that got a lot of hype coming off from the Refrain release. Kyousuke’s effect is magnitudes of power stronger than Hatsukaze’s, and actually prevents salvages – as opposed to Hatsukaze, who gives the opponent to treat her as a sort of antidamage. It ended up failing to make a splash anywhere near as big as that of his costless brethren, but that’s partly because KC is just a far more popular set. The one cost sucks, and the assist effect is near-worthless in many matchups when you consider the card’s natural home. Still, this card is what will save you in quite a few otherwise-terrible matchups. Its simple existence on the field will give many players pause for thought – Nisekoi, Rewrite, Railgun and iDOLM@STER are the main sets that you will prioritise getting this card out against, but it’s great against a lot of decks, especially the random ones that still play eight gates. A fairly good card, but I view it more as a necessary evil than anything else.
2x “To Outside This World” Haruka
This fairly innocuous card can be absolutely monstrous at times. Enter Haruka, who is your ticket to 20-stock games where you basically never die. If you can manage your stock correctly, she’s actually a win condition through compression. I’ve made Haruka sound like a win-more card, but it’s not as if it’s bad when you aren’t in a dominant position. She’s still in a primary colour and she’s not at all necessary to the central gameplan.
I’ve talked about how power isn’t very useful in this deck, but that doesn’t mean you’re never going to reverse things. You probably won’t be getting a lot of stockcharges at Level 1, but once you hit Level 2, it’s actually quite easy to set up kills. If you can get 2 or 3 bonus stock with Haruka, that’s effectively an extra money counter, or an extra Kyousuke you can throw down. The big issue with this card is that you get blind stockcharges. Yes, you do often charge climaxes, especially post-refresh, but that’s why you make sure that your keep the blind stock as close to the top as possible – preferably at the very top of your stock pile, or the second one from the top. This only really matters if you aren’t planning to toss down a money counter on the backswing, but it’s still something you should keep in mind. That aside, she’s also a 1/0 attacker who carries +2 soul just as well as any other costless card, which is actually a pretty strong upside. I firmly believe this to be the best stockcharge engine that LB can employ, and I have tested the Rin 2/1 and Empty Dinner quite extensively.
2x “Moral Committee President” Kanata
I feel that people aren’t valuing the antiheal effect highly enough anymore. It’s still extraordinarily powerful security against those pesky opposing heals, and is a powerful assist effect to boot. There’s not much else to say about it – it often guarantees a win against decks like ZnT and DC Seitokai. The 2-count is actually an increased number – I used to run just the one while KC was king, because Hibiki’s existence killed heals more effectively than any in-game mechanic could. It’s still perfectly defensible to run just the one, and you can easily use the extra room for another 1/0 Rin target.
1x Yuiko & Haruka
I think that a 2/1 counter is still necessary, mostly because it helps you get more value out of your Kyousukes (which regress to 10k vanillas after they swing for the first time), and because it’s an extra defence against restanders and clock kicks. I’m extremely unhappy that they didn’t use the sacrifice cost for the antichanger effect, and as such I’m drifting back towards using Yuiko & Haruka, even though I rarely use that card’s secondary effect either – that’s stock that could be going towards money counters, after all.
1x “Little Brosters” Kengbro & Masabro
This card is a gem I’ve taken a liking to as of late. It’s the best 2/2 cleaner LB has to offer, as it tends to be a rather ridiculous 12-14k base against anything with 2-soul. Its own 2 soul is as fantastic as always. The main reason this is so good is because it’s a non-committal splash that forces a trade with common cards like 3/2 Onodera, 3/2 Maki and the GFB advance summons, even without supports or climax plays. It can even force a counter from the blue ‘gain 4k on opponent draw step’ cards, which is honestly pretty crazy. It’s a great search target if you know your opponent is playing advance summons, and it’s still a strong 11k against high-powered Level 1s.
The downside to this card is obviously the fact it bolsters your opponent’s soul count. This problem is mitigated pretty significantly by the next card we’ll talk about, and can even be interpreted as an upside – if your opponent wants to kill this card with a Level 3, they’ll be swinging for 3 soul instead of 2, which is that much easier to cancel.
3x Farewell Yukichi!!
This would be one of the reasons to buy into LB at all. I hold these in my hand from turn 1 more often than I’d like to admit. Actually, you know what? I’m happy admitting that. 3 isn’t cleanly enough to reliably draw them, so I won’t throw them away if I don’t have to. Simply having money in your hand is basically like having Counterspell. You just feel safe. Marika is reduced to swinging for one damage total, Musashi and Yamato are at least partially nullified, and MisaKuro needs to come off the damn restriction list. While these are all value plays with the money counter, simply tossing it at opponents ramming for 1 is probably just as valuable. I don’t know how obvious what I’m about to say really is, but higher amounts of damage are more likely to be cancelled naturally, meaning that using money counter on the 1 damage swing is often the correct play. Yes, 5 damage is scary, but if you’re at 3.4 and your opponent still has two 3-soul swings to come, it’s smarter to let it through.
The 3 stock cost is one of the big disparities this deck has in comparison to KC’s Compass – the premier play for that deck was playing several Akagis, drawing into multiple Compasses, and then just being as safe as you can really be in a normal WS game. The fact that you have to struggle for more than the one money counter (one per game is quite reliable) is a bit of a problem, but at the same time, you can push for game so fiercely that it often doesn’t matter – you’re also most likely ahead in the damage race anyway, courtesy of your climax plays.
4x Kyousuke, Stage On!
Kyousuke is a no-strings-attached finisher – one of two that you play in the YGB deck. It’s at 4 while Sashimi is at a 3-count because you can sometimes cheat him into play early and have him occupy a lane for the rest of the game. It’s also a lot less pressure on the hand to throw down multiple Kyousukes as opposed to multiple Sadomis. The Musashi effect is as good as ever – basically guaranteeing at least one more damage and pushing your opponent one step closer to their inevitable death (as written by Kanata). You have to be very aware of what sets have ways to play around Kyousuke – DC, KC, LB, MK, SS and LH. Persona and FT have roundabout methods as well. Against these sets, you should think very carefully about when to use Kyousuke, if at all. LH and SS in particular demand that you focus more on Sidisi instead.
It’s really not an issue to just throw this guy down and assume he’ll do work. He will.
3x “Words of Reunion” Sasasasasasasasasagami
Salena is one of the best unassisted clock kicks in the game, simply because she’s so damn generic. The requirement for an extra 2k power is hilariously easy, and the fact you pay the cost after the clock kick (and not on-play) is extremely good (albeit a tad antisynergistic with her power requirement), simply because you can confirm whether or not you need to pay at all. Oh, and she’s in a fine colour for the series. Being 12k on the swingback is great against most restanders, and makes for a (slight) obstacle to opposing clock kicks. Remember to keep Sadako in a side row, lest you get run over by a Marika with multiple assists behind her.
The issue with focusing heavily on Sabrina for your endgame is that she *will* get quite hand-intensive, and your major advantage engines will probably have had their run by the time you get to using her. You won’t often be filling your hand up a lot without taking additional clock damage. This has literally never been an issue for me so long as I’ve adjusted to how the game goes – if you play it right and get Kyousukes when you need to, you will consistently have just enough cards in hand to close out the game while still keeping a backup finisher or money counter in reserve. This is honestly a tad undesirable. However, since it happens so damn often, it has since become (in my opinion) the mark of a fine-tuned deck. On that note, the extra endgame hand cards garnered from triggering bars is one of the major reasons I choose to play bar climaxes over the wind climaxes that the US winning deck favoured.
1x “Our Story” Riki
Riki is a cute card, and you do often have the opportunity to get mileage out of either (or both) of his effects. The issue, however, is that you cannot ever afford to prioritise him with 1/0 Rin – either you’re grabbing a Kyousuke for early play potential, getting an antiheal to consolidate your finishing push, or rounding off your hand with a Sasasasasasawa. It’s rare that you will be focusing around him at Level 3, but if you’ve managed to keep a brainstorm handy, you can often grab him from your bin if you happen to have the bar climax in hand, or if you just want that +3k power. The 3k gets you past counter range on a surprising number of things, and worst case scenario, you treat Riki as a 13k that trades for your opponent’s counter.
The climax combo itself isn’t really an advantageous play. All it does is heal under antiheal, and the bar trigger on the climax is the real reason I play the bars in the first place. While the old build of the deck focused around the combo, this version of the deck is a lot greedier – you only really use the effect if the stars align naturally, or if you’re at 3.6 and need to not die by refresh.
It’s very reasonable to toss in a Komari heal (or any blue heal) in this card’s place, but I would continue to use bars regardless.
4x We Should Date
4x Little Busters!
The climax choices for this deck are actually somewhat contentious. The +2 souls are a fixed 4-of mainstay, and are around half of the reason the deck is so bloody degenerate. Teching any number of 2k1s in is a bad idea. I don’t care that the colours match, I don’t care that you occasionally get to bash over things, I don’t care that you like in-built cantrips. Just don’t do it unless it’s out of necessity (read: you don’t have a full playset of the +2 soul). If you don’t have the +2 souls, the deck is probably straight-up worse than the (admittedly quite strong) Twins.dec.
The secondary climax is where it gets interesting. First, do not even think about playing climaxes without a global soul buff. There is no reason to fill the deck with more random 2-soul triggers, and there definitely isn’t any reason to give up on pushing damage in a deck that races this well. Cutting gates out of the equation, we’re left with Shot, Bounce, Bag, Bar, Book and Pants.
As always, we want to examine the climax combos. There are no good Bag or Book combos, and neither of those triggers are so good that they automatically trump the others. That only leaves Shot, Bounce, Bar and Pants.
The only shot combo worth thinking about is the Level 3 Rin. We already have too many good, non-combo finishers to bother playing many of those. It was worth thinking about before Card Mission dropped, but now it’s just not worth it. It’ll be a vanilla heal most of the time, because you damn well aren’t playing the change (or the bonder to the change, or any level supports to keep it fat once you change). The shot trigger itself is fine, but your finisher power isn’t exactly weak to begin with.
Bounce was the favoured combo in the US Nats build. It’s fairly easy to see why – the 2/1 Yuiko effect matched up quite well against Nisekoi, which crutched on 3/2 Onodera (easily overwhelmed by a 14k+ Yuiko) and occasionally on 1/0 clock encores (which fall to the same). It also did very well against LH’s Akatsuki, KC’s Yahagi, LL’s Umi and the entirety of Angel Beats. The only other bounce combo even worth thinking about is from the LB Vanilla set – a 1/0 that had a command bounce effect. However, I don’t think there’s enough stuff that gets poached by bounce effects, random or non-random. The most you’ll generally get is some value from bouncing a 1-cost thing, because the majority of 2-cost cards in the meta give value when they’re played. The benefit of Bar and Pants is fairly evident. You get more climaxes to hand, and those climaxes move you towards throttling the opponent – especially Pants. Therefore, those make my shortlist for climaxes to play.
For the Bar combos, we have a choice between the TD Riki from the LBA TD, Level 3 Haruka from LBA, and the 2/1 Rin from Refrain. TD Riki is fine and doesn’t demand you focus on him – it’s not amazing, but it’s serviceable. If you don’t decide to focus on any given combo, this (or no combo) is probably the frontrunner choice.
Level 3 Haruka is demonstrably worse than Sasashi in the majority of situations, and the edge cases where her -1 Soul wins out are not worth the Level 3 slots she would otherwise occupy. No, she doesn’t have to discard when you clock kick, but you do have to play a climax, meaning that you go -1 all the same. If you have two Haruka on the field, you may as well just play Twins.dec. There is no reason to run a lower number of Sabini to accomodate Haruka, because it’s just adding more and more conditions onto what would otherwise be a strings-free finisher lineup.
Finally, 2/1 Rin. I have a lot of issues with this card. Firstly, it adds an excessive level of greed to an already-greedy deck. Yes, you get an insane amount of stock quickly. Yes, you have the power to play multiple money counters with ease. However, you lose so much control. Blind stock is not a good thing. Unless it is verifiably clean, it is something I aim to pay out as soon as possible. If you play this combo, you will often be getting at least two Rins on the field, putting a total of 4+ unknown cards in stock. This is less troubling if you immediately use your money counter afterwards, but there’s a problem with that rebuttal. Who said you wanted to money counter right afterwards? You can’t recur these counters very easily, and the only way you can get them, aside from drawing them naturally, is either by clocking, or pulling them to clock with utility Level 0s. You’re forced to either keep some amount of unknown stock, or you pay it out immediately for questionable purpose, and I dislike both of those options.
The last little criticism I have of this card is that you will usually refresh with the bar outside of your discard. Blind stockcharges do come from your deck, you know, and perhaps you had to brainstorm to get your second 2/1 Rin. Whether the bar is still in play or in your hand, that is one further climax that often doesn’t go back into your deck. It’s safe to say that I don’t like this climax combo, but I think I would still play it before I bother with the Haruka clock kick.
The bar trigger itself is great. You’ll charge blind stock, sure, but the likelihood of that being a climax is far lower than if you had triggered literally any other climax in the game (mostly because literally every other climax is a guaranteed climax in stock, kek). Next, you get a climax to play (or clock) next turn. You can also trigger it and immediately ditch it to a Tatami clock kick. This all contributes towards the rather violent goal of the deck. Lastly (and not insignificantly), it’s the only +1 trigger that shares a colour with the unfortunate green +2 soul. It’s yet another card you can clock to allow the PR +2 souls to hit the field.
Pro tip: If you want to stop LB from going the hell off, stick them at 0.5 or 0.6. They probably won’t be able to play both yellow and green on the next turn, at which point you can punish them for holding their climaxes by making them skip Level 1.
Finally, we come to Pants. 2/1 Saya and 1/0 Kyousuke are the only viable climax combos with Pants in LB, and both do a similar thing – they allow you to maintain a field of characters even if you ram headfirst on all three lanes. Saya is a much better character in general, though you will likely not be using her change effect (who knows), while Kyousuke has the rather niche application of letting you reuse 3/2 Kyousukes and Satifas. I think that, if you were to play one, you’d be playing the Saya, and likely in conjunction with a one- or two-of Level 3. The simple ability to ram in for 2-2-2 and keep some blockers on the field is honestly quite tempting, but forcing blue at Level 2 (as opposed to letting it be sort-of optional until Level 3) puts a lot of strain on your hand and clock management. All in all, neither combo is super-impressive, but perhaps the unsupported Pants trigger itself will be good enough?
I initially really liked the idea of having these in the deck, as they let you recur the +2 souls so much more readily. After further thought, I decided that they weren’t a great idea. The issue with it that you will rarely get full value out of a second climax combo. Your search targets will likely all be in your hand or discard by the time you get around to using it a second time, and if you’re holding the +2 soul through your refresh, that’s a bit unfortunate. Moreover, +2 soul climaxes lose power as the game progresses, because even the least skilled of players will have a more compressed deck once refresh happens. The reason rushes work best at Level 1 or 2 is because the opponent has generally not done anything to alter their compression ratio. You’re taking advantage of a window during which the opponent just doesn’t have good defences against.
Out of all of this, I decided that bars are still the best triggers to play. If you want my reasoning, then feel free to re-read everything I just typed. I’ll be waiting.
Now that I’m done talking about what made the cut (and why), I’m going to move on to what is arguably the more important part – the cards that DIDN’T make the cut (and why).
This Komari just isn’t good once you drop the 2k1s climaxes. You no longer kill anything of note with its buff. I also believe that clock encore is a more valuable ability to have than the extra 1k you would get from playing the 1/0 6ks (Komari and Kyousuke), which is another factor in my decision not to include this card. You basically need to play bigger beaters, or else you aren’t even going to get into counter range of more sizeable Level 1 fields. Even if it could buff any character, I’m not too sure I would play this card.
This Sishami assist is actually fine. I just think that Yuiko does the tap pay-2 thing better, because the ability to search Riki easily trumps the ability to search clock encores and clock kicks. This doesn’t even take into account the fact you can get Kyousukes, which are arguably the better spammable finisher anyway. Sorry Somomi, you’ll have to stick to your own deck.
The Sasami brainstorm would actually be my second one of choice over the Kud, but I addressed Kud first due to the heavy saturation of plussing brainstorms in most prominent sets. This card is fine because you can manipulate soul (the power is nigh-irrelevant for most cases), but you have to think about the spectrum. Haruka is useful at basically any point during a match, while Sasami is only really useful later on. Why? Well, this particular deck cares less about soul manipulation and more about smacking your opponent with blunt objects repeatedly. Adding an extra point of damage when you’re about to slam a +2 soul climax… yeah, I don’t see this as being too helpful. Yes, it’s crude, but it’s often very effective. It’s very defensible to play at least one of these, though.
Rin is just not that good in this deck. Every function she has is either irrelevant or fulfilled just as well by Haruka. She’s perfectly fine in other decks, where the additional power will often be the difference between being countered and being out of counter range, but you’ll be lucky to even get into counter range at all with this Level 1 spread. Basically, you eschew this for the same reasons you eschew the Komari I mentioned above. It’s not that either is a bad card, it’s more that you’re much better off playing climaxes and siding.
The various 2-cost plusses are defensible in this deck, but Riki and Rin together search practically anything you could possibly want, and Haruka generally has salvage locked up. I would try to steer clear from these, because the various assists do a good enough job of garnering you value for 2-cost, and you want to conserve your stock as much as you can anyway – extreme compression is one of this deck’s alternate wincons.
You already have a mandatory 4-of blue card. You may as well choose another colour for your beaters, if you absolutely need to have beaters at all. LB is a deck that wants to capitalise as much as it can on its incredible versatility in the mid- and endgame, and cards that are only ‘ok’ at Level 0 and basically nothing but fodder afterwards… nah. You’re playing a competitive goodstuffs, not a Saya waifu deck.
It’s a little more defensible to argue for yellow beaters, but yellow’s Level 0 utility cards are so much better than what green has to offer, making green a better choice for your 3.5ks slots. Additionally, yellow is such a core colour at every level that you have plenty of fixing for it. Half the time you won’t even be using 1/1 Kyousuke, so there you go.
If you’re conservative, you could consider playing one of these. These characters’ main function will obviously be to protect from climax flooding, but this deck’s natural defence from that is simply playing your climax combos and winning the damage race. If you have so many climaxes in hand that you absolutely need an additional discard outlet, you’ve likely lost already. Of these, the best one to play is the Saya, simply because it actually saves you in situations that basically nothing else can save you in. It’s also a hand encoreable beater.
It’s not at all wrong to play cards like this Kyousuke or Komari. One of the very first topping builds of this deck ran the 2k1s and a heavy focus on the 1/1 Kyousuke assist, playing the full complement of 4. That results in a 2k buff to the center, which is pretty sizeable. Add that to the fact that Kyousuke cannot be countered with character punches, and you had a pretty decent kill card, sitting at a pretty 10k after 2k1s. The problem with this isn’t just that you’re missing out on the soul rush – there are some decks that you simply won’t be beating over consistently, because YGB LB is not built for that. In order to compete with the power decks of today, you have to warp your deck build around a mediocre 1/1 support (whose second effect may not even be relevant), play 1/0 and 0/0 counters that won’t be helping at all when it comes to some of your other cards, AND you need to run the 2k1s to really beat over things.
Honestly, as much as I’m soapboxing here, it’s fine to have a Kyousuke or two in the deck. Your backrow definitely doesn’t need to be two Kyousukes – one will do the job just fine, giving you a 7.5k if you have any other generic support in the back. Add the anti-counter ability in, and you probably will manage to kill something relevant. I just don’t think that it’s worth it, since the decks you can beat this way probably have Encore (or don’t care about losing field, like LB itself), and in order to fight bigger decks, you have to play so many power-centric cards that you kind of miss the point of the soul rush strategy.
There are two costless counters of note (not counting the promo Kanata). The former is pretty great against the likes of Nisekoi, Rewrite and Miku, mostly because your piddly 1/0s are still bigger than the 1/0 bombs they play. I still wouldn’t bother, I built my deck to lose its frontrow every turn and still not give a flop. The latter is… kind of weird, really. I have no idea why it featured in the US Nats list, and I continue to be baffled. It’s just not good at Level 1-2 unless you have a huge backrow (and even then you’re countering to what, 8k?), and later on you’d rather be spending your precious counter step throwing shekels at Musashi or a 3k counter at Marika. Thanks, but no thanks.
The main reason I choose not to play a mandatory mill counter is because it’s often not helpful. This deck has the potential to compress more than most, so the chances of you milling a climax are simply much higher than it would be with a normal deck. If you’re not well compressed, then it’s ok, but the payoff for having it in that situation isn’t so much better than the alternatives that I would actually make the swap. On the flipside, it IS in a much better colour than the majority of your alternatives, but that alone doesn’t cover for what I perceive as its shortcomings.
If I can say anything about this card, it’s that very few other cards have ever kept me awake at night, making me wonder exactly why the hell it’s ever been played in any deck, ever. Like, it checks topdeck when it gets front attacked, sure, but that is NOT enough to justify 2 stock on an unboosted 10k body, especially in a deck with guaranteed antidamage anyway. The other effect HAS to be the reason, right? If that’s the case, why oh why would you bother paying a cost like that when you can play a global soul climax (like the one you probably have to play in order to even turn the effect on) instead? It makes so little sense to me. You can’t even bounce backrow to reactivate Kyousukes in the Shana/LH matchups. I… I honestly can’t even think of good cards to bounce, sans like, Naotsugu from LH. Naotsugu is a card you can run over with appropriate boosts anyway. What. Even.
One of several more-than-vanilla heals you can consider playing. Healing on play is fine, especially if you’re in a matchup where you don’t need an antiheal ASAP. It can be a lifesaving play on occasion, too. This is actually a good card to hose Marikas with. In the case you just money countered a Marika, you can easily murder one of their other characters, then designate Marika as the character who won’t be standing again next turn. In order to swing at you with Marika again, they’ll have to play over her and salvage it, which, while not impossible, is an absolute chore. Aside from that, you can quite easily force the opponent to field more cards or push backrow up, which is nice, I guess. This is a slightly retarded combo with the 0/0 Yuiko bomb, but don’t go pretending that’s a reason to put more than one of this card into the deck.
Saya is slightly less desirable than Kud because brainstorming (or yellow Pendant’ing) through the deck is generally easier than having to play over and salvage. A serviceable card that can sometimes remove Encore characters, and one that can be changed into, to boot. The real advantage that comes with this card is the excuse to also play the 2/1 changer and her Pants trigger, which seems pretty fine. Forcing a blue Level 2 card in a deck that wants both green and yellow at Level 1 can get a bit awkward, but I’m sure you can make it work if you try. I still think this card is better suited to be in a deck with less greedy colour requirements.
Last but certainly not least, Komari is arguably the best choice for your splashable heal. This is because her second effect is another one of those that basically guarantees 1 damage. The issue is, you rarely want to use that ability unless that 1 damage is actually going to push you to victory, because chances are that you’re ditching your last two cards (one of which might well be a money counter). It’s not even a cost you pay when the attack cancels – you basically have to toss resources and hope you get some mileage out of it, which doesn’t really appeal to me. I mean, sure, it’s another ‘finisher’, but you were hardly starved of those to begin with. It’s definitely a card that a lot of people play in their builds, but I’m not convinced that it plays a role better than that of Kyousuke or Sesame.
There you have it. An extremely solid deck that cannot be easily disrupted and has arguably the best endgame of any series in WS. While it is reliant on getting the +2 soul to hand, it is inordinately powerful when it does, moreso than any other Level 1 climax combo centered deck in the game (with the possible exception of Do-Dai).
So, why doesn’t it see play in Japan? Japan is normally an excellent source for determining the JP game’s meta. People there take the game more seriously than almost anyone outside of the island nation, making for a metagame that develops rapidly and hits a ceiling just as rapidly. There’s a reason the same decks keep topping – these decks are good. If that’s the case, why isn’t LB anywhere to be found? Every tier list ripped off 2chan in the past few months has had a conspicuous lack of LB, or else has had it placed below the likes of SAO, DC and every possible build of KC, which I find to be blatantly incorrect. To get the answer, let us delve into an example from an entirely different cardgame – the Pokemon Trading Card Game.
If you’ve played Pokemon in the past few years, you’ll be well-acquainted with a card called Tropical Beach. It was a tremendously powerful Stadium card that, once played, allows both players to draw until they have 7 cards at any point during your turn. The cost is that your turn immediately ends. While this might not sound amazing (it is, trust me), many extremely powerful setup decks would pass in the first few turns of the game, meaning that having this card basically gave them an extra few cards at the end of each of their turns. We all know the value of extra cards. This card starred as a 3-of in many, many decks worldwide, and many players believed that some of the decks running this, such as Blastoise and Accelgor/Gothitelle, were the outright best decks in the game. However, very few people ran the card at all. And why was that the case?
Simple. The card’s only distribution was at two Worlds events. Each worlds participant got a sheet of nine, and anyone who made it to Top 32 got a further sheet for each victory. These sheets contained Tropical Beaches of various languages, but Pokemon has a language lock rule in effect, meaning that each sheet would only have a maximum of 2 or 3 legal copies for any given region. In short, the supply of Tropical Beaches was stupidly low. Because of this, many players were pigeonholed into playing other decks, even though those decks might not be what they believed to be the strongest tournament contender.
Fast forward to today. Tropical Beach has rotated out of format for 95% of the world, and is now illegal outside of specific formats. However, it should have remained legal in Japan. Japan plays a different format to the rest of the world, and Tropical Beach should have logically remained playable. However, Japan banned the card. They banned it because there was a ridiculous scarcity of the Japanese version, making it extraordinarily difficult to get those cards. It was literally an unfair advantage to have those cards. Japan is used to easy availability. In the Team Galactic SP era, cards like Luxray G Lv.X were going for $30-70 USD, depending on the time of year. However, the card’s price in Japan stayed lower than $10 USD for almost its entire competitive lifespan. The reason? Japan printed supremely-playable Ultra Rares in Trial Decks. Japan has a very different cardgaming culture, and values strategy and optimisation more than many other communities. The huge number of singles-toting cardgame stores in Akihabara and its regional equivalents should tell you that off the bat. However, some cards simply cannot be found, which leads me to my main point.
The LB promo +2 soul is bloody impossible to find. This would be fine if it was just an ancient, rare version of a card in common circulation (an example would be this 2/1 Komari, which has four versions total). However, it is not. It is a unique card, and is only available in promo form. It was given out at one of the very first Bushiroad events, and has not been reprinted since. Very few people have it, and even fewer people are willing to sell them. Some lucky people have had them forever, while others have gotten them off auction sites in the past few months. Others are just stone out of luck.
There simply isn’t a reason to scour stores and wring out the web for copies of a climax that goes for $60 USD+ apiece. There isn’t a reason to drop $400-500 on a deck when you can make a super-competent Nisekoi or KC deck for under half of that price. Nisekoi has amazing zone control and can easily set up a ridiculous endgame. GFB can sort of mimic what YGB LB can do, it just lacks the money counters. KC is KC. Why would you throw money at a deck that isn’t even clearly the best in the game, and a deck that’s often a little bit hit-and-miss?
This admittedly rational attitude means that LB will never be popular, and decks that fail to be popular will fail to top widely. People in Japan do not just treat this as a waifu game – they take it seriously. However, they don’t take it so seriously as to universally cough up for what is only a moderate upgrade to yellow GFB.
I guarantee you that LB would be more popular if they had printed the +2 soul in the Refrain booster (or re-released it as a shop promo). This is the only real limiting factor on what is otherwise an extraordinary deck. Not only is it extraordinary, but it still has a long way to go before an optimal list is threshed out for any given metagame. I’m still changing out cards almost weekly because the cardpool affords you a deceptively large number of niche options, all of which do extremely well in various metagames.
Edit: LB topped in Osaka as I drafted this article – one of the two decks that |
els game from Anaheim on the television. As we found a table, Sammy Sosa threw an Angel out at the plate. It was a good sign. Bill never likes to stray too far from baseball. He keeps close tabs on the game and has many interesting theories about sports in general. One is his Civic Metropolitan Trauma Theory, whereby cities undergoing disasters and strife are likelier to be blessed with sports championships. It is not statistically verifiable, however.
Also, his theory about the National League East this year is that the team that eats the most protein will win. “That bodes well for the Mets,” he says, “because in New York, they eat their own, whereas in Pittsburgh they eat pure anthracite.”
Bill ordered the swordfish. I had the crab.
“You mind if I smoke?” he asked me. Your mother would like Bill. He has these manners. “Manners are the only thing left,” Bill said to me.
We tried to watch the White Sox game but people kept appearing from the dimness. The closer they got to the table, the more they all took on the look of subjects in a Diane Arbus photograph, or a Fellini film cast by Woody Allen.
“I want to talk to you about this idea I have for a theme restaurant—you and Belushi,” said a man waving a cigar the size of the Graf Zeppelin. (This is a recurring theme; in Pompano Beach, a woman who wanted Bill to ride on her Harley asked him. “How’s Belushi?” “He’s dead,” said Bill. “Yeah, I know,” she said, shaking her head.)
The man with the cigar kept trying to buy us drinks, although Bill was just drinking La Croix water, because it’s bottled in La Cross, Wisconsin, and they just turned it into French to sell it. Bill will drink anything made in Wisconsin.
Then another man left his woman friend at the bar to sidle up to Bill and introduce himself as a producer. He had something to do with the camera angles at Wrigley Field. About ten minutes later, when she realized that the man had no intention of summoning her, the woman sidled over, too. She was dressed in a black leotard top, and she had black hair and dark eyes and very white skin. She told us she didn’t like baseball as much as she liked hockey, which she said she liked because the athletes beat each other up. Bill and I exchanged glances.
“Are you out on the coast most of the time?” said the producer. “Yeah,” Bill said, “the East Coast.”
“Really?” said the man.
“I like the air,” Bill said.
“Yeah, but what about the females on the West Coast?” the man said, and he actually winked like Eric Idle used to in Monty Python skits.
“Well, I like to talk to the women I meet,” Bill said. The man didn’t get it. Bill was trying to watch the White Sox Angels game.
“Did you know,” he finally said to the man, “that one out of ten people comes from California? Is that frightening, or what?” The man left. Another one took his place, a much older man. “I used to know Georg’e Raft,” he said.
“I dated George Raft,” Bill said.
A woman came over to tell Bill that he didn’t seem very animated.
“I’m emotionally down because the Cubs lost,” he said. “If they’d won I’d be out ripping the antennas off cars.”
A woman came over with a glass full of clear liquor. Her eyes swam in her head the way the ice cubes swam in her glass. It apparently hadn’t been her first drink. She said she worked for the Illinois secretary of state.
“You look like the kind of person I could go on a kill spree with,” Bill said. “Knock over a few gas stations, kill a few people.” She did, too.
“Listen—I’ve struggled, darling,” she said as if she were on stage. People tend to approach Bill as if they were auditioning for really bad parts in life.
As we left the restaurant, the cigar man tried to pay the check.
Bill wouldn’t let him. As we left the guy was yelling, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” as if we’d insulted him or something.
On the street, a man in a wheelchair told Bill he’d been shot in the back because he refused to join a street gang. He asked Bill for enough money to stay in the Y. He had an upper body like Lawrence Taylor’s.
“I gotta think you could be applying yourself more, Roger,” Bill said, and Roger didn’t seem to disagree. Then Bill gave him more than enough money to stay for a night at the Y, and said that he hoped he wouldn’t see him back at the same spot on the street later that night. “I mean it,” Bill said, and judging from the expression on Roger’s face, I don’t imagine he’s returned to the spot yet.
Back at the bar in Bill’s hotel, Fleetwood Mac had a bodyguard named Roman who looked as if he’d sprung from the cellar of David Lynch’s imagination. He had a smile like he was being
shocked by electrodes. Bill asked the bartender for an aquavit. Everyone in Fleetwood Mac immediately asked for an aquavit. They were wearing a lot of silver jewelry and black clothes. Every few minutes one of them invited Bill to accompany them on their jet the next night to Columbus, Ohio. Bill smiled politely a lot. Mick Fleetwood drank everyone’s aquavit before they could, and kept saying profound things in an elegant voice. Then he invited Bill up to his suite to listen to his late father’s poetry. Bill could tell it meant a lot to Mick, so he agreed. Besides which, the band’s conversation had reached the level of chatter between tree slugs.
The poetry was pretty good. It was on a cassette. There were a couple of dozen beers arranged on ice in a huge silver bowl, like shrimp cocktails, only they were beer bottles. Mick offered us beers but none of the fruit.
Bill had an 8:30 radio appearance the next morning, so we left at 3: 15. As Mick saw us to the door, he asked me what he’d said that I’d written down on the corner of my Cubs program while we were at the bar, and so I read it.
“The English, the English,” I quoted. “The English are the hushpuppy brigade continuing to trample the world in disgrace.”
“You’re the only one who has that,” Mick Fleetwood said, nodding, with a smile. He’s right. I am.
Down on Michigan Avenue, Bill and I were the only people on the street. A very warm wind was buffeting the buildings. For some reason, it carried the scent of newly mowed grass, We agreed to meet on the same corner the next morning. Mike Harkey was starting for the Cubs, and we had good seats again.
On the radio show, someone from Elgin called in to ask him about his movie. Among other things, Elgin houses the Elgin Mental Health Center.
“Did you escape?” Bill said, “Are you one of those guys who climbs the sidewalk and kills people in his car?” The man didn’t laugh. The radio host asked Bill about the Cubs.
“I think they need a few laughs,” Bill said.
I met him on the street corner. He had a white T-shirt and a blue sweater under his arm. The cabdriver said he’d had a bad day. Bill asked him if he was the kind of cabdriver who said he’d had a bad day to get a big tip. The man insisted he’d had a bad day. Bill gave him grief most of the way. When we reached Wrigley, Bill tipped him $20 and told the man to spend it on an activity that family newspapers are reluctant to talk about, although it’s legal between consenting adults in most states.
Then we got more Polish sausage on Waveland Avenue.
A girl in a tank top with a Felix the Cat tattoo on the back of her left shoulder tried to sell him a Bart Simpson T-shirt. We were both feeling the effects of not getting much sleep, and the girl asked him why he was so crabby. I think he resisted the impulse to plant her upside down in one of the bushes. Instead he said, “That’s a nice tattoo. I bet you got one somewhere else.” If she did, she didn’t show us.
The Cubs had given us good seats again, but the team wasn’t playing any better. Our vendor wasn’t working, and the beer was never cold. In the top of the sixth the Expos scored three runs. A woman from a television network who had an anchor apprentice smile asked him to come watch her team play softball that weekend.
“Well,” Bill said, “maybe I’ll come by and insult you.”
“That’d be great,” she said.
A teenage girl asked him for an autograph.
“This girl smells really nice,” he said to me.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re very sweet.”
“She really smelled good,” he said after she left. Another one took her place. She said her name was Jennifer.
“Jennifer, you’re a total babe,” he said. “Now go on. Get out of here.”
To a lot of people who kept coming up, he said, “You don’t understand. There’s a baseball game going on.” Once he said, “Hey! There’s a two-and-one count here!”
It was a strange game that afternoon, error-filled and back-and-forth. Bill likes games with errors. “A rally of a double and an error and another double, that’s somehow more exciting to me,” he said. “That’s the real game. Human error.”
In the bottom of the eighth it was tied. Bill had to do Siskel live in twenty minutes, back downtown. We decided to stay anyway. But then Jerry Goff hit a home run for the Expos in the top of
the ninth.
“Jerry Goff?” Bill said softly.
We found a cab and Bill said to the driver, “Can you get us to the CBS studios in eight minutes?”
“Sure,” the driver said, and I think he thought he was in a movie. He screeched the tires and missed a baby carriage by a foot and a half. We headed down Lake Shore Drive like one of those cars in a video driving game. The driver literally screeched up to the curb at CBS. A woman was holding the doors open, looking at her watch. Bill said, “Excuse me,” and ducked into the men’s room. He came out a moment later wearing the clean T-shirt and the blue sweater. He’d stuck his head under the sink and combed all his hair straight back. Siskel was wearing clothes that looked like he’d stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue six minutes ago. The anchor people segued into Siskel and Bill.
“Bill Murray’s movies,” Siskel said, by way of introducing Bill, “average one hundred million dollars gross,” as if it had anything to do with anything. Bill didn’t get animated until Siskel asked him about the Cubs. When Siskel asked him how the studio had come to let him direct his latest film, Bill said. “Sometimes when it’s three-and-oh, they let you swing away.”
Outside the studio, back on the street, Bill’s studio’s publicist had produced a limousine the size of a stretch DC-9. He’d been trying to get Bill to ride in limos for two~days. This time Bill acquiesced, as a favor to the publicist, who belongs to the age when publicists knew how to publicize, but liked nothing more than making their stars feel like stars. He’d say things to Bill like, “Need anything? Plane tickets? Money?” And Bill~would say, “No thanks.” In the back of the limo, the publicist had Paris on the car phone, and so Bill talked to Paris for a minute. There were crystal glasses in the bar, but there wasn’t any time to use them because the hotel was about six blocks from the CBS studio. In fact, the limo was so big we probably could have gotten in one end at the studio and gotten out the other at the hotel without the car actually moving.
Bill’s hotel room was on the forty-fourth floor, facing north. You could see Greenland. A basketball sat in a window sill, looking north up the shore of the lake like someone pining away for something.
Bill changed into a purple shirt and blue jeans and we crossed the street to the cocktail party introducing the Chicago Cubs calendar. Jerome Walton was wearing enough jewelry to anchor a Japanese supertanker. We took some vodka-and-tonics off the trays that kept arriving on the arms of tuxedoed young men, and lamb chops with orange sauce. I put my bones in mv pocket, in
their napkins.
Mark Grace introduced Bill to a guy with long hair and a cowboy hat. He was the lead singer of a band called Restless Heart. They are apparently very big in white baseball circles. The Cubs all seemed relieved to have Bill to talk to, instead of having to talk to the other guests at the party, who clearly did their shopping at this store, but were not acting as cool as you’re supposed to act when your shirt costs $190. They clotted around Bill so that eventually he had to stand behind the sales counter. A man in a $6,000 suit—I’d guess—asked him what his plans were.
“I’m supposed to be making a movie in the fall,” Bill said, “but I’m going to try and get out of it.”
“Oh,” the man said, and went to look for the bar, which was up near the neckties.
We took a cab to Ditka’s. At a stoplight we stopped next to a Mercedes painted the color of mold, driven by a woman in dark glasses with a scarf over her hair. Bill leaned out the window.
“Nice color!” he said. “Hey, I’ll bet $10 you just quit smoking and drinking!”
When the light changed, she didn’t move. She looked as if someone had just hit her with a cattle prod.
We joined Grace and Sutcliffe and Steve Wilson and the lead singer of Restless Heart at a table in the Hall of Fame Room, where a man played lounge songs on an electric piano with a plaque that read “Myles Green at The Piano.” Myles was exactly like the lounge singers Bill used to imitate, and by the size of his smile when he recognized Bill, you’d have thought he sensed the irony of it all, but judging by the music he played, he apparently didn’t.
There were about thirty-five televisions up on the walls, all showing a Giants Cardinals game. Every time Will Clark came up, Mark Grace watched very intently. The Cubs asked Bill about his movies.
Bill steered the conversation back to baseball. He told them they’d probably turn it around on the West Coast trip.
“I’m going to give you guys a joke book,” Bill said. He was convinced they weren’t having enough fun this year. He was right. “We need it,” Grace said.
“We need something,” Sutcliffe said.
Bill ordered Diana Ditka’s chicken. It had a sauce with a lot of peas in it. When the kid showed up asking for an autograph, Bill shot out of his chair, grabbed the kid by the lapels of his shirt, picked him up two feet in the air and lowered him onto the table a few inches from Diana Ditka’s peas, and shook him in mock anger. The kid was laughing. Bill let him up and signed the autograph. Then, just when the kid thought he was safe, Bill grabbed him and did it again. The Cubs were more or less falling out of their chairs.
I think Bill was doing it for the Cubs, so they’d start winning.
Then a woman with white-blonde hair in a black leather skirt, black halter top, exposed midriff, and a lot of S&M jewelry came over and handed Bill a piece of paper to sign.
He wrote, “Judy: Don’t Let Them Behead Us. Bill.”
“What does it say?” she said, peering at it closely. He read it aloud. She left.
On the walk back to the hotel, Bill found a baseball hat with elephants on it in the window of a tie store. He wanted to buy it for Jerome Walton, but the place was closed. It started to rain and we ducked into a piano bar in the lobby of a nice hotel. We each had a Pernod and water. No one recognized him. The pianist was much better than Myles, but since he hadn’t pasted a plaque with his name to the piano, we never found out who it was.
Back at Bill’s hotel, no one was in the bar. Fleetwood Mac had gone to Columbus, but Bill’s family had arrived in the RV. It was one of the great trades of all time.
At breakfast the next morning, Bill’ son Homer brought a baseball to the table and tried to cut it with a knife and fork while we were waiting for the eggs to come. Homer is a catcher. He once started a triple play with the bases loaded by grabbing a bunt, stepping on home, and throwing to first, where the first baseman threw on to third. He’s such a catcher that the thing he loves most is blocking the plate and getting run into and holding on to the ball, and he’s only eight. Luke, who is five, had the glove he’d given Bill for Father’s Day. It was a beautiful glove. They were all en route to a vacation. But there was one more Cubs game to go to.
We took the Geo to Wrigley, up Lake Shore Drive, past picnics and beachgoers, and got a good parking place in the lot across the street. Before the game Bill hung out with Zimmer in his office while Grace got bubble gum for Homer and Luke. In the Cubs weight room, Sutcliffe told us Cubs stories. Sutcliffe asked where the seats were, and Bill said,”Up among the weird and the damned.”
But on this day, the crowd was soft and comfortable, and it was a fine day for a baseball game. Someone gave Bill a Twizzler and didn’t ask for anything in return, and he took it. All afternoon, Luke’s green eyes lit up the whole ballpark, and after he saw everyone asking Bill for autographs, he handed his baseball to Bill, and Bill signed it “Dad” and gave it back to him, and Luke tucked it into the pocket of his glove.
Bill’s putting the kid in Diana Ditka’s peas to make the Cubs laugh had worked, because on this afternoon, Grace broke out of his slump, and Sandberg hit two home runs—two!—and Jeff Pico won easily. The vendor with the nice smile was back, and all of her beer was cold enough to freeze the roof of your mouth.
In the seventh, Larry Walker hit a home run for the Expos.
Bill said, “Larry Walker?” in a soft voice.
But the Cubs won easily.
Outside in the parking lot we made plans to see the Miracle. Then he went on vacation and I went to Wyoming. On the plane I read a magazine with Bill on the cover. At the beginning of the story about Bill, the writer said that Bill seems like the kind of guy you think you can go to baseball games with, but you can’t.
He was wrong. You can. You should try. Really. For one thing, you get the coldest beers.CIN-NYJ grades: A.J. Green dominates matchup with Darrelle Revis
By Josh Liskiewitz • Sep 12, 2016
Cincinnati Bengals 23, New York Jets 22
Here are the top-graded players and biggest storylines from the Bengals’ 23-22 win over the Jets.
Quarterback grade: Andy Dalton, 75.0
Andy Dalton sacked on seven of 12 pressured dropbacks
Deep passing was the key to Dalton’s game, and although he did throw his interception on a downfield attempt, he was otherwise perfect on throws longer than 20 yards in the air from the line of scrimmage, going four-for-four for 189 yards and a touchdown on his other deep tosses. He also had a QB rating of 134.6 on the 21 dropbacks on which he didn’t face pressure, as opposed to just 47.7 on the 11 on which the rush threatened him.
Top offensive grades:
WR A.J. Green, 93.0
LG Clint Boling, 81.0
LT Andrew Whitworth, 79.3
WR Brandon LaFell, 77.6
TE C.J. Uzomah, 77.0
Eight of Green’s 12 grabs came when Revis was the primary man in coverage—this does not include the 54-yard touchdown on which Revis was also beaten, but shared blame with S Marcus Gilchrist, who had blown the coverage altogether. Brandon LaFell also had an excellent Bengals debut, catching all four of his targets, taking advantage of Jets CB Marcus Williams on both. The duo combined for 16 receptions on 17 targets for 271 yards and a score.
Top defensive grades:
CB Joshua Shaw, 84.8
DI Geno Atkins, 82.7
EDGE Carlos Dunlap, 77.2
S George Iloka, 76.9
CB Adam Jones 76.6
Margus Hunt enjoys best game of his career
It’s worth noting that, although Hunt wasn’t among the top five highest-graded Bengals on defense, he also had the key extra-point block, which turned out to be the difference in the game. Hunt also batted down a pass and registered a hurry, graded positively against the run, and did a solid job of protecting the edge throughout the game. Shaw was targeted four times, giving up one catch which went for no gain, and notched a key interception on a slightly-underthrown corner route from Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Ryan Fitzpatrick struggles in intermediate and deep passing levels
Quarterback grade: Ryan Fitzpatrick, 70.5
Fitzpatrick struggled when he had to throw with velocity, as the ball seemed to flutter out of his hand at times. This led to struggles in his intermediate and deep passing game, as he completed just four of 10 passes longer than 10 yards from the line of scrimmage. The fact that he only attempted one pass longer than 20 yard downfield is a bit of a tell as to where the Jets think Fitzpatrick’s arm strength is right now.
Top offensive grades:
LG James Carpenter, 79.0
LT Ryan Clady, 78.8
RG Brian Winters, 77.8
C Nick Mangold, 77.6
WR Quincy Enunwa, 74.2
Jets’ offensive line grades well across the board
Geno Atkins was the lone Bengal to reach Fitzpatrick, but his sack was a cleanup off a scramble, and not charged to the offensive line. In all, the Jets’ line was charged with six hurries, no sacks, and no hits, a stat-line that will likely be one of the best of the season against the Bengals’ loaded defensive line. In addition to solid pass blocking, both guards graded extremely well on run blocks, as they did an excellent job of controlling the line of scrimmage and scraping to Cincinnati’s linebackers.
Top defensive grades:
DI Leonard Williams, 82.7
LB David Harris, 79.7
S Calvin Pryor, 77.0
DI Steve McClendon, 72.6
EDGE Josh Martin, 70.5
Leonard Williams continues to impress
The Jets’ defensive line was outstanding on the pass-rush, as the threesome of Williams, McClendon, and Wilkerson combined for seven sacks, two hits, and three hurries. Each of the three had multiple sacks, with Williams doing the most damage with three sacks, two hits, and two hurries. A missed tackle against the run put him on the minus-side of the category, but he was still the clear star of Jets’ defense.
Get access to grades for every player, complete with positional rankings, in our Player Grades tool.Photo: @capsroomies
Last year the Washington Capitals installed a display at Verizon Center honoring all the hat tricks scored at their home barn since 2008. It was a fantastic idea, especially featuring fans’ hats that had actually been thrown on the ice in celebration. The Caps expanded on that this offseason.
On the Gallery Place side of the arena, the team installed another display honoring the Caps’ two Winter Classic victories. It features summaries of the games on the left along with some game-used gear to the right. From what I can tell there’s a Tom Wilson jersey from the 2015 Classic, a Brooks Laich sweater from the 2011 edition of the game, Nicklas Backstrom’s gloves, and an Alex Ovechkin stick and skates.
Make sure to stop by and check it out.
Awesome new Caps WC display part 1 pic.twitter.com/5rZW0hWhxV — jess (@tjbroshie) September 22, 2015
Awesome new Caps WC display part 2 pic.twitter.com/AKumNmkFxs — jess (@tjbroshie) September 22, 2015
Awesome new Caps WC display part 3 pic.twitter.com/kH8vf4x2kA — jess (@tjbroshie) September 22, 2015
Photo: @TalkTheRed
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PinterestPradyuman Thakur was found, with his throat slit, inside the toilet of the school premises on September 8. (Photo: PTI/File)
New Delhi: Investigation in Pradyuman murder case has revealed illegality and destruction of evidence by Gurgaon police, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sources said on Sunday.
On Wednesday, the murder case of the seven-year-old Ryan International School student took a new turn after the CBI arrested a class 11 student of the same school and gave a clean chit to the bus conductor, who was arrested by the Gurgaon police for the murder and sexual assault of the child.
Pradyuman Thakur was found, with his throat slit, inside the toilet of the school premises on September 8.
The accused confessed to his crime in front of his father, the CBI had told a juvenile court last week.
The CBI said the accused committed the crime to postpone the parents-teachers meeting and the exams.
Meanwhile, the accused student has been sent to Faridabad observation home where he will be kept until the next hearing in the case on November 22.
Congress slams Haryana CM for influencing probe
Congress on Sunday slammed Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and BJP government in the state for party leaders allegedly trying to scuttle the police investigation into the murder of Class II student Pradhuman Thakur.
"Pradyuman Thakur Murder - CBI points fingers at BJP politicians and minister for scuttling police investigation as CM Khattar hurriedly gives clean chit," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala on Twitter attaching a news story with a headline CBI scans politicians' role in Ryan police probe.
"Will justice be made a scapegoat at the altar of political expediency?" he asked.Otto Warmbier in custody in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 16, 2016. (Photo: Kyodo/Reuters)
This is mindless moral relativism on a staggering scale.
Yesterday, as news of Otto Warmbier’s sad and tragic death spread across the Web, a number of people on Twitter recalled and reposted a series of leftist hot takes on Warmbier’s initial arrest and imprisonment. Let’s just say that they did not age well.
Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore was one of the chief offenders, launching one of his shows with an eight-minute festival of mockery that accepted the North Korean regime’s version of events, mocked Warmbier’s anguished tears, and even posted a graphic calling him an “ass” — based on the initials of a fictional fraternity. The message? Let’s mock frat bros when they go where Daddy can’t protect them. Doubt me? Watch for yourself:
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Wilmore wasn’t alone, of course. At the Huffington Post, self-described “revolutionary” writer La Sha went on an extended rant that once again accepted North Korea’s version of events and then imputed to Warmbier a bulletproof sense of white privilege. It ends like this:
What a mind-blowing moment it must be to realize after 21 years of being pedestaled by the world simply because your DNA coding produced the favorable phenotype that such favor is not absolute. What a bummer to realize that even the State Department with all its influence and power cannot assure your pardon. What a wake-up call it is to realize that your tears are met with indifference. As I’ve said, living 15 years performing manual labor in North Korea is unimaginable, but so is going to a place I know I’m unwelcome and violating their laws. I’m a black woman though. The hopeless fear Warmbier is now experiencing is my daily reality living in a country where white men like him are willfully oblivious to my suffering even as they are complicit in maintaining the power structures which ensure their supremacy at my expense. He is now an outsider at the mercy of a government unfazed by his cries for help. I get it. [Emphasis added.]
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This is mindless moral relativism on a staggering scale. For black women, the “daily reality” of life in the United States is like a North Korean labor camp? How can anyone read that statement with a straight face? If that’s true, why aren’t people streaming by the millions into Canada? Does La Sha understand what people do — what they risk — to flee North Korea? Has she not heard the stories of North Korean refugees?
I could go on. There was a mocking story in Salon (since deleted), and there were multiple mocking tweets (of course). And these outlets, while undeniably leftist, are hardly fringe. Larry Wilmore is a much-celebrated, mainstream liberal comic. The Huffington Post is one of the most trafficked websites in America. Citing these outlets is hardly like pulling up an obscure online pamphlet from a five-person revolutionary cell in Brooklyn.
I grew up in rural Kentucky and went to college at a conservative Evangelical college in Tennessee. So it’s a bit of an understatement to say that I had limited exposure to the Left before my days at Harvard Law School. I was immersed in a new culture, and what I encountered was both reassuring and ominous. And it’s the ominous side, unfortunately, that is coloring much of American debate.
I met liberals who are even today among the people I respect the most. They have keen intellects, gracious spirits, and virtuous goals. We disagree about means and sometimes disagree about ends, but I don’t doubt their ethics, intentions, or good faith. Liberal professors mentored me, I forged friendships that will last a lifetime, and I still learn from and appreciate the best expressions of liberal points of view.
Classmates told me to “go die” because of my pro-life speech.
But I also encountered cruelty and sheer malice. As I’ve written before, this was the era of the shout-down. This was an era not just of protests but also of malicious retaliation. Classmates told me to “go die” because of my pro-life speech. Some of my friends had their faces pasted on images of gay porn and posted around campus. Other friends were subject to campaigns to call future employers demanding that offers be revoked. The atmosphere was so toxic that GQ magazine wrote a piece describing the law school as “Beirut on the Charles.”
Yet in many ways Harvard embraced these hateful radicals. It gave them a home. It gave them a hearing. It gave them tenure. The most prestigious educational institution in the world was wrapping both its arms around some of the most vicious people I’d ever met. It was at Harvard that I came to understand the dynamic so powerfully described by Tom Wolfe in his legendary essay “Radical Chic.” All too many liberals admire radicals. They envy their commitment to the cause. They’re fascinated by their arguments, by their style, and by their very presence:
... and now, in the season of Radical Chic, the Black Panthers. That huge Panther there, the one Felicia is smiling her tango smile at, is Robert Bay, who just 41 hours ago was arrested in an altercation with the police, supposedly over a.38-caliber revolver that someone had, in a parked car in Queens at Northern Boulevard and 104th Street or some such unbelievable place, and taken to jail on a most unusual charge called “criminal facilitation.” And now he is out on bail and walking into Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s 13-room penthouse duplex on Park Avenue. Harassment & Hassles, Guns & Pigs, Jail & Bail — they’re real, these Black Panthers. The very idea of them, these real revolutionaries, who actually put their lives on the line, runs through Lenny’s duplex like a rogue hormone.
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The radicals mix with the liberals, and the liberals empower the radicals. What’s happening on college campuses today? A small fringe defies the rule of law, it shuts down free speech, and it sometimes even physically attacks speakers or their allies. It acts out of cruelty and sometimes even race-hate, spitting out the word “white” as if it’s inherently evil. And yet the liberal establishment caves into their demands (all while lauding their commitment to social justice), even issuing “stand down” orders to campus police that put innocent people in physical peril. The goal? To protect the safety of the rioters.
At best, mainstream liberals deliver mild slaps on the wrist, like the joke punishments given to protesters at Middlebury College. At best, a few brave souls will issue statements and write stern op-eds condemning censorship and academic intolerance. These voices are vital and appreciated, but it often feels as if they represent mere fingers in the dike — doing their best to hold back a torrent of radical rage.
The liberal response to Black Lives Matter is one of the best examples of this sad phenomenon. Millions of well-meaning Americans — justifiably eager for racial reconciliation and often deceived by misleading statistics and sometimes outright lies — have elevated an organization that has dedicated itself to the disruption of the “western-prescribed” nuclear family, celebrates cop-killers, and keeps mounting protests that turn violent (and sometimes even deadly).
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It’s too easy to say, “This is how we get Trump.” The issues go far beyond Trump. This is how we get polarization. This is how we get cocooning. This is one way that Americans learn to hate each other. This problem preceded Trump, and it will endure long after he leaves. It’s incumbent on each of America’s great political movements to do their best to police their own, and the Left has failed, utterly, to address the hatred in its midst. Instead its great institutions celebrate it, embrace it, and grant platforms for cruelty and malice. Otto Warmbier is but one victim. There are — and will be — many more to come.
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The Left Embraces Political Violence
We’re Not in a Civil War, but We Are Drifting Towards Divorce
Can a Divided America Survive?
— David French is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and an attorney.YESTERDAY, APPLE CEO TIM COOK published an open letter opposing a court order to build the FBI a “backdoor” for the iPhone.
Cook wrote that the backdoor, which removes limitations on how often an attacker can incorrectly guess an iPhone passcode, would set a dangerous precedent and “would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession,” even though in this instance, the FBI is seeking to unlock a single iPhone belonging to one of the killers in a 14-victim mass shooting spree in San Bernardino, California, in December.
It’s true that ordering Apple to develop the backdoor will fundamentally undermine iPhone security, as Cook and other digital security advocates have argued. But it’s possible for individual iPhone users to protect themselves from government snooping by setting strong passcodes on their phones — passcodes the FBI would not be able to unlock even if it gets its iPhone backdoor.
The technical details of how the iPhone encrypts data, and how the FBI might circumvent this protection, are complex and convoluted, and are being thoroughly explored elsewhere on the internet. What I’m going to focus on here is how ordinary iPhone users can protect themselves.
The short version: If you’re worried about governments trying to access your phone, set your iPhone up with a random, 11-digit numeric passcode. What follows is an explanation of why that will protect you and how to actually do it.
If it sounds outlandish to worry about government agents trying to crack into your phone, consider that when you travel internationally, agents at the airport or other border crossings can seize, search, and temporarily retain your digital devices — even without any grounds for suspicion. And while a local police officer can’t search your iPhone without a warrant, cops have used their own digital devices to get search warrants within 15 minutes, as a Supreme Court opinion recently noted.
The most obvious way to try and crack into your iPhone, and what the FBI is trying to do in the San Bernardino case, is to simply run through every possible passcode until the correct one is discovered and the phone is unlocked. This is known as a “brute force” attack.
For example, let’s say you set a six-digit passcode on your iPhone. There are 10 possibilities for each digit in a numbers-based passcode, and so there are 106, or 1 million, possible combinations for a six-digit passcode as a whole. It is trivial for a computer to generate all of these possible codes. The difficulty comes in trying to test them.
One obstacle to testing all possible passcodes is that the iPhone intentionally slows down after you guess wrong a few times. An attacker can try four incorrect passcodes before she’s forced to wait one minute. If she continues to guess wrong, the time delay increases to five minutes, 15 minutes, and finally one hour. There’s even a setting to erase all data on the iPhone after 10 wrong guesses.
This is where the FBI’s requested backdoor comes into play. The FBI is demanding that Apple create a special version of the iPhone’s operating system, iOS, that removes the time delays and ignores the data erasure setting. The FBI could install this malicious software on the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone, brute force the passcode, unlock the phone, and access all of its data. And that process |
. When attempting to decipher President Barack Obama’s plans toward Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, North Korea would be confronted with a dizzying array of contradictory US statements, crossed redlines, and reticence to fulfill declarations of intent. Pyongyang also sees an American public weary of war, an intensely divided US Congress, policymaker and pundit hawks and doves switching roles, and US allies even more reluctant than usual to participate in military action.
To the degree that North Korea can penetrate this confusing political morass, the regime is probably heartened by signs of a declining American willingness to intervene overseas even when confronted by evidence of the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Pyongyang will conclude that President Obama’s bold rhetoric, including that directed against North Korea, was unlikely to be backed with significant military action. The regime will incorporate this perceived American passivity into its decision-making in future confrontations with Washington and Seoul.
Despite this conclusion, North Korea will certainly publicly characterize US military action against Syria, however limited, as yet another example of a bloodthirsty rogue nation unconstrained by the international community. Pyongyang will justify the retention of a nuclear arsenal as necessary to deter a similar US attack, as it similarly claimed after the 2011 attack on Libya.
Obama—A Reluctant Warrior. Even if President Obama initiates a military strike against Syria, North Korean leaders will assess that it was done reluctantly and only by the US president feeling boxed in by his own words. When confronted with President Assad’s use of chemical weapons, which fulfilled Obama’s redline requirement for US military action, the administration first downplayed the evidence until it became irrefutable.
Obama’s delaying tactics and clear discomfort in having to pursue military action, suggests he may have uttered the last redline of his presidency. President Obama’s stunning attempt to distance himself and avoid responsibility from his own declared redline will only affirm North Korean perception of his unwillingness to act in the future. On September 4, 2013, Obama claimed, “I didn’t set a redline, the world set a redline.”[1]
Obama seems less like the iconic Marshall Will Kane in the classic American movie High Noon, willing to go it alone when confronting evil, and more like the guy in a bar secretly hoping his friends will stop the fight before he has to get involved.
During his G-20 press conference, President Obama plaintively explained, “I was elected to end wars, not start them. I’ve spent the last four and a half years trying to reduce our reliance on military power as means of meeting our international obligations.”
A Perplexing Political Landscape in Washington. Regardless of one’s own views of the need to intervene in Syria or of President George W. Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, these events have clearly influenced the current US political debate. Congressional deliberations have also been fueled by the changing and contradictory statements by President Obama and administration officials on the objectives of military action against Syria and vacillation on whether the president has inherent authority to attack without Congressional approval.
Ironies abound with many of the lawmakers and institutions that opposed Bush’s overseas interventions now supporting President Obama and vice versa. For example, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a fervent opponent of Bush’s actions, was instructed by its chairwoman to “limit public comment” on Syria. A CBC aide privately commented that the request was to “quiet dissent while shoring up support for President Obama’s Syria strategy.”[2] Liberal, traditionally anti-war Democrats and some hawkish Republicans now find themselves agreeing in their opposition to military intervention in Syria.
Minimalist Military Strikes. If President Obama carries out a military strike against Syria, it is likely to consist of a small number of cruise missiles against a limited number of military targets. The minimalist nature of the attack and its lengthy delay despite US assertion of irrefutable evidence of Syrian chemical attacks against civilians—including children—could be interpreted by Pyongyang as indicative of future US reluctance to respond to a North Korean attack.
The United States did not respond to two North Korean attacks against South Korea in 2010, including the shelling of a civilian island that killed 50 South Koreans. The Obama administration sought to dissuade Seoul from naval training exercises in December 2010 that were meant to deter follow-on attacks for fear it would lead to an escalatory North Korean response. South Korean military officers have told me that Washington also limited the scope of its own participation in joint naval exercises in the West Sea due to Chinese criticism.
North Korea might interpret that restraint as consistent with US unwillingness to respond to previous deadly attacks against US targets in 1968, 1969 and 1976. Nor did Seoul retaliate after several assassination attempts against its presidents, the downing of a civilian airliner, or the attacks on the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.
Emboldening Future North Korean Actions. North Korea has never been reticent to initiate provocations or military attacks against South Korean or US targets. The new leader Kim Jong Un has demonstrated that he is just as belligerent and dangerous as his predecessors. Kim was willing to raise tensions to perilous levels earlier this year with threats of nuclear destruction against Washington and Seoul.
When North Korea next decides to abandon its current charm offensive to return to a typically more confrontational policy, it may feel emboldened by the US debate on Syria to push the envelope still further.
Beyond President Obama’s discomfort in having to consider military action, North Korea will certainly notice the devastating effects of massive budget cuts on US military capabilities. The regime will likely discern the dramatic mismatch between the Obama administration’s claims of a “pivot to Asia” with the fact that there was no planned increase in US force levels in the Pacific. No US forces withdrawn from Iraq, Afghanistan or Europe were to be redeployed into the Pacific Theater.
Sequestration-mandated defense cuts of $500-600 billion, coming atop previous $480 billion in defense cuts imposed by Obama, will hinder US ability to respond to a crisis on the Korean peninsula. Already, one in three US Air Force combat planes have been grounded due to lack of funding and ships remain in port rather than on planned training exercises. The Marine Corps also has insufficient transport capability to fulfill its missions.
Pyongyang might even perceive a pivot away from Asia. In 2012, the Obama administration agreed to revise the Guam Agreement, the planned realignment of US Marines in the Pacific, by accepting an earlier drawdown of US forces from Okinawa than originally planned. Moreover, some Marines will be now be redeployed further east—away from potential conflict zones, including Korea—than originally envisioned, with some units going to Hawaii and California.
New US Secretary of State John Kerry even questioned the utility of the Asia Pivot. During his confirmation hearing, he commented, “I’m not convinced that the increased military ramp-up is critical yet. I’m not convinced of that.”[3]
Hardening North Korean Resolve to Retain Nukes. Pyongyang closely studies America’s foreign policy, taking cues from past actions against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. During the initial six weeks of the US attack on Iraq, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il hid from public view, thinking North Korea may be next on George W. Bush’s hit list.
Setting aside the debate as to whether North Korea ever intended to abandon its decade’s long quest for nuclear weapons as a negotiating chip, a dubious claim in this author’s view, Pyongyang uses US military attacks as public justification for maintaining its nuclear arsenal. The regime also hypes US military actions for domestic political purposes, blaming the country’s abysmal economic conditions and excessive military spending on the need to defend against a US threat.
In March 2011, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared:
[The] Libyan crisis teaches the international world a serious lesson. It was fully exposed before the world that Libya’s nuclear dismantlement much touted by the United States in the past turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the latter coaxed the former with such sweet words as ‘guarantee of security’ and ‘improvement of relations’ to disarm itself and then swallowed it by force. It proved [that] peace can be preserved only when one builds up one’s own strength.[4]
Pyongyang has made clear that it has no intention of complying with UN resolutions demanding its denuclearization nor fulfilling its Six Party Talks pledges to abandon its nuclear weapons. North Korea has declared:
“Pyongyang will not unilaterally abandon its war deterrence. North Korea’s nuclear weapons are the ultimate defender of national interest and a trusted shield to defend peace.” [5]
North Korea’s nuclear weapons “are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are neither a political bargaining chip nor a thing for economic dealings. The DPRK’s possession of nuclear weapons shall be fixed by law and the nuclear armed forces should be expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively.”[6]
“The six-party talks and the joint September 19 [2005] statement were rendered null and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was put to an end. There will be no more discussion over denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” [7]
North Korea revised its constitution in 2012 to declare itself a “nuclear-armed state.” [8]
“Those who talk about an economic reward in return for the dismantlement of [North Korea’s] nuclear weapons would be well advised to awake from their daydream.” [9]
“We have tightened our belts, braved various difficulties and spent countless amounts of money to obtain a nuclear deterrent as a self-defense measure against U.S. nuclear threats. Only fools will entertain the delusion that we will trade our nuclear deterrent for petty economic aid.”[10]
President Obama and the US Congress will debate and eventually resolve whether the US should initiate military action against Syria for its use of chemical weapons against its citizens. The effects of the decision will reverberate long after the dust from the initial attack has settled. And the repercussions will have significant impact far beyond Syria’s borders to throughout the Middle East…and perhaps even North Korea.Change remains one of the hardest things for any organization to achieve, and the studies documenting successful change over the years have reported a remarkably stable success rate that leans towards the dismal end of the scale.
This, coupled with the apparently intensifying pace of change has led to no shortage of attempts to rectify the poor success rate of change efforts, and the latest of these has emerged recently from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.
They have released a report that aims to guide organizations to both recognize the opportunities for transformational innovation, and identifies some strategies to make the most of these opportunities.
Succeeding with transformational change
The study saw senior leaders from a host of international companies in a wide range of sectors interviewed by the authors to try and identify some traits and patterns that underpin successful business model change.
They identified six distinct patterns that they thought were essential to business model innovation:
Tailor-made products and services: Meeting customers’ individual needs, such as online retailers’ recommendation services. Sustainability: Minimizing waste and managing resource costs, such as companies which harvest and recycle parts. Jointly owned assets: Boosting efficiency and lowering costs, for example in peer-to-peer businesses. Only paying for service that is used: like car-share companies. Effective monitoring of supply chains: such as support service businesses that use handheld tracking systems to better monitor the supply chain. Using data to easily adapt to customer needs: such as clothing companies that maintain little inventory and can quickly produce new designs to meet fashion trends.
The authors hope that their Six Degree of Innovation will help managers to better understand the forces of innovation and therefore adapt accordingly.
“You can see technology and innovation changing every industry. We’re always trying to better understand the mechanics of innovation, so we can help companies lead their industries. The Six Degrees of Innovation provides a tool for executive teams to adapt their business models and adopt the right technology to succeed,”the authors say.
Learn more about the report via the video below. For another look at successful change, you might find a report published by McKinsey earlier this year interesting. I summarized the report for you here.Spread the love
As Americans, even those who previously despised him, rally behind President Donald Trump’s bombardment of Syria, they are failing to realize the atrocious lies, half truths and controversy surrounding the United States’ history with Syria as well as the creation and support of Islamist extremism. While there has yet to be definitive proof of the recent alleged sarin gas attack in Syria, if one looks at the known disinformation as well as what top experts in the field are saying, it can be deduced that the US government is, at the very minimum, not being entirely truthful with its people.
If one goes even further down the rabbit hole, believing the government’s official position on Syria becomes absolutely asinine.
Below is a list of five different stories that should make you question everything the United States has told you about Syria.
Just Before the Strike, Politifact Retracted ‘Mostly True’ Ruling on No Chemical Weapons in Syria
Just before Trump sent 59 Tomahawk missiles hurling into the Syrian airbase, Politifact retracted a story it published in 2014 titled, “Kerry: We got ‘100 percent’ of chemical weapons out of Syria.” John Kerry, then Secretary of State, told NBC’s Meet The Press on July 20th, 2014, “we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out.”
Upon learning of Kerry’s claim, Politifact investigated, even asking the State Department for more information. The department pointed Politifact to Ahmet Üzümcü, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who said in a statement, “The last of the remaining chemicals identified for removal from Syria were loaded this afternoon aboard the Danish ship Ark Futura.” Fast-forward three years, and we now know that statement cannot possibly still be true — or at least not very helpful to the official narrative. After it was alleged that Bashar al Asad’s government used chemical weapons against innocents this week, Politifact withdrew its article from its site.
Award-winning Journalist Says Hillary Approved Sending Sarin to Rebels Used to Frame Assad, Start Syrian War
World renowned journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed, in a series of interviews and books, that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria.
As Eric Zuesse explained in Strategic Culture, Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and overthrow Assad.
“By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”
Hersh didn’t say whether these ‘arms’ included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, explains Zuesse in his report. But there have been multiple independent reports that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the US Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a “rat line” for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey.
While Hersh didn’t specifically say ‘Clinton transported the gas,’ he implicated her directly in this ‘rat line’ of arms which the sarin gas was part of.
Of Hillary Clinton’s involvement, Hersh told AlterNet that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who died in the storming of the Benghazi embassy,
“The only thing we know is that she was very close to Petraeus who was the CIA director at the time … she’s not out of the loop, she knows when there’s covert ops. That ambassador who was killed, he was known as a guy, from what I understand, as somebody, who would not get in the way of the CIA. As I wrote, on the day of the mission he was meeting with the CIA base chief and the shipping company. He was certainly involved, aware and witting of everything that was going on. And there’s no way somebody in that sensitive of a position is not talking to the boss, by some channel.”
Putin Revealed ISIS, the Ostensible Enemy of the US in Syria, is Funded by 40 Countries, Including G20 Members
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in 2015, that he has shared intelligence with the other G20 member states, which reveals the 40 countries from which ISIS finances the majority of their terrorist activities. The list reportedly included a number of G20 countries.
“I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told reporters in 2015.
2 Years After an American Journalist Was Killed, Her ‘Conspiracy Theories’ on Syria were Proven as Facts
Serena Shim is an American citizen of Lebanese descent who was born near Detroit. Shim worked for Iranian broadcaster Press TV as a foreign correspondent covering wars, legitimate protests and fake uprisings in multiple countries. She reported live from Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon during the conflict since 2011, including in the critical region of Daraa during the beginning of protests, which are misrepresented by American media as the reasons for the fake civil war.
Serena Shim was killed two years ago on October 19, 2014, in Turkey while reporting on the intense battle for the Syrian border city of Kobani which was the focus of international media attention. She was 29 when she died.
It is claimed she was killed in a car accident with a cement truck. However, physical details about the case raise questions about the official explanation by Turkish officials. There are also conflicting stories about the timeline after her death and before the family received her body, which indicate actions by the government of Turkey and possibly the United States.
Declassified CIA Doc Reveals Plan to Destroy Syria for Oil Pipeline, Predicts Current Crisis
Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that the CIA’s own documents which have recently been declassified, show the United States’ intentions to disrupt Syria for oil interests — since at least 1983.
“Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria,” is the title of an assessment from former CIA officer Graham Fuller which actuality discusses Syria under Assad’s predecessor — his father, Hafez al-Assad — and is dated September 14, 1983, amid the Iran-Iraq War.
Fuller’s analysis, points out Activist Post’s Brandon Turbeville, evinces Assad as a nuisance hindering American empire’s lust to control vast fossil fuel stores and protect ally, Israel, against multiple threats in the Middle East. Destabilization of Iraq and Iran also features prominently in the intricate U.S. plan to deal with the irritant, elder Assad — who, incidentally, recognized Western ulterior motives for what they were.
As the six-page document continues,
Syria continues to maintain a hammerlock on two key U.S. interests in the Middle East:
— Syrian refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon ensures Israeli occupation in the south;
— Syrian closure of the Iraqi pipeline has been a key factor in bringing Iraq to its financial knees, impelling it towards dangerous internationalization of the war in the Gulf.
Diplomatic initiatives to date have had little effect on Assad who has so far correctly calculated the play of forces in the area and concluded that they are only weakly arrayed against him. If the U.S. is to rein in Syria’s spoiling role, it can only do so through the exertion of real muscle which will pose a vital threat to Assad’s position and power.
There you have it. Now you can see how utterly preposterous this dangerous and deadly game the United States is playing in the Middle East. It’s time we demand #HandsOffSyria — before it’s too late.
Video below via Facebook.com/TheFreeThoughtProjectCom:
Why is the media glossing over ALL of these (especially #1)?Sources → https://bit.ly/2p19TCuMore Videos → The Free Thought Project#HandsOffSyria #StandDownMrTrump تم نشره بواسطة The Free Thought Project في 13 أبريل، 2017SuitGuy Profile Joined March 2011 United States 186 Posts Last Edited: 2011-07-18 06:37:56 #1 BRACKET!
Attention BYOC- We will not have enough room to accommodate everyone that wants to bring
their own machine. It will be first come first serve the day of the tournament.
What: The HotKeyit.com Arizona Open
Where:
3131 E. Thunderbird Rd. #53 Phoenix, AZ 85032
When: Sunday July 17th, 2011 Check in begins at 10:00 AM. First round beings at 11:00AM
Cost: $20 entry fee which covers the cost of computer rentals, tournament fees and prizes. There is a $3 fee to spectate at the event. This money goes directly to help pay for the players to use the venue.
Tournament Details: Prize pool will be based on the amount of people that attend the event.
BYOC(Bring Your Own Computer): The computers at the new venue should be much better than previous events we've held. However, if you would like to play on your own machine you are welcome to bring your own.
About Hotkeyit.com:
is a new website offering high level Starcraft 2 video instruction and 1on1 coaching. Our staff of progamers show you how they do what they do through replay analysis, live first-person commentary, member leak finders, and more in high definition videos. With new videos released every single week, we’ll get you in top form and keep you there.
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Rules and Regulations
Tournament format: The Hotkeyit.com Arizona Open will be run in a swiss format. There is no elimination in a swiss format. There will be 4 rounds of bo3. Each round you will be paired with an opponent and given a random map to start. After the first round, the loser will pick the next map(No map may be played twice in a match) and so on until the bo3 is over. After the four rounds of bo3 the top 8 players (subject to change based on attendance) will then move on to the bracketed elimination finals. The quarter finals, and semi finals will be played in a bo3 format. The finals for the tournament will be a bo5.
Information about Swiss-system can be found here.
Tardy rule: Since we are running a swiss tournament, we cannot start a new round till all of the players have finished the current round. Any player who is more than 10 minutes late to a round will receive a forfeit loss for that round.
Map Pool:
-MLG Metalopolis
-MLG Shakuras Plateau
-MLG Shattered Temple
-MLG Tal’darim Altar
-MLG Testbug
-MLG Typhon Peaks
-MLG Xel’Naga Caverns
Technical Difficulties: Any drop occurring before the 5 minute mark will result in a rematch using the same map. Any other drop will be reviewed by the tournament admin.
Tournament Etiquette: Good tournament Etiquette will be required. Excessive profane language in an aggressive manner, any violence, or other similar behavior may result in disqualification.
Observers: No in game observers, other than tournament administrators or official tournament casters will be allowed. Any stream cheating will result in immediate disqualification.
Reporting Results: All tournament players are required to report their result. Failure to report a result may end up in a forfeit for that round.
Officiating: Tournament administrators have authority over all decision making, all participants must abide by rules/decisions or they may face disqualification.
Sign ups: Please leave the following information here if you plan to attend the event.
Sc2 ID & Character Code
League
Race
BYOC? (Write BYOC if you are bringing your own or SITE if you plan to use a machine on site)
Write SITE if you are bringing your own mouse and keyboard but going to hook it up to a computer at the venue.
Confirmed Players
+ Show Spoiler +
1. EGDeMusliM, 7650
2. QxGiNkA, 7608
3. Egincontrol, 7507
4. GGlastshadow, 7497
5. sixjaxSkew, 7459
6. REQPhiliBiRD, 7290
7. EGMachine, 5999
8. SCDTaCo, 5998
9. EGLzGaMeR, 5997
10. Amalaxinaoum, 5996
11. piro, 5995
12. Briggs, 5994
13. TheBullFrog, 5993
14. TerranMeApar, 5992
15. Bobhlead, 5991
16. Temprament, 5244
17. imba, 4999
18. aScPraiise, 4998
19. OneEyed, 4997
20. NoNo, 4996
21. Agama, 4995
22. challe, 4994
23. Qwann, 4993
24. Megabust, 4992
25. Thehealbus, 4791
26. macromaestro, 4263
27. MaDMaverick, 3999
28. MauiMallard, 3998
29. FronkeyXL, 3997
30. Ruggles, 3996
31. zephyr, 3995
32. Trumpets, 3994
33. Logyx, 3764
34. Reapafied, 3450
35. Smooth, 3250
36. Binky, 3000
37. Weaklink, 2999
38. virum, 2998
39. FuDDx, 2778
40. AlphaQUp, 2096
41. Karhock, 2037
42. Octave, 1999
43. Sanskranati, 1778
44. VATObandito, 1558
45. Ninethousand, 1467
46. VarAguTyOle, 999
47. pyre, 928
48. Biggz, 160
No Name Feder Loc1. EGDeMusliM,76502. QxGiNkA,76083. Egincontrol,75074. GGlastshadow,74975. sixjaxSkew,74596. REQPhiliBiRD,72907. EGMachine,59998. SCDTaCo,59989. EGLzGaMeR,599710. Amalaxinaoum,599611. piro,599512. Briggs,599413. TheBullFrog,599314. TerranMeApar,599215. Bobhlead,599116. Temprament,524417. imba,499918. aScPraiise,499819. OneEyed,499720. NoNo,499621. Agama,499522. challe,499423. Qwann,499324. Megabust,499225. Thehealbus,479126. macromaestro,426327. MaDMaverick,399928. MauiMallard,399829. FronkeyXL,399730. Ruggles,399631. zephyr,399532. Trumpets,399433. Logyx,376434. Reapafied,345035. Smooth,325036. Binky,300037. Weaklink,299938. virum,299839. FuDDx,277840. AlphaQUp,209641. Karhock,203742. Octave,199943. Sanskranati,177844. VATObandito,155845. Ninethousand,146746. VarAguTyOle,99947. pyre,92848. Biggz,160
Caster:
Insigma Theory
Check out our caster for this tourney! Excellent high quality stream. Will be broadcasting the event via TL.
Stream Link
Finalized Player List
+ Show Spoiler + No Name Feder Loc
1. EGDeMusliM, T 7650
2. QxGiNkA, P 7608
3. Egincontrol, P 7507
4. GGlastshadow, T 7497
5. sixjaxSkew, T 7459
6. REQPhiliBiRD, T 7290
7. EGMachine, Z 5999
8. SCDTaCo, Z 5998
9. EGLzGaMeR, Z 5997
10. Amalaxinaoum, Z 5996
11. piro, P 5995
12. Briggs, P 5994
13. TheBullFrog, Z 5993
14. TerranMeApar, T 5992
15. Bobhlead, T 5991
16. imba, T 4999
17. aScPraiise, P 4998
18. OneEyed, Z 4997
19. Agama, Z 4995
20. challe, T 4994
21. Qwann, P 4993
22. Ekert, Z 4992
23. Megabust, Z 4992
24. Thehealbus, Z 4791
25. BarrelLoLz, P 4710
26. macromaestro, Z 4263
27. MaDMaverick, Z 3999
28. MauiMallard, T 3998
29. FronkeyXL, P 3997
30. Ruggles, P 3996
31. zephyr, R 3995
32. Trumpets, Z 3994
33. Logyx, Z 3764
34. gurrpp, R 3179
35. Binky, P 3000
36. Weaklink, Z 2999
37. virum, Z 2998
38. FuDDx, P 2778
39. AlphaQUp, R 2096
40. Karhock, P 2037
41. Octave, P 1999
42. Sanskranati, Z 1778
43. VATObandito, Z 1558
44. VarAguTyOle, P 999
45. Biggz, P 160
Round 1 Pairings
+ Show Spoiler + No Name Result Name
1 EGDeMusliM, (1) : Megabust, (23)
2 Thehealbus, (24) : QxGiNkA, (2)
3 Egincontrol, (3) : BarrelLoLz, (25)
4 macromaestro, (26) : GGlastshadow, (4)
5 sixjaxSkew, (5) : MaDMaverick, (27)
6 MauiMallard, (28) : REQPhiliBiRD, (6)
7 EGMachine, (7) : FronkeyXL, (29)
8 Ruggles, (30) : SCDTaCo, (8)
9 EGLzGaMeR, (9) : zephyr, (31)
10 Trumpets, (32) : Amalaxinaoum, (10)
11 piro, (11) : Logyx, (33)
12 gurrpp, (34) : Briggs, (12)
13 TheBullFrog, (13) : Binky, (35)
14 Weaklink, (36) : TerranMeApar, (14)
15 Bobhlead, (15) : virum, (37)
16 FuDDx, (38) : imba, (16)
17 aScPraiise, (17) : AlphaQUp, (39)
18 Karhock, (40) : OneEyed, (18)
19 Agama, (19) : Octave, (41)
20 Sanskranati, (42) : challe, (20)
21 Qwann, (21) : VATObandito, (43)
22 VarAguTyOle, (44) : Ekert, (22)
23 Biggz, (45) 1:0 BYE
Round 1 Results
+ Show Spoiler + No Name Result Name
1 EGDeMusliM, (1) 1:0 Megabust, (23)
2 Thehealbus, (24) 0:1 QxGiNkA, (2)
3 Egincontrol, (3) 1:0 BarrelLoLz, (25)
4 macromaestro, (26) 0:1 GGlastshadow, (4)
5 sixjaxSkew, (5) 1:0 MaDMaverick, (27)
6 MauiMallard, (28) 0:1 REQPhiliBiRD, (6)
7 EGMachine, (7) 1:0 FronkeyXL, (29)
8 Ruggles, (30) 0:1 SCDTaCo, (8)
9 EGLzGaMeR, (9) 1:0 zephyr, (31)
10 Trumpets, (32) 0:1 Amalaxinaoum, (10)
11 piro, (11) 1:0 Logyx, (33)
12 gurrpp, (34) 0:1 Briggs, (12)
13 TheBullFrog, (13) 1:0 Binky, (35)
14 Weaklink, (36) 0:1 TerranMeApar, (14)
15 Bobhlead, (15) 1:0 virum, (37)
16 FuDDx, (38) 0:1 imba, (16)
17 aScPraiise, (17) 1:0 AlphaQUp, (39)
18 Karhock, (40) 0:1 OneEyed, (18)
19 Agama, (19) 1:0 Octave, (41)
20 Sanskranati, (42) 0:1 challe, (20)
21 Qwann, (21) 1:0 VATObandito, (43)
22 VarAguTyOle, (44) 0:1 Ekert, (22)
23 Biggz, (45) 1:0 BYE
Round 2 Pairings
+ Show Spoiler + No Name Result Name
1 Briggs, (12) : EGDeMusliM, (1)
2 QxGiNkA, (2) : TheBullFrog, (13)
3 TerranMeApar, (14) : Egincontrol, (3)
4 GGlastshadow, (4) : Bobhlead, (15)
5 imba, (16) : sixjaxSkew, (5)
6 REQPhiliBiRD, (6) : aScPraiise, (17)
7 OneEyed, (18) : EGMachine, (7)
8 SCDTaCo, (8) : Agama, (19)
9 challe, (20) : EGLzGaMeR, (9)
10 Amalaxinaoum, (10) : Qwann, (21)
11 Ekert, (22) : piro, (11)
12 Megabust, (23) : Biggz, (45)
13 Thehealbus, (24) : gurrpp, (34)
14 BarrelLoLz, (25) : Binky, (35)
15 macromaestro, (26) : Weaklink, (36)
16 MaDMaverick, (27) : virum, (37)
17 MauiMallard, (28) : FuDDx, (38)
18 FronkeyXL, (29) : AlphaQUp, (39)
19 Ruggles, (30) : Karhock, (40)
20 zephyr, (31) : Octave, (41)
21 Trumpets, (32) : Sanskranati, (42)
22 Logyx, (33) : VATObandito, (43)
23 VarAguTyOle, (44) 1:0 BYE
Round 2 Results
+ Show Spoiler + No Name Result Name
1 Briggs, (12) 0:1 EGDeMusliM, (1)
2 QxGiNkA, (2) 1:0 TheBullFrog, (13)
3 TerranMeApar, (14) 0:1 Egincontrol, (3)
4 GGlastshadow, (4) 1:0 Bobhlead, (15)
5 imba, (16) 0:1 sixjaxSkew, (5)
6 REQPhiliBiRD, (6) 1:0 aScPraiise, (17)
7 OneEyed, (18) 0:1 EGMachine, (7)
8 SCDTaCo, (8) 1:0 Agama, (19)
9 challe, (20) 0:1 EGLzGaMeR, (9)
10 Amalaxinaoum, (10) 1:0 Qwann, (21)
11 Ekert, (22) 1:0 piro, (11)
12 Megabust, (23) 1:0 Biggz, (45)
13 Thehealbus, (24) 0:1 gurrpp, (34)
14 BarrelLoLz, (25) 1:0 Binky, (35)
15 macromaestro, (26) 1:0 Weaklink, (36)
16 MaDMaverick, (27) 1:0 virum, (37)
17 MauiMallard, (28) 1:0 FuDDx, (38)
18 FronkeyXL, (29) 0:1 AlphaQUp, (39)
19 Ruggles, (30) 1:0 Karhock, (40)
20 zephyr, (31) 0:1 Octave, (41)
21 Trumpets, (32) 0:1 Sanskranati, ( |
money. He's a billionaire. He can come up with the funds and he's also at the age where the other owners would respect that.
"I'm not saying that he would, but I think that's a second possibility that people aren't kind of tossing out there."
Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced plans to sell the franchise at the end of the season after sexual and racial misconduct allegations were made against him.
McMahon recently sold $100 million worth of WWE shares to fund Alpha Entertainment LLC, which was "established to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football."A professing atheist and agnostic group that works to separate Church and State has sent letters to two municipalities to express its belief that houses of worship shouldn’t be polling places.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently wrote to officials in Palm Beach County, Florida and Washington County, Arkansas to outline its views.
“As our country becomes more religiously diverse, Christian images and iconography are increasingly seen by many as symbols of political intimidation,” it wrote to the Washington County Election Commission, noting that 16 of 17 polling places in the county are churches.
“Selecting churches as polling places can serve to unduly influence voters to vote in a particular way that they might not otherwise,” the letter continued. “This is especially true if the voters themselves are promoting or demonizing a particular side of an issue.”
FFRF said that non-believers might also feel intimidated in viewing religious messages on display at houses of worship as it could cause them to sense that they are outsiders.
In Palm Beach County, local citizens had complained about the Islamic Center of Boca Raton being used as a polling place, resulting in the location being changed. But FFRF says that the government shouldn’t use any religious facilities at all for elections.
“We … understand that the county uses numerous Christian and Jewish synagogues as polling places. To our knowledge, those venues were not changed,” it wrote. “[But] many of the concerns expressed to you over the summer regarding the mosque are the same ones FFRF receives from freethinkers and nonbelievers who are forced to vote in churches. They feel uneasy entering a church to cast their ballot.”
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FFRF therefore asked that these counties use secular facilities as polling places to prevent discomfort.
“The supervisor of elections has the great responsibility of assuring compliance with election laws and selecting polling places accessible to the public but which will remain free of intimidation and voter discomfort,” it stated. “Given your authority and the need to protect the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of state and church, FFRF strongly urges you to remove all houses of worship as polling places for future elections.”
“There are many secular options—like public schools, firehouses, public libraries, or even private businesses—which could accommodate voters and be relied on not to abuse voter trust,” the group suggested.
It is not yet known whether either county plans to respond.
Founding Father Gouverneur Morris, one of the authors and signers of the U.S. Constitution, once said:
“There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed and its members perish. The nation is exposed to foreign violence and domestic convulsion. Vicious rulers, chosen by vicious people, turn back the current of corruption to its source. Placed in a situation where they can exercise authority for their own emolument, they betray their trust. They take bribes. They sell statutes and decrees. They sell honor and office. They sell their conscience. They sell their country. … But the most important of all lessons is the denunciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts of religion.”Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Christine Lagarde: "When I look back to 2010 and what could have happened... I shiver"
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said the UK's continuing economic weakness means authorities should consider more quantitative easing (QE) and even cutting interest rates.
Its annual look at the UK economy endorsed the government's deficit cutting plan, saying it was essential.
But it said if growth failed to pick up, the government would have to consider delaying cuts.
The body also stressed the risks to the UK of the eurozone crisis.
"Unfortunately the economic recovery in the UK has not yet taken hold and uncertainties abound," said IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.
"The stresses in the euro area affect the UK through many channels. Growth is too slow and unemployment - including youth unemployment - is too high. Policies to bolster demand before low growth becomes entrenched are needed."
Analysis It was a case of "nice policies, shame about the economy". There was a lot of support for what the government has been doing so far and a lot of blunt words about what has been happening in the economy. The IMF did seem to think that the Bank of England should do more now to help the recovery, maybe even cut interest rates from their current very low level, and pump more money into the economy. There was also quite a long list of things that Ms Lagarde thought the chancellor should be doing. What was important to him is that most of those things are things that he and the prime minister have actually talked about. Things like making it easier for businesses to borrow and more infrastructure projects financed by the private sector. The second part of the IMF report talks about what the government might need to do if things get worse - a Plan B. It is not saying it is time for that yet, and although the economy has weakened, the IMF still doesn't think that it is bad enough to go there just yet. Euro 'threat' to global outlook Q&A: Quantitative easing Profile: IMF and World Bank
UK interest rates are currently at a record low of 0.5%, a level the IMF said the Bank of England should reconsider the "efficacy" of.
It said the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which sets interest rates and authorises other monetary boosts, such as QE - which involves pumping money into the economy to boost growth - should look at loosening the purse-strings.
These stimulus measures can lead to higher inflation, but the IMF's report comes on the same day of the latest UK inflation figures, which show a sharp drop in the annual rate to 3% last month, the lowest rate since February 2010.
The Bank of England and the IMF both expect that rate to continue to come down.
One suggestion was for the rate of VAT to be cut, something the Labour opposition have been advocating.
The IMF's technical expert on the UK economy, Ajai Chopra said: "I think the sort of measures we have in mind are, one could consider cutting the Value Added Tax. One could consider the payroll contributions because these can be credibly temporary. The emphasis here is on temporary and those are the sorts of measures we have in mind."
In its official statement on the UK economy, the IMF mission states:
"Fiscal easing measures...should focus on temporary tax cuts and greater infrastructure spending, as these may be more credibly temporary than increases in current spending."
Unemployment
The report said the weak recovery indicated that the process of unwinding pre-crisis imbalances was likely to be more protracted than previously anticipated, partly because of the difficulty of getting credit.
She [Christine Lagarde] said that the choice between deficit reduction and growth was a false one and called on Europe to boost growth by structural reforms, not by spending more
It said that output remained more than 4% below its pre-crisis peak, and that unemployment at 8.2%, with a large number of young people without a job, was still "much too high".
But the report said that the UK had made "substantial progress" towards achieving a more sustainable budgetary position and reducing fiscal risks.
Ms Lagarde, gave a strong endorsement to the government's actions: "The gain that resulted from the fiscal consolidation that was decided two years ago has been that result, the credibility of the UK government and its ability to borrow at extremely favourable rates.
"Sometimes you feel like you could look back and wonder 'what if?'. And when I think back myself to May 2010, when the UK deficit was at 11% and I try to imagine what the situation would be like today if no such fiscal consolidation programme had been decided... I shiver."
The Chancellor, George Osborne, welcomed the IMF's findings: "The IMF couldn't be clearer today. Britain has to deal with its debts and the government's fiscal policy is the appropriate one and an essential part of our road to recovery.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Christine Lagarde speaks to the BBC
"They [the IMF] agree that, in their words'reducing the high structural deficit remains essential' and make clear in their statement that they consider the current pace of fiscal consolidation to be appropriate."
But the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, said: "A year ago, the IMF warned that if economic growth undershot expectations, the government should boost the economy with temporary tax cuts and greater infrastructure spending - as Labour has called for in our five-point plan for jobs and growth.
"Since then our economy has been pushed into a double-dip recession. How much worse do things have to get before David Cameron and George Osborne finally take action?"
Growth
Pointing to what it called the "global importance" of the UK's financial centre, the IMF report praised policies that had helped to build up capital "buffers" at banks, and the strengthening of regulation within the UK.
The IMF recently forecast UK growth of 2% in 2013.
The global body's revised UK forecasts now match those of the UK's independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
But both are more optimistic than most independent UK economists, who expect economic growth of about 1.6% next year.The brewery springs from the need to have more good beer. Beer deserving of a certain attention. Beer that forces you to confront and consider what you are drinking. Upfront hops, lingering bitternesses, warming alcohols, bodies of malt. Lengths and depths of flavour. We make Pale Ales, India Pale Ales and old school London Porters and Stouts towards these ends. Bottled alive, to give them time to grow.
SATURDAYS AT THE KERNEL
We are open every Saturday from 9am to 2pm to sell our beer directly from the brewery.
On the 23rd of Feb. 2019, we will have:
In 500ml bottles:
Table Beer, 3.2%
Pale Ale, COLUMBUS CITRA, 5.2%
Pale Ale, ELLA MOSAIC, 5.3%
Pale Ale, CASCADE CENTENNIAL, 5.4%
Pale Ale, GALAXY MOSAIC, 5.4%
Export India Porter, 5.8%
In 330ml bottles:
India Pale Ale, GALAXY VIC SECRET, 6.9%
India Pale Ale, IDAHO 7, 6.8%
India Pale Ale, SIMCOE, 7.2%
Bière de Saison, RED CURRANT, 5.6%
Export Stout, 7.5%
Imperial Brown Stout, LONDON 1856, 9.1%
India Double Porter, 7.5%
London Brick, 6.6%
Dry Stout, 4.4%
In 750ml bottles:
Bière de Saison, RED CURRANT, 5.6%
Bière de Saison, CENTENNIAL, 5.1%
Bière de Saison, MANDARINA BAVARIA, 5.4%The filing period opens on Monday, July 18, 2016, for persons interested in being candidates in the November 8, 2016, general election for the BART policymaking Board of Directors.
Five of the nine seats on the Board are up for election – all representing specific geographic districts in the BART District which includes Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties.
The seats which are up for election include:
BART District 1, which includes portions of Walnut Creek, Martinez, Pleasant Hill, Danville, and San Ramon
BART District 3, which includes portions of Berkeley, Piedmont, Orinda, Moraga, Lafayette, El Cerrito, San Leandro, and Castro Valley
BART District 5, which includes portions of Hayward, Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore
BART District 7, which includes portions of Richmond, El Cerrito, Berkeley, Emeryville, West Oakland, and the eastern edge of San Francisco
BART District 9, which includes portions of central San Francisco.
The filing period for the election extends from Monday, July 18th through 5:00 p.m. Friday, August 12, 2016. If an incumbent does not file for re-election by August 12th, the filing deadline for that seat will be extended by five days as prescribed by the Election Code.
Election district boundaries are available at: http://www.bart.gov/about/bod/districts
Candidates must be registered voters and reside in the area they seek to represent.
For Alameda County residents, nomination packets may be obtained and filed at the Registrar of Voters, 1225 Fallon Street, G-1 in Downtown Oakland, (510) 272-6933.
For Contra Costa County residents, nomination packets may be picked up and filed at the Contra Costa County Elections Department, 555 Escobar Street in Martinez, (925) 335-7800.
For San Francisco County residents, nomination packets may be picked up and filed at the City and County of San Francisco Elections Office at #1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlet Place, Room 48 in San Francisco, CA, (415) 554-4375.It’s still half dark on an April morning when agents with shotguns clamber into a few scuffed dinghies and push off from Oregon’s East Sand Island into the Columbia River Estuary. The agents load their guns and look up, waiting for their targets to fly overhead.
The sun crests the horizon and the 25-hectare island comes alive as its 30,000 double-crested cormorants begin taking to the water to swim and dive for fish. Suddenly shots ring out, and dozens of lifeless black cormorant bodies plummet from the sky. The agents, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Program, have come a step closer to thinning the island’s cormorant population by nearly two thirds to protect fish stocks—just days after a federal court decided that the ongoing national cormorant-culling program was being improperly applied.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the program is based on a flawed and incomplete environmental assessment when it should be based on a thorough and scientifically backed report. And court records show that in a number of other cases over the past 10 years federal judges have admonished U.S. wildlife agencies—namely Wildlife Services (WS), run by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)—over what some see as scientific missteps and bureaucratic inefficiencies in predator management programs.
In another case decided in April the U.S. District Court for the District for Montana rebuked the FWS for apparently bowing to political pressure and ignoring climate change science when it withdrew its proposal to list wolverines as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. Similarly, WS was chastised by the U.S. District Court for Western Washington (State) last year for failing to perform a thorough type of environmental study before proposing an increase in wolf culling there. And final decisions are now pending on two other WS cases questioning the research on which the service’s predator culling programs are based. Pamela Boehland, public affairs specialist for WS, declined to comment on these cases.
A Double-crested Cormorant.
BSIP/UIG via Getty Images
The USDA established Wildlife Services—then called “Animal Damage Control”—in 1895 to help farmers cope with rodents and predators that threatened their livelihoods. Today WS does that and more, from preventing bird–plane strikes at airports to minimizing property damage caused by species such as white-tailed deer and Canada geese. Agents often use traps, poison and guns. As development pushes humans and wild animals into closer contact, the program’s activities continue to expand, often putting it at odds with conservationists. “These cases and court decisions are unfortunately a regular feature of the legal landscape,” says Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans at environmental law firm Earthjustice. “While wildlife agencies typically do the right thing, they sometimes bow to political pressure and fail in their duty to protect wildlife.” Environmental advocacy groups including Earthjustice routinely sue wildlife management agencies, arguing that some of their management practices—including the cormorant cull—are not adequately grounded in current science.
Many in the aquaculture industry see cormorants as a threat to native fish stocks, especially salmon and steelhead trout in the Columbia River Basin near East Sand Island. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says cormorants in the area consume about 11 million baby salmon and steelhead per year—causing what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates as a loss of $2.6 million to the $50-million Columbia River fishery. “It’s a conundrum when you think about it, killing one native species to help others…but today it’s become necessary to do so,” says Blaine Parker, avian predation coordinator for Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which represents four Native American tribes with fishing rights along the river. “Since the 1990s avian predation has become a major stressor on these fish, which also face aquatic habitat loss, hydroelectric dams and declining water quality.”
In 1998 and 2003 the FWS issued two cormorant “depredation” orders allowing aquaculture industry members and state wildlife officials to cull 160,000 cormorants across the nation each year in the name of safeguarding fish stocks. The service has repeatedly renewed the orders. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) all federal agencies must carry out analyses when proposing actions that might affect wildlife or the environment. Such analyses may be brief overviews called environmental assessments (EAs) for tightly focused issues or thorough reviews called environmental impact statements (EISs), required for complex decisions that would significantly affect the environment. Both EAs and EISs must state several alternatives to any proposed action and are reviewed by service decision-makers and the public. EAs require far less time, money and staffing.
The FWS’s two cormorant depredation orders went up for review in 2014 and the service conducted an EA, which concluded that extending the orders until 2019 would have “no significant impact” on the birds’ populations. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an environmental advocacy group, saw this as a federal entity taking the easy road in making a decision that actually warranted an EIS. PEER sued the FWS in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which found glaring issues with the FWS’s 2014 EA: It said that the service recycled data instead of analyzing the latest scientific research, did not seek alternatives to culling and failed to take a “hard look” at its proposed actions—all in violation of NEPA. The court stopped short of determining whether or not the FWS should have completed an EIS because it said the errors in the service’s assessment made it unclear whether or not the orders would have a significant effect on the environment.
Before the court closes the case it has called for an additional briefing from the FWS on an appropriate “remediation plan,” including a possible end to the service’s mass cormorant culls. As the FWS comes up with such a plan—which will need to be reviewed in court once complete—the service’s two orders still stand, allowing the killing to continue.
The FWS acknowledged in its 2014 EA that it was “unable to complete a full analysis” of proposals for alternative actions and updates to its previous EA “[d]ue to resource limitations.” When asked via e-mail if the FWS believes it adequately assessed its cormorant culling program when it went up for review in 2014, Gavin Shire, the service’s chief of public affairs, told Scientific American he would not directly comment on the case because litigation is ongoing. However, Shire says, “[the FWS’s] wildlife management decisions are based on the best available science. We make every effort to ensure that we have the most up-to-date information and use the public comment period as a means to solicit it from all potential sources.”
Although many who work in certain industries—such as farming, housing and energy development—may believe they benefit from having fewer predators around, the environment as a whole can suffer. For instance, studies on wolf removal in Yellowstone National Park emphasize the importance of predators: Kill them off, and like a house with no foundation whole ecosystems can begin to collapse. “The predator-removal mind-set is deeply ingrained in many people, including those at these agencies,” says Bethany Cotton, attorney and wildlife program director at WildEarth Guardians, another advocacy group that challenges federal wildlife agencies over alleged lapses. “It’s based in deep-seated cultural myth, hatred and a lack of grounding in ecology and the natural sciences.”
Even some depredation supporters say federal entities sometimes miss the mark when it comes to wildlife management, as they attempt to appease those on all sides of an issue. “Political sway is a big problem for wildlife agencies,” says Lance Fisher, a professional fisherman and fishing guide based in Portland, Ore. “You would find better ecological balance if the experts at these agencies were left alone to do their jobs, but that’s not how it goes down.”
And not all those who farm or fish say depredation is necessary to safeguard their livelihoods. Some accept a certain amount of loss to predators as part of doing business, and find ways to manage. “We don’t let the predators live here, they let us live on their land,” says Trina Smith, guest services supervisor at B Bar Ranch, a “predator-friendly” Montana cattle operation that borders Yellowstone National Park. “We’ve had success and minimal loss to bears, mountain lions, wolves and coyotes because we raise horned cattle that can defend themselves against predators, keep our cattle in tight herds and do not bring calves—which tend to attract predators—into the basin.”
The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), established under NEPA in 1969 to coordinate federal environmental efforts, is supposed to minimize lapses in federal environmental policies. The council has laid out standards, to which agencies can be held accountable, for writing EAs and EISs. This includes when agencies must perform an in-depth EIS rather than an EA. “It is important to hold firm to the criteria that the Council on Environmental Quality has established for determining when an action ‘significantly affects’ the environment and therefore requires an EIS,” says Laura Dumais, an attorney at PEER who worked on the cormorant case. “Otherwise agencies will choose the easier EA route whenever they can.”White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is doubling down on her argument that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory “answered” groping allegations made during the campaign.
“The people of this country, at a decisive election, supported President Trump, and we feel like these allegations have been answered through that process,” Sanders told reporters Monday, hours after three of Trump’s accusers went on television to revive their claims.
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“The American people knew this and voted for the president, and we feel like we’re ready to move forward in that process,” Sanders added.
She similarly reasoned that allegations that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore assaulted underage girls decades ago would be settled by “the people of Alabama” in Tuesday’s special election.
Sanders’ comments came amid a resurgence of attention to claims against Trump — including the infamous “Access Hollywood” video in which he was heard bragging about grabbing women by the genitals — as the list of politicians, media moguls and journalists fired or forced to resign over harassment claims continues to grow.
The three women who appeared Monday on NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today” were among at least 16 who have accused Trump of some form of sexual misconduct. One woman, Summer Zervos, has sued him for defamation and accused him of groping her, kissing her against her will and thrusting his genitals at her while she was a contestant on “The Apprentice,” his NBC reality TV show.
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Trump dismissed their claims last year as false, instead pointing at his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton, who he said had shielded her husband, Bill Clinton, during his presidency as he faced an array of sexual misconduct allegations, including rape.
No additional accusers have come forward since Trump took office.
But Samantha Holvey — a former Miss USA contestant who said that Trump once ogled her and her fellow pageant participants in their private dressing room — said on Kelly’s show on Monday that the recent tidal wave of sexual assault allegations and repercussions against powerful men has opened a window for her and other women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct to “try round two” and seek accountability from the president.
“You know, it was heartbreaking last year, when we all — you know, we’re private citizens and for us to put ourselves out there to try to show America who this man is and especially how he views women, and for them to say, ‘Meh, we don’t care,’ it hurt,” Holvey said. “And so, you know, now it’s just like, all right, let’s try round two. The environment’s different. Let’s try again.”
Holvey was joined Monday by Jessica Leeds, who said Trump groped her in the first-class cabin of a commercial flight in the 1980s, and Rachel Crooks, who said he kissed her against her will in 2005. Over the course of almost the entire hour of Kelly’s show, the three women detailed their allegations against Trump, all of which he has repeatedly and emphatically denied.
Crooks noted that the Senate was “more than willing” to launch an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who announced last week that he was resigning.
“Why is the president immune to that?” Crooks asked.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) joined four other lawmakers on Monday in calling for Trump to step down over sexual misconduct allegations or face investigation.
“President Trump should resign,” Gillibrand said during an interview on CNN. “These allegations are credible; they are numerous. I’ve heard these women’s testimony, and many of them are heartbreaking.”
She added that if Trump did not “immediately resign,” Congress “should have appropriate investigations of his behavior and hold him accountable.”
The remarks came on the heels of similar calls by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), all of whom urged the president to step down following Franken’s resignation announcement.
“We have a president who acknowledged on tape that he assaulted women,” Sanders tweeted Thursday after Franken said in a speech on the Senate floor that he would resign in the coming weeks. “I would hope that he pays attention to what’s going on and think about resigning.”
Franken, who was accused of groping by several women, took a parting shot at Trump during the address, lamenting the “irony” that he was leaving office “while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office.”
Trump tweeted about the first claim against Franken in November, after a Los Angeles radio host released a photograph of the former entertainer reaching for her breasts.
“The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words,” Trump tweeted. “And to think that just last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment and respect for women.”
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said at the time that Trump had commented because the allegations were “a brand-new news story.”
Yet Sanders, the press secretary, said Monday that Trump “feels strongly that a mere allegation shouldn’t determine the course.” She added that the president had denied the harassment allegations lodged against him.
On the Kelly show, all three of Trump’s accusers seemed to chafe at the president’s labeling them liars. Holvey said she found president’s inauguration too painful to watch, and Crooks said she had been the target of fake-news purveyors who created false articles about her. Leeds recalled that Trump had used a vulgarity to describe her — “the worst one” — when the two met again years later at a charity event in New York.
Kelly paired the women’s accounts with Trump’s own words, remarks that seemed to corroborate the allegations, including the “Access Hollywood” recording and a clip from Howard Stern’s radio show in which the president described how his ownership of the Miss USA pageant allowed him to enter the contestants’ dressing room when other men could not.
The White House, which Kelly said had initially declined to offer a statement to NBC ahead of the women’s appearance, ultimately did so as the show was airing live. Kelly read the statement to the women and her audience on the air.
“These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year’s campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory,” the White House statement said. “The timing and absurdity of these claims speaks volumes. And the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them.”
The statement, as read by Kelly, did not make clear which episodes the Trump administration claimed had been disputed by witness accounts. In Leeds’ case, a British man claims to have flown on the same flight as her and Trump and said last year that he saw nothing inappropriate between the two. Leeds said his memory of the flight, specifically his claim that she had been wearing a white pantsuit, was inaccurate because she has never owned such a suit.
“I would like to see some reckoning,” Leeds, who said she is a Democrat, told Kelly. “I would like to see that he’s not Teflon and that he acknowledges, in some fashion or another, and be called to answer to the charges.”
In an appearance Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Trump’s United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, suggested that it would be wrong to dismiss out of hand new allegations made against the president.
“Women who accuse anyone should be heard. They should be heard and they should be dealt with,” Haley said. “And I think we heard from them prior to the election. And I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up.”
She added that it was “for the people to decide” whether Trump should face any consequences going forward.
“I know that he was elected,” she said when asked whether she believed the allegations against the president to be settled. “But, you know, women should always feel comfortable coming forward. And we should all be willing to listen to them.”Alright... First off, this was my first Christmas Reddit exchange. My Secret Santa ended up messaging me since my questionnaire answers and profile might've been a bit too general. (It also didn't help that my reddit post history centered around makeup subs while I lurk in everything else haha. For guys, I'm sure that makes things much harder.) He was a pleasure to chat with though and friendly all around. :)
When he mentioned that there was going to be 2-3 packages arriving at my workplace, I was a bit surprised. One was personal (him mailing it out himself) and the rest was from Amazon; instructions were given to open the personal package first. The wait wasn't long as the Amazon package arrived Monday and the personal package arrived today.
As instructed, I opened the personal package first. There was a lovely letter which talked more about the gifts. He remembered that I have a puppy and got her toys! Seriously, the moment I took them out, the puppy jumped at them and started playing. She absolutely loved them. There was also a Steam gift card for my gaming needs. Oh, it'll be harder to resist the Steam holiday sales now!
Upon the second package, I wasn't sure what to expect. Amazon packaging was weird as always (big box for what could easily fit in a smaller box) and there were two wrapped boxes inside. I opened the blue package first and found lens filters! I take a lot of pics with my camera and seriously, filters are a necessity. They protect your camera as well as alter the image depending on what kind of filter they are. The puppy actually thought they were for her and tried to grab them before I moved them away. :x
And finally, the last package. I admit - I just sat there and stared after reading the note. The entire time, I'm thinking, "No way." My Secret Santa had already gotten me more than enough - more than I expected from a Reddit exchange. He had gotten toys for the pup, a Steam gift card, and lens filters. What the note implied was more than I had ever expected and would also be awesome as a gift by itself. Upon unwrapping it, I was in for another surprise.
It was a Kindle Fire HD7. At this point, I had expected it to be the most basic Kindle; I did not expect this. Mixed thoughts crossed my mind. "Omg, this is awesome!" "Oh, I feel so bad that he spent so much." "This is insanely generous of him!" "What did I do to deserve this?" And then I just stared. My Secret Santa just went above and beyond and I am deeply humbled by his generosity.
It was also at this moment that my father walked by and asked, "What did you buy this time?"
Thank you Secret Santa. This is purely amazing. I just can't thank you enough. It's also perfect timing since I recently decided to read more and have been frequenting /r/books for recommendations! I will be sure to pay it forward in hopes of making someone's day, month, or year. :) I just... thank you.Gawker Media Group has announced a purchase agreement with Ziff Davis.
Gawker Media Group has entered into an asset purchase agreement to sell seven media brands and other assets to Ziff Davis, a global digital media company which operates in the technology, gaming and lifestyle categories and is a subsidiary of j2 Global, Inc.
Nick Dentom, Gawker Media Groups founder, said: "We are encouraged by the agreement with Ziff Davis, one of the most rigorously managed and profitable companies in digital media. A combination would marry Ziff Davis strength in e-commerce, licensing and video with GMG's premium media brands."
In order to offer the business, or rather media brands, free and clear of legal liabilities, Gawker has filed for chapter 11 protection from creditors which means if you freelanced or sold work to them, you won't get paid, sucks for you.
The sale will be conducted through a bankruptcy court supervised auction, and Gawker may still be hoping other bidder will offer a higher price for the property. Keep dreaming, kids.AutoGuide.com
Manual transmissions have always been idolized and are generally reserved for the ultimate sporty-cars, but how does a stick shift compare to its automated counterpart?
All the traditional advantages of a manual transmission are no longer applicable. With continuously variable transmissions (CVT), automatics can enjoy good fuel-economy, and dual-clutch transmissions give precise control and lightning quick shifts, usually associated with manual transmissions. Thanks to these more advanced transmissions, manual-equipped cars are hard to find, and are selling in increasingly small numbers.
Supercars dare you to call them ‘slushboxes’
It’s a sad fact that some of the sportiest automakers like Ferrari and McLaren no longer sell a car with a manual transmission. In fact, many high-powered supercars are available only with automatic transmissions, like the Lexus LFA, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and the Lamborghini Aventador. The high-tech Nissan GT-R, nick named “Godzilla” is one of the fastest cars around, and its dual-clutch transmission takes a lot of the credit. These supercars seem content with using automatics, while manual transmission are used to enhance the analogue feel of cars like the brutally powerful Shelby GT500. Other American cars with rich legacies like the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and SRT Viper are only available with manual transmissions, which enhance the muscle-car packed history that these cars come from.
While Buick is no longer making the muscle-cars it used to, it still caters to the enthusiast crowd with the Regal Turbo and Regal GS, which are both available with manual transmissions. Not only that, but Buick says that they sell more manual equipped versions of these cars than automatic versions. It’s quite amazing when you think about it: Buick now sells more stick-shift-equipped sports cars than Ferrari does.
Even econo-boxes are getting high-tech transmissions
Sports cars aren’t the only vehicles that are losing the fight with manual transmissions. With CVTs delivering such good fuel economy and smooth driving characteristics, manuals are quickly being replaced in almost every market segment.
Even high-tech dual-clutch automatics are being used in subcompacts like the Hyundai Veloster and Ford Fiesta, as well as the compact Dodge Dart. Manual transmissions used to be a popular option in cheaper cars, but with drivers looking for better fuel economy, automatics have become much more common.
“The Dart lends itself particularly well to sporty driving,” Eric Mayne, Dodge powertrain communications said. “Along with the fuel-economy benefits [DCTs] do a good job of spotlighting the sporty applications.”
In the end, cars like the Dart, Fiesta and Veloster get good fuel-economy, but these transmissions aren’t the same as the ones found in supercars, and lack some of the finesse and feel that’s expected from a DCT. In fact, the Veloster’s DCT is so tuned towards fuel economy that it’s not rated to handle the power of the Veloster Turbo’s engine, so instead Hyundai has opted for a conventional 6-speed automatic.
Manual Take Rate Percentages
Where manuals continue to exist, and flourish, is in the affordable sports car segment. The take rate of stick shifts in these cars also gives a clear indication of which ones really cater to true enthusiasts – though that’s not always the case.
The vehicle with the highest percentage of manual sales so far this year is the brand new Subaru BRZ. Seventy percent of BRZs sold are equipped with a manual transmission.
“The manuals are running very high,” Subaru product communications boss, Dominick Infante said.
That is a skewed number since the BRZ just came out, and most of the buyers are early adopters. “We think that over time that number |
irts: artworktee.com/ Commissions Open: artworktee.com/pages/commissio… Watch on Deviantart: artwork-tee.deviantart.com/ Follow on Tumblr: artworktee.tumblr.com/ Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/artworktee Follow on Facebook: www.facebook.com/artworktee/According to Oilersnation.com, Sam Gagner will be named the 14th captain of the Edmonton Oilers.
The report comes from the site’s owner, who writes under the pseudonym Wanye Gretz. While it might seem odd to quote a report from somebody going by the name Wanye Gretz, he doesn’t report rumours very often and when he has in the past he’s been right. Gretz broke the Oilers’ signing of Mike Comrie back in 2009, going so far as to correctly report the cap hit (Comrie signed a one-year deal at $1.25 million; Gretz reported a one-year, $1.3 million contract).
If Gretz is similarly right here, the Oilers will have made an unconventional choice, picking a player who is neither one of the team’s young superstars nor one of its most experienced veterans. Gagner falls somewhere in between: at 24, he’s in the same age bracket as the team’s young core (even if he isn’t seen as a first overall calibre player) but with six years of NHL experience under his belt he’s been around for a long time, too. Gagner finished second in team scoring last season in a career year, putting up 38 points in 48 games to finish behind only Taylor Hall.
While in some ways this is a surprising choice, Gagner certainly has a backer in general manager Craig MacTavish. In his 2013 season review press conference, he made a point of highlighting Gagner’s leadership – despite the fact that the team was facing a potentially difficult negotiation with the then-restricted free agent:
Sam has really developed into a leader here… he’s a guy that’s really developed into the type of character we want and that’s going to be important when I’m making the decisions, is that we have the type of culture in that room. I would weigh rather take a marginal step backwards and have the culture that we want because I know it’s going to be more impactful going forward. We’ve had a few years of too much of a circus in there and that’s going to change.
Gagner has since signed a three-year deal with the team, a deal that includes a no-trade clause in its second year.
Recently at the Cult of Hockey:
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Follow Jonathan Willis on TwitterAfter a £25 million move from PSV Eindhoven to Manchester United in the summer of 2015, Memphis Depay’s career at Old Trafford never took off and even the manager that adored him so much in Louis Van Gaal, began to become frustrated with the Dutchman in his first season at the club. Jose Mourinho’s arrival at the club really spelled the end of Depay’s career for good at Manchester United as he now departs for Lyon in a reported £22 million move (Goal, 2017) with Mourinho looking to develop funds for a summer spending spree (Squawka, 2017). Depay made a reasonable 45 appearances for the Red Devils in 2015-16, albeit many of them from the bench or in cup games, but after the arrival of Mourinho has appeared just 7 times this season and looks a shadow of his former self. Better things may still be to come for the 22-year old but he will unfortunately now go down as one of the biggest flops in Manchester United’s history. But luckily for Memphis he isn’t the worst of the worst. Here are the top ten biggest flops of Manchester United’s 24-year Premier League stint.
10. Zoran Tosic
Another winger that could never get anything going for Manchester United. Zoran Tosic arrived at Old Trafford in 2009 from CSKA Moscow for a fee of £9m and given the number of appearances he made for the club, Sir Alex Ferguson was probably scratching his head at the signing just as much as the rest of us. The Serbian international made just five substitute appearances for the club, which combined didn’t even come to total a full 90 minute game. He was however a massive hit for the Reserves team so that’s something. Tosic was always a player with potential but with a lack of game time under his belt he and the club agreed to part ways and the winger was sold back to CSKA Moscow for just £1 million less than the price that the Red Devils paid for him. Tosic has had a successful career since then and has been a regular for both CSKA Moscow, where he’s won five major trophies, and for his national side where he’s made 76 appearances, more than Nemanja Matic and Dusan Tadic combined! However his short-lived time in the Premier League will always be remembered as a failure.
9. Juan Sebastian Veron
Argentinean legend Juan Sebastian Veron wasn’t all that bad of a player for the Red Devils but given what he cost Sir Alex Ferguson’s men, turned out to be a complete and utter flop. The Argentinean moved from Lazio to United in 2001 for a fee of £28.1 million, making him the most expensiveplayer in English football history at that time. After struggling to adapt to the pace of the Premier League and finding it difficult to spend any length of time on the ball at all, he was sold to Claudio Ranier’s Chelsea for £15 million where he became an even bigger flop. Again, Veron wasn’t all that terrible for the Red Devils but for being the most expensive player in English football history at the time the central midfielder certainly should have done better than 82 appearances and 11 goals for Sir Alex Ferguson’s men.
8. Memphis Depay
Although he made 45 appearances in his first season for Manchester United, Depay was never a regular in Louis Van Gaal’s set-up and scored only two goals in 29 Premier League appearances. This was on the back of a £25 million move from PSV Eindhoven, a club in which he scored 28 goals in 40 appearances in all competitions for the season before. There was a real sense of optimism amongst Manchester United fans surrounding Memphis Depay when he first arrived at the club but apart from one stellar hat-trick in the UEFA Europa League, every single time he was given a chance by Louis Van Gaal he squandered it. Just 2 goals in 29 Premier League appearances really tells the story, especially given the promise he showed at PSV Eindhoven and for the Dutch National Team at the 2014 World Cup. Now Depay is set to make a £22 million move to Lyon within the next 24 hours, with Manchester United getting off pretty lucky given how bad he was for the club. What the future has in store for the Dutchman nobody knows, but if Memphis can adapt to life quickly at Lyon he could be an instant hit.
7. Wilfried Zaha
Like Memphis Depay, when Wilfried Zaha first arrived at Manchester United he was tipped to be the next Cristiano Ronaldo and unfortunately came nowhere near to living up to that billing. Zaha caught the attention of United after bursting onto the scene in the 2011-12 Championship season as a 19-year old with Crystal Palace. A year and a half later the 5’11 winger made a £10m move to Manchester United with the club having hopes of him becoming a future star. Zaha never lived up to his potential at United though, making just 4 appearances for David Moyes’ men before being loaned back to Palace and eventually bought back by them the same season for a £6m fee. Wilfried Zaha was a complete bust at Manchester United but given his form this season for Crystal Palace he may have a bright future ahead of him after all and could easily find himself at a big club within the next couple of years.
6. Radamel Falcao
Once upon a time Radamel Falcao was one of the world’s greatest footballers. In two seasons with Atletico Madrid he scored a stunning 70 goals in 91 appearances and won back to back Europa Leagues with FC Porto (2010-11) and Atletico (2011-12) while being the competition’s top scorer both times. He even broke the record for most goals in a single European club competition with 17 for Porto in 2010-11, a record that still stands even despite Cristiano Ronaldo’s crazy antics last year in the UEFA Champions League. But after a big money move to AS Monaco and a torn ACL after just half a season with the club his career really began to decline. But still when Manchester United signed the Colombian for £6 million just so that they could get him on loan for a year, there was a high amount of optimism that the centre forward would lead United back to the glory of the Sir Alex Ferguson days. However, the forward was clearly still not back to his best after that horrible injury and whilst making £265k-a-week, scored just 4 goals in 29 appearances for the club. Falcao’s reputation and confidence alike would forever be tainted after that and after an even less successful loan spell at Chelsea he returned to AS Monaco. Falcao has looked pretty much back to his best in recent months though, albeit and no disrespect it is only Ligue 1, scoring 12 goals in 14 league appearances this season. However when you score the same amount of goals as Chris Smalling did that season, you can’t possibly be thought of as anything less than a failure.
5. Massimo Taibi
Generally regarded as one of Manchester United’s worst ever players, Massimo Taibi quickly found himself being called ‘The Blind Venetian’ just months after his arrival at the club. Living up to the high standards set by Peter Schmeichel was never going to be easy for Taibi, but the Italian goalkeeper failed for the club in every regard. After three really poor performances and oddly enough one man of the match performance against Liverpool the 6’3 goalkeeper lost his place to both Mark Bosnich and Raimond van der Gouw, becoming the club’s third choice goalkeeper. Those four appearances were the only four he would make for the club before he was loaned out to Reggina in January of the season he joined, eventually making a permanent move to the club at the end of the season.
4. Rodrigo Possebon
Rodrigo Possebon arrived to Manchester United from Internacional as a 19-year old back in 2008. 3 appearances later he was whisked away by Santos where he made just 8 appearances. The Brazilian was at the time of his transfer to United generally regarded as a player of great potential and like many Brazilian footballers had a tremendous amount of skill on the ball. But after getting injured in his second appearance for the club he wasn’t ever able to earn his way back into the side and was loaned out to Braga, where he didn’t play a single minute of football, before being sold to Santos in 2010. Since then he’s played for 7 different clubs and now 27-years old has still only made 73 senior appearances, just 27 of those coming in league play. Possebon was never really given a chance to show his true worth at United but selling him when they did was probably the right move as given his failures at every single club he’s ever played at, he might be the worst player they’ve ever had.
3. Dong Fangzhuo
Dong Fangzhuo is the only Chinese player in Manchester United’s history and unfortunately given his track record the Red Devils won’t be inclined to buy another player from the world’s most populous country anytime soon. Fangzhuo’s move to the Red Devils was a strange one as after going pro in 2000, he made just 28 league appearances in China over a 2-year span, scoring just 2 goals. Maybe the Red Devils wanted a rise in shirt sales from China, who knows? The striker joined Manchester United in 2004 and despite making just three competitive appearances for the club it took four years before he was offloaded back to China. In that four-year spell, Fangzhuo made just 1 Premier League appearance and was loaned out to Royal Antwerp for two years. The forward never went on to become anything special after leaving United and retired from football at the age of 28.
2. Eric Djemba-Djemba
Tipped to be the next Roy Keane upon his arrival, Eric Djemba-Djemba will forever be considered one of Manchester United’s worst ever players. Djemba-Djemba cost the Red Devils just £3.5million in 2003 but it was £3.5million too much as the Cameroonian never adapted to life in the Premier League. The central midfielder made just 20 league appearances for Sir Alex Ferguson and failed to score a goal in that time, failing to live up to the boots of a United legend. After two seasons with the club Djemba-Djemba was sold to Aston Villa for £1.5 million where he failed again and was loaned out to Burnley where, you guessed it, he failed again. He now plays for a club so bad that they don’t even have a Wikipedia page.
1. Bebe
The worst player in Manchester United’s history, Bebe, cost the Red Devils £7.4 million back in 2010. This was a random act of kindness to the then homeless Bebe who suddenly found himself much richer. Sir Alex Ferguson had only met the player the day before the transfer was confirmed and never watched him play. Instead the Portugeuse forward was recommended to him by his former assistant Carlos Queiroz who has probably never been trusted with a transfer suggestion ever again. Ferguson signed the player for a hefty fee just five weeks after he had joined Vitoria de Guimaraes, a club he never played for and in four years at Manchester United made just 2 league appearances. In that time he was loaned out to three different clubs, probably never learnt a word of English, was sold to Benfica in 2014 and after making just 1 league appearance for them was finally sold to Eibar in 2016. The Portuguese forward will forever go down as the biggest flop in the history of the club.
So there it is! The 10 Biggest Flops in Manchester United’s history since the Premier League began in 1992. It has to be said that Memphis Depay is one of the most talented players on this list it at a different club with a different manager could be a massive success. The Mastermind wishes him all the best at Olympique Lyonnais, but for now it can’t be ignored that he is one of the biggest failures that Manchester United have ever had.
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AdvertisementsOriginally Posted by Thor Originally Posted by
I am ordering this book on payday, next week, can't wait to get it. Thanks to Cynic, KK and everyone else giving their thoughts on the book. I am in the minority, and have gone back and forth in this case as far as who could have done this. I will await reading the book to really admit my feelings in this case.
I have felt from early on that for sure:
Patsy wrote that note
John knew about what happened early on. IMO, he was waiting for the police to find JonBenet and when it wasn't happening soon enough, Arndt gave him the OK to search the house after 1:00 p.m. that day and that was his chance. I don't know he had anything to do with the actual murder, but he had to have known what happened before the cops were called, with all I've read.
I still believe (not John) that it was a male Ramsey molesting JonBenet. I will just say that my original thought was Burke. JAR is a stretch, I know, but due to KK's original (long ago) research on him, I still wonder about his presence in the house. He also could have been molesting her. Just too many things point in both directions. Remember the fibers of John's (shirt?) being in the crotch of her underwear or something like that? Yeah, maybe he changed her innocently. Between Patsy and John's fibers, no way were neither of them involved in the coverup.
I know most people think Patsy killed JonBenet. I remember Delmar telling me to not think about me being a woman and killing my child. He made some good points, and his "garrotte" analysis was excellent and made sense. HOWEVER....after reading snippets of this book, I am back to my original thought on this case. Burke was an odd duck and I know he was off limits to talk about on some forums because he was cleared by Hunter and a minor at the time. But I do remember his odd police/pyschological interviews and I still stick by my guns. Now the train track thing. He did get :(:(:(:(ed at her before. So shoot me.BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary’s defense minister resigned on Monday because the armed forces were being too slow in building a border fence to keep out thousands of refugees and migrants heading into the country.
The resignation came as police used pepper spray on migrants who had broken out of a reception center on Hungary’s southern border, highlighting the difficulty of stemming the tide of refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East.
The armed forces, for which Hende Csaba bore ultimate responsibility as defense minister, were involved in the construction of a fence along Hungary’s border with Serbia designed to prevent migrants entering the country illegally.
A government source said right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a hard-liner on Europe’s immigration crisis, was not satisfied with the speed at which the border protections were being constructed.
“The government’s national security cabinet met on Monday to look at the situation regarding illegal immigration,” the government said in a statement.
“The cabinet heard an account of the state of readiness of the temporary security fence at the border. The minister offered his resignation after the meeting,” the statement ran.
Orban offered the job to Istvan Simicsko, a member of his Fidesz-Christian Democrat party alliance and a former state secretary in the defense ministry.
A group of around 300 migrants broke through a cordon around a reception camp at Roszke, on Hungary’s border with Serbia, and set off down the wrong side of the motorway toward the capital Budapest, Reuters witnesses said.
Police, who had been escorting the migrants to a transit camp for fingerprinting and processing on their entry into the European Union’s passport-free Schengen zone, were unable to prevent their escape despite using pepper spray.
Migrants had scuffled with police, another Reuters witness said.mike myers has teamed up with dreamworks to make new films out of old movies. the plan is to have dreamworks acquire the rights to old films for myers to re-work using digital technology. many scenes from old films have already been digitally altered for use as television commercials.
the digitally altered film will allow myers to insert himself and other actors into old scenes, creating new movies. dreamworks has not disclosed which movies it has in mind for the project.
read more on this topic at reuters.
brian's opinion
i definitely see a debate brewing here, the 21st century equivalent of the debate over music sampling. our technology has taken us to the point where we can now sample video.
i have to admit i can only imagine what myers could possible do with old footage. if you have ever seen an austin powers or wayne's world movie it's easy to understand that myers has a definite fascination with old movie scenes, since parodies of them are clearly sprinkled throughout his movies. this is definitely taking the concept of the parody to a whole new level. why merely recreate a scene when you could actually make fun of it while being in it?
myers is sure to get heat from many movie purists who don't want any of the old films touched. some people still don't like the idea of deceased actors appearing in new television commercials. i don't have a problem with it as long as the actor's estate is well paid for the appearance.
there is definitely something that appears underhanded about simply using an actor's previous appearance in a film to create a new one. i think myers will get away with it, though, since he has a special ability that allows him to convey his love and respect for an old film while at the same time bashing it for all of the laughs he can get out of it. i can't wait for this new project to hit the theaters. i am already laughing thinking about all of the possibilities.
user comments 37 comment(s)
dead people in commercials… (9:44am est tue feb 18 2003)
“i don't have a problem with it as long as the actor's estate is well paid for it.” “i don't have a problem with it as long as the actor's estate is well paid for it.” what about the people who weren't money-guzzling media whores, prostituting their name to sell a few bags of dorito or “orange drink”? sure, if the actor was some corporate shill, i'm sure they won't mind their estate making money off of the use of their image. better yet, i'm sure they'd rather work out some type of deceased-image-use deal so that they can get paid for it while alive. unfortunately, too many celebrities are nothing more than corporate shills and barkers with no sense of dignity or respect for themselves. even worse is the fact that as a society, people generally fall for it. this has nothing to do with love of old movies. if you love old movies, you love the vision they convey. a clumsy replica or low-iq parody/satirization wouldn't even cross your mind. if you actually cared about the movie, this wouldn't cross your mind. how about someone buy the rights to austin powers and make it a good movie. hollywood's found that vatering to the lowest denominator while including little to no actual quality, it can make them a lot more money. don't get on a high horse because a bunch of teens blew their parents dough to get some cheap and stupid laughs – remember these are kids that just outgrew watching power rangers. – by bleh
been there. (9:58am est tue feb 18 2003) steve martin already did this: dead men don't wear plaid (i think it was titled) only about 15 years ago…
– by filmbuffalo
re: dead people in commercials (10:05am est tue feb 18 2003)
–what about the people who weren't money-guzzling media whores, prostituting their name to sell a few bags of dorito or “orange drink”? –what about the people who weren't money-guzzling media whores, prostituting their name to sell a few bags of dorito or “orange drink”? hmmm…depending on your outlook on the afterlife, they either don't know or they don't care. –unfortunately, too many celebrities are nothing more than corporate shills and barkers with no sense of dignity or respect for themselves. just because you couldn't get a job advertising a free money give-away doesn't mean that those who are able to use their “star” power should not be allowed to do so. does doing so make them less human? i'm sure if they were backing the political candidate of your choice, you would have no problem with that. –if you love old movies, you love the vision they convey. a clumsy replica or low-iq parody/satirization wouldn't even cross your mind. i have a feeling that nothing that might be whimsical or funny ever crosses your mind. your self-rightous attitude regarding what is or isn't quality smacks of a neo-facist belief that just because you don't think something is quality, neither should anyone else. –don't get on a high horse because a bunch of teens blew their parents dough to get some cheap and stupid laughs – remember these are kids that just outgrew watching power rangers. how laughable a statement is this? i'm guessing that you don't think you're on your high horse, because you haven't left your ivory tower? just a suggestion, but you might consider this paraphrase of a famous quote, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” you think mike might be thinking that parody runs a close second? nah, that would require you to give someone else credit for something and i doubt you give anyone credit for much of anything. – by i get it…you don't
i'll make a point of not going to see.. (10:10am est tue feb 18 2003)
…films like this. …films like this. while i am a fan of older films and radio plays as well for that matter, i can't imagine much of anything “good” coming from the likes of meyers inserting himself into these classics. it'd be like sticking jar-jar binks into starwars…. oh hell. – by buford lamonte
connie willis (10:23am est tue feb 18 2003)
wrote a novel about this a few years back, called _replay_. – by jj brannon
already been done (11:08am est tue feb 18 2003)
adding to the other examples people have posted: steve odekirk did this in “kung-pow: enter the fist”. – by chemgeek
plaid (11:10am est tue feb 18 2003)
yeah, dead men don't wear plaid was a classic.
“you stuck your finger in my bullethole”
– by archerb
years back (11:16am est tue feb 18 2003)
i read an article about a californian company that was buying up the rights to the image of many dead stars. their plan and i assume that it still is whoever they are, was to create synthetic actors that looked in everyway like the blood and bone real deals. this would then allow them to use famous dead identities to appear in new films! i read an article about a californian company that was buying up the rights to the image of many dead stars. their plan and i assume that it still is whoever they are, was to create synthetic actors that looked in everyway like the blood and bone real deals. this would then allow them to use famous dead identities to appear in new films! how's that gonna rub the film fanatics up i wonder. on the mike meyers front, he ain't so hot but he talks directly to the schlubs. i suspect whatever pap he rolls out will be taken on board by the mainstream and they'll have a right laugh. in perspective it'll probably be a lot better than the current glut of teen-shite movies that the big houses are pumping out but at the same time i don't think it's gonna be a case of him making a cult classic. interesting idea though. kinda like taking the gump insert to a new feature length level. – by spacca
more…. (11:20am est tue feb 18 2003)
i can see it now……the classic scene when rhett says, “frankly my dear….” there's mike in the background giving him the finger. maybe when bogart and hepburn are floating in lake victoria, he could drive up in a motorboat and change that ending also. if all he wants to do is some lame attempt at satire, well………..maybe,
there might be one remake of a classic which does not drain the life out of it, but as i said, i can't recall any. – by darwin
woody did it best (12:01pm est tue feb 18 2003)
does anyone remember zelig – by drmacman
this has been done (12:30pm est tue feb 18 2003)
ever hear of a funny movie called kung pow? that is exactly what this movie is. steve oedkerk inserted himself in to old ninja movies. if you say this movie is stupid you have not seen it. the previews looked dumb but it was a digital break through as funny as hell. – by cory
gimp to be used to make next gump (12:37pm est tue feb 18 2003)
gimp (film gimp) is being used professionally by another movie studio announced today. gimp (film gimp) is being used professionally by another movie studio announced today. there is a novel sequel to forrest gump.
i wonder if gimp will be used to make gump. – by movie guy
cory, i say it's stupid…. (12:56pm est tue feb 18 2003)
steve o. wasn't really that funny. sure, there were 20-30 funny jokes in a sea of about 300 lame ones. kung pow was an interesting experiment and i managed to make it all the way through, but it is really a movie designed for an 10-year old. i was 10 once and no doubt would have thought it was the funniest film i had ever seen. now that i'm in my late 20's, digital cows and lame matrix parodies are what i'd call uninspired writing instead of clever humor. what's up tigerlilly was a slighly more clever movie. i think the fundamental problem involves writing enough jokes to distract the viewer from the original movie. most audiences prefer 2 dozen or so well written jokes with proper build-up rather than cheap one-liners. steve o. wasn't really that funny. sure, there were 20-30 funny jokes in a sea of about 300 lame ones. kung pow was an interesting experiment and i managed to make it all the way through, but it is really a movie designed for an 10-year old. i was 10 once and no doubt would have thought it was the funniest film i had ever seen. now that i'm in my late 20's, digital cows and lame matrix parodies are what i'd call uninspired writing instead of clever humor. what's up tigerlilly was a slighly more clever movie. i think the fundamental problem involves writing enough jokes to distract the viewer from the original movie. most audiences prefer 2 dozen or so well written jokes with proper build-up rather than cheap one-liners. i really have no opionion on resurrecting film. kung pow was mediocre at best, but that was a result of bad writing instead of the technology. i can't picture re-edited movies being popular or even good forms of entertainment, but that's all a matter of personal taste. i think meyers will fall flat on his face with this. i personally hope he does. i'd rather see filmmakers write original material rather than re-edit old movies. – by steven
another “been done” (2:14pm est tue feb 18 2003)
steven segal does this with all of his movies…he takes his old movies and inserts a new babe into them. – by m@
disgusting little maggot (2:44pm est tue feb 18 2003)
great, now myers is going to turn perfectly good, old movies into bathroom-“humor” slop, i can't let my kids watch. – by gunnygeek
the pentaverate! (3:05pm est tue feb 18 2003)
music sampling, video sampling, actor sampling, re-used footage, re-used plots, re-used characters, re-used dna. music sampling, video sampling, actor sampling, re-used footage, re-used plots, re-used characters, re-used dna. i think there might be something brewing at a secret location known as, the meadows. oh, i hated the colonel with his wee, beady eyes! go get'em, charlie. – by heed!
wow (3:25pm est tue feb 18 2003)
i didn't know mike myers' ego was *that* big. – by me
i want to see (4:29pm est tue feb 18 2003)
mike dance with fred astair a la “singing in the rain” or storming the beach with john wayne in “sands of iwo jima”. he could add something to wizard of oz too.
better yet, a young john wayne in the next star wars.
it is obvious that he is going for cheap laughs, but enough of them might make him a little money.
i just hope he doesn't add any belching or farting sound effects. – by rcaman
am at at the right website??? (4:54pm est tue feb 18 2003)
i thought this was geek.com??? not e! what the hell is going on at geek hq? are they that hard up for a story? come on guys and gals, lets stick to the technical stuf…. – by techwarrior
normal (5:04pm est tue feb 18 2003)
people have always been rehashing art that was created before them and putting their own spin on it. they just borrow from the past, and it's always been done. as was mentioned in the article, this is just a matter of new technology. music sampling in the 80's, video sampling now. big deal. if mike myers makes crappy movies doing this, don't watch 'em. plenty of crappy music has samples from really good music, and some really good music has samples from really bad music. maybe mike myers can take a really crappy movie, insert himself and make it funnny, in a mystery science theatre 3000 way. – by daj this
who cares?!? (5:18pm est tue feb 18 2003)
… you all are totally freaking out because someone is going to re-make a 40 year old movie, especially in this day and age of recycling/lack of creativity… have you noticed that most of today's movie directors are idiots and are remaking everything (how bout those comic movies) and if they can't do a remake they throw in a ton of foul language and bare breasts to attempt to hold your attention…. bottom line is this� if you don't like it, then don't spend your $9.00 to see it (just download it using kazaa :) *if you were the dishonest type and all * :( ). – by itsacolorthinghuh
digitise them all! (6:05pm est tue feb 18 2003)
wouldn't you love to see a real gorilla taking the place of king kong in the 1920's classic? (or was it 30's? before my time!) if we can do it, let's do it! if gwb can make up imagery and call it proof, why can't mike mock up movies and call it comedy? – by just do it
what's up tiger lily (7:10pm est tue feb 18 2003)
steven, what's up tiger lily was not an overdub of an existing movie. woody allen filmed it and then dubbed it with different actors. – by -filmfan
(8:48pm est tue feb 18 2003)
who? – by bassie.
i remember the first time i saw it (10:13pm est tue feb 18 2003)
with steve martin in “dead men don't wear plaid.” yea, real original mike. you should stick with your lame austin powers shtick. – by perkypete
bleh (12:25am est wed feb 19 2003)
“what about the people who weren't money-guzzling media whores, prostituting their name to sell a few bags of dorito or “orange drink”?” “what about the people who weren't money-guzzling media whores, prostituting their name to sell a few bags of dorito or “orange drink”?” forgive them for not knowing of bill hicks, they have not seen the light. – by dr6x3
i want to see (rcaman) (7:46am est wed feb 19 2003)
fred astair wasn't in “singing in the rain”, was he? i believe the cast included kelly, renolds (sp?) and o'conner… but i maybe wrong… – by oldman river
rebuttal (9:33am est wed feb 19 2003)
filmfan — allen bought a cheap japanese spy flick and overdubbed it. filmfan — allen bought a cheap japanese spy flick and overdubbed it. oldman river — astaire appears in the “new, improved version” of _singing in the rain_. :>) – by jj brannon
i see dead people… (11:10am est wed feb 19 2003)
on tv, that is. – by truth4u
seriously though (11:13am est wed feb 19 2003)
looks like seeing aint believing. i wonder how the historians are going to handle this. looks like seeing aint believing. i wonder how the historians are going to handle this. (can you imagine 500 years from now, some guy finds some old mike meyers films of the ten commandents, gone with the wind, and singing in the rain). – by truth4u
re truth4u (12:04pm est wed feb 19 2003)
let's be sure to mess with some other classics like ben hur, the robe, and spartacus. – by dongle
ferocious female freedom fighters (3:22pm est wed feb 19 2003)
“can i take it in my room and f*ck it?” – by troma
bleh (4:28pm est wed feb 19 2003)
“how about someone buy the rights to austin powers and make it a good movie?” “how about someone buy the rights to austin powers and make it a good movie?” yeah, right, immediately after the monkeys that fly out of my butt invent a perpetual motion machine! – by /sm
chemgeek (4:31pm est wed feb 19 2003)
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Enlarge this image toggle caption Matt Rourke/AP Matt Rourke/AP
Mitt Romney will cast his vote for Ted Cruz in Tuesday's Utah GOP caucuses, he announced on Facebook Friday afternoon.
But that doesn't necessarily mean the 2012 Republican presidential nominee is rooting for the Texas senator to win the nomination or that he's endorsing his bid. Instead, the choice is a continuation of Romney's broader strategy to deny Donald Trump the GOP nomination and force an open convention this summer in Cleveland.
And perhaps most important, Romney is arguing that a vote for John Kasich, the only other remaining candidate in the race, could help boost Trump.
Last week Romney campaigned for the Ohio governor in his home state, but underscored it wasn't an endorsement. But now, Romney writes that "a vote for Governor Kasich in future contests makes it extremely likely that Trumpism would prevail."
This week, in the Utah nominating caucus, I will vote for Senator Ted Cruz. Today, there is a contest between Trumpism... Posted by Mitt Romney on Friday, March 18, 2016
Earlier this month, Romney lambasted Trump as a "a con artist" and "a phony, a fraud" in a speech in Salt Lake City but didn't make an outright endorsement.
Romney also now explicitly endorses an open GOP convention, where an anti-Trump alternative could be nominated from the floor — possibly Romney or his 2012 running mate, now-House Speaker Paul Ryan. Both men have denied their interest.It was a seemingly innocuous Youtube clip that got me thinking. A fellow toddler-parent showed it to me, with the accompanying explanation that it had become a highly effective way of pacifying her daughter, like a sort-of video-tranquilizer.
Look, she said, and, presenting her phone to our pair of two-year-olds, bid me watch as their expressions began to glaze over. On the screen, a dozen or so Kinder-egg-style treats were arrayed in two neat lines. Then a woman’s manicured hands reached in — belonging to “a Brazilian ex-pornstar,” my friend informed me, absently — and began to open egg after egg after egg.
And there it was, in the mesmerized, near-drugged toddler faces — I’m talking, somewhat pretentiously I’ll admit, about the death of awe.
Travel writers like me spend a lot of time contemplating why people venture abroad. Not just the obvious enticements — relaxation, winter sun, cheap pilsner — but the emotional, soul-stirring stuff: the sustenance of the new. The awe. It has, I think, become one of the main incentives of our travelling lives. As spirituality wanes experience is the new faith, and we are refugees from the mundane.
But behind this quest for the big, beautiful and baffling is a disconcerting sense that wonder in the age of the bucket-list is under attack. From technology, from information overload, from the anti-spiritual cynicism of the post-hippy world. In an era where a child has only to hold a five-inch screen in front of their face to gorge themselves on the apparent miracle of a one-inch Dora the Explorer hatching from a two-tone chocolate shell, awe has started to feel increasingly elusive.
It doesn’t take a bona fide philosopher to understand that this diminution of the human experience is an inevitable price of social progress. Awe, after all, used to be much easier to come by. Imagine you’re a Stone-age hunter witnessing a solar eclipse (not like last month’s anticlimactic, cloud-snuffed eclipse. A proper one.). Suddenly, the sun is extinguished. You don’t know it’s a temporary phenomenon, an orbital idiosyncrasy. So you tremble, piss your mammoth-skin pants, invent Gods! That’s a great big uppercut of awe.
Travel, for many of us, has become a means of trying to resuscitate that sense of humbling incomprehension. Awesome places, whether natural or man-made — the sort that are endlessly catalogued in a thousand ‘things to do before you die’ books — have become lodestars for the restless mind, places to light out for. But it’s harder to feel awe when your eclipse is preceded by a 24-hour news preamble sucking every last grain of mystery out of the process.
The result is a uniquely modern malaise in which awe has become fugitive: desperately sought yet ever harder to wrest from the claustrophobic clamour of our overcrowded little planet. Our culture is all grown-up. And like the adult who realises that the illusionist is a con-man, not a conjurer, we’re becoming dulled by over-discovery and over-supply.
A still from the Lumiere Brothers’ short film: ‘LArrivee d’un train en gare de La Ciotat’.
Real-life awe barely cuts it anymore; we have Photoshop and CGI outdoing the actual. In 1896, when the Lumière brothers premiered their 50-second movie in a Parisian theatre — of a flickering locomotive chugging towards the camera — people fled the auditorium. Now we watch The Hobbit, where 3D armies of orcs, trolls and warmongering dwarves appear utterly, compellingly alive, and shuffle out of the multiplex feeling lobotomized.
The city-dweller’s connection with nature — the most prolific wellspring of earthly wonder — is eroded, near-severed. Romanticising landscape is barely tolerated. Wordsworth would never get away with that lonely cloud shit now. People would just call him a self-regarding hipster wanker. Familiarity breeds contempt. Cynicism withers all. When was the last time you witnessed something special without seeing a photo of it first?
Perhaps the greatest problem, though, lies in the paradox that genuine wonder becomes more slippery the more you pursue it. You can have a bucket-list as long as your arm, but any inveterate awe-chaser will tell you that the carefully planned event, loaded with its adherent expectations, is too open to disappointment.
Say your great travelling aspiration is to witness the Northern Lights (and, let’s be honest, if you subscribe to bucket-lists, there’s an 80% chance it is). You’ve made it to the Arctic Circle, journeyed out to some gloaming Nordic fastness. And there! The ethereal vision of electric green ripples oscillating across space — curling, coalescing, painting great glyphs in the sky. Your imagination unfurls: one moment you see a charging horse, the next a crashing wave. What could it mean, this incandescent tumult, these billion motes of cosmic dust carried on the solar wind? You reach for your camera, then pause. No. You just want to breath this in (there are good photos available on Google images). Hair on end, eyes agog, soul vaulting, you shiver. But wait! What’s this? The couple from your group-tour have marched into your field of view. Backs turned to the light, they hold the phone aloft. Pout, snap; pout, snap. “This is so awesome,” the man breathes, returning to your side. And — POP! — your reverie is gone.The Irish flag flies in Dublin | Pool photo by Maxwells/Irish Government/Getty Images ‘Ashamed to be British’ Tory MEP becomes Irish citizen Charles Tannock hits out at Conservative ‘arrogance and hubris.’
Conservative MEP Charles Tannock told the Irish Times Monday that he decided to become an Irish citizen after the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union.
Tannock criticized the “arrogance and hubris... the petty nationalism, the triumphalism” of members of his own party after the referendum, saying that this made him think of his Irish heritage.
“It has been awakened by Brexit because, to be honest, I am quite ashamed to be British in many ways,” he said.
“It is a hard place to be as a Remainer Tory, but I am not leaving the party yet.”
Tannock’s grandmother was born in Dublin, which meant he could apply for Irish citizenship.
The MEP added that he will continue to use his British passport, though he said he is “seriously considering” whether he will renew it after the U.K. leaves the EU in March in 2019 and if the U.K. heads in a “hostile direction” towards Europe.
“I wanted to feel fully European and be reassured I would remain an EU citizen. I was not getting [Irish citizenship] to use it now. It is more a statement of my EU and Irish heritage and loyalty,” Tannock said.
“I believe that you can be loyal to more than one country, you can love different things in different ways. I love being European, I love being Irish, I love being British and I don’t see any incompatibility between them. Having an Irish passport made me feel a lot better psychologically to be honest.”Zero WR Draft Targets
If you’ve been mock drafting or studying Fantasy Football Rankings this year, there’s a good chance you’ve recognized that running back depth for the 2017 season is thin, to say the least. The near extinction of the bell-cow running back is starting to effect fantasy football like never before. On ESPN’s list of rushing statistics dating all the way back to 2002, the 2015 season was the first time that a running back finished in the top ten in total rushing yards despite not reaching the 1,000 yard plateau. In fact, there were three backs that cracked the top ten list despite not compiling 1,000 yards. Those backs were DeAngelo Williams with 907 yards, Frank Gore with 967 yards and Jonathan Stewart with 989 yards.
Taking it one step further, from 2002 to 2012 the NFL averaged 17.09 running backs per season with at least 1,000 yards. The past four seasons there has been an average of 11.25 per season who hit the 1,000-yard mark. Nearly six fewer backs per season are gaining 1,000 yards on the ground. As I said, the bell-cow is becoming an endangered species in today’s NFL, and we need to appreciate this majestic creature before it disappears.
RK 2016 Top Rushers Att Yards TD 1 Ezekiel Elliott 322 1631 15 2 Jordan Howard 252 1313 6 3 DeMarco Murray 293 1287 9 4 Jay Ajayi 260 1272 8 5 Le’Veon Bell 261 1268 7 6 LeSean McCoy 234 1267 13 7 David Johnson 293 1239 16 8 LeGarrette Blount 299 1161 18 9 Devonta Freeman 227 1079 11 10 Lamar Miller 268 1073 5 11 Mark Ingram 205 1043 6 12 Frank Gore 263 1025 4 RK 2015 Top Rushers Att Yards TD 1 Adrian Peterson 327 1485 11 2 Doug Martin 288 1402 6 3 Todd Gurley 229 1106 10 4 Darren McFadden 239 1089 3 5 Chris Ivory 247 1070 7 6 Latavius Murray 266 1066 6 7 Devonta Freeman 265 1056 11 RK 2014 Top Rushers Att Yards TD 1 DeMarco Murray 392 1845 13 2 Le’Veon Bell 290 1361 8 3 LeSean McCoy 312 1319 5 4 Marshawn Lynch 280 1306 13 5 Justin Forsett 235 1266 8 6 Arian Foster 260 1246 8 7 Eddie Lacy 246 1139 9 8 Jeremy Hill 222 1124 9 9 Frank Gore 255 1106 4 10 Lamar Miller 216 1099 8 11 Alfred Morris 265 1074 8 12 Matt Forte 266 1038 6 13 Jamaal Charles 206 1033 9
Assuming you agree with the information mentioned above and see the glaring need to draft a tailback early, the Zero WR strategy may be your best course of action when planning out a fantasy draft. The strategy is in the name, draft zero wide receivers, not for the whole draft, but at least the first three or four rounds. Try it out in a mock draft, and you may discover you like what your receiving core looks like despite not owning the Antonio Browns or OBJs of the world.
Using this strategy will also require you to develop depth at the wide receiver position in case one of your picks doesn’t pan out. Here I have compiled a list of some pass catchers you may want to take a flier on in the later rounds to help protect your starting rotation and some receivers who could slip past the third round and surprise the league this season.
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DeSean Jackson
June 17th ADP: 7.06 | 7.12 (PPR)
Jameis Winston threw for the 12th-most yards among quarterbacks last season during his sophomore campaign. He ranked one spot better in attempts for the year, throwing the pigskin a combined 567 times throughout the course of 2016. Winston was in the middle of the pack when it came to yards per attempt but with new weapon DeSean Jackson that is bound the change.
Last season Jackson caught 19 passes of 20 yards or more tying him for the 6th best mark in the NFL in the category on the way to his fifth 1,000-yard receiving season of his career. Proving his 20 plus yard catch ranking wasn’t a fluke, when the nine-year vet plays at least 14 games in a season (seven of his nine years in the league), he averages 18.71 catches of 20 yards plus. Out of the seven seasons, D-Jax has played at least 14 games; he has ranked in the top six in terms of catches of 20 plus yards five times.
Take into account one of the seasons Jackson didn’t rank in the top six in the category of 20 plus yard receptions was the year RGIII went down with an injury that ultimately killed his career, and the other season was when Vince Young proclaimed ‘The Eagles are a super team.’ That season Vick got injured, and Philly didn’t even make the playoffs. So let’s just scratch those two off years for D-Jax and chalk it up to a failure of the system.
Those seasons aside Jackson has more than proven he is one of the elite deep threats in the entire NFL. Knocks against Jackson’s age will come with his selection, but let the haters knock themselves silly. Pairing Jackson with an elite wideout in Mike Evans and two solid tight ends in Cameron Brate and newly acquired OJ Howard has number 11 geared for another career performance in year 10. Buy stock in Jackson and watch your roster steadily profit throughout the season.
Willie Snead
June 17th ADP: 7.07 | 6.10 (PPR)
The one thing Snead and every other Saints wide receiver has going for them are quarterback play. Even at age 37, Drew Brees led the league in passing yards in 2016 with 5,208 yards. The last time Brees hasn’t been in the top two in total passing yards was in 2009 when he finished sixth with 4,388 yards. Since 2006 Brees has ranked first or second in total passing yards every season except in 2009 and 2010 (third). Needless to say, Snead is playing with one of the best quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen.
On top of Brees’ talent, Snead has an amazing skill set of his own. While many are drafting his counterpart Michael Thomas five rounds sooner, Snead has fantastic value coming off the board as the ninth pick in the seventh round according to fantasy football calculator. Snead still hasn’t recorded a 1,000 yard receiving season due to his secondary receiver role, but that is all bound to change this season.
With Brandin Cooks out of town in New England, Snead has an opportunity to collect a large percentage of the 117 targets that went Cook’s way. Along with the looks, Snead will also be looking at taking a bite out of the 1,173 yards, and eight touchdowns Cooks contributed. Thomas and Snead are both 24 years old with Snead having an extra year of experience with Brees, but who is more likely to improve on last year’s production?
Yes, Thomas had a tremendous season and could probably replicate what he did in 2016, but how much more can he improve on his already historical year? In an article by Rotoviz’s Charles Kleinheksel, he points out that while Thomas was insanely efficient when it came to nearly every stat last season, he may have maxed out his target total last season. According to the same article, no Saints’ pass catcher has recorded more targets than Jimmy Graham’s 149 in 2011. Marques Colston still holds the record for most targets at wide out with 131 in 2010. Thomas had 121 last season; the question is how much more can he absorb? Surely Snead’s stats will increase somewhere around the range of 20/250/3 making his 2017 season totals come to 92/1,145/7. That stat line would make Snead a steal in the seventh round.
Stefon Diggs
June 17th ADP: 8.01 | 7.05 (PPR)
Diggs seems to be a guy that’s just as likely to wind up on someone’s love list as he is to wind up on the hate side of things. Either way, you want to slice it, Diggs is an exceptional talent and when healthy, can make an immediate impact on fantasy rosters.
In all fairness, the two-year wideout hasn’t had the most consistent play at the quarterback with Teddy Bridgewater going down before the season even started last year. Sam Bradford isn’t going to be a long-term solution for the Vikings quarterback issues, but he is consistent, maybe not with his ability to stay on the field, but with his accuracy. Last season Bradford had the fifth-best completion percentage among NFL quarterbacks and, believe it or not, Bradford has the 21st best completion percentage of all time among NFL quarterbacks. Crazy huh?
Diggs showed us what he is capable of in the first two weeks of 2016, going for 103 yards week one and then 182 with a score the following week. Immediately fantasy owners were kicking themselves for not buying in on Diggs before the start of the season. Then two weeks later Diggs owners were the ones kicking themselves as he went for a combined 87 yards and no scores. It took Minnesota’s youngster until week eight for him to become fantasy relevant again, posting a stat line of 13/80/1. The following week he went nuts again and put up 164 yards before cooling down for the rest of the year. Even with the end of the season cold streak, Diggs finished with the 14th-most receptions in the league.
Ultimately Diggs is a dart throw. He has played 13 games each of his two seasons in the league and is playing on a roster loaded with wide receiver depth. So why buy? Because you went with the zero wide receiver strategy and you need guys with upside. Diggs is the definition of upside. He is just 23 years old and could easily post a 1,000-yard season after falling just short in 2016 with 903 yards. Let’s say Diggs can stay healthy for a full season, something he is capable of with youth on his side. With his career numbers projected over the course of a 16-game season, Diggs would have a final stat line of around 84/999/4. I will take that for my WR2 or 3.
Pierre Garcon
June 17th ADP: 8.12 | 8.06 (PPR)
Garcon hasn’t missed a game since 2013. That’s it, that’s all the good stats anyone can provide for Pierre Garcon. Not really, but if you look at his numbers, they leave a lot to be desired. What makes him a target for your WR3 isn’t past statistics, it’s the volume of targets he will receive this season.
Garcon only has two 1,000 yard seasons on his resume, but that is because of the receivers he has been surrounded with in past years. Now Garcon is a San Fransisco 49er and literally has zero competition at the receiver position. Here’s the 49ers’ current depth chart at wide receiver for proof.
Take a sneak peek, it’s not the most intimidating list of names. Also working in Garcon’s favor is the new quarterback situation and the new offensive coordinator. Brian Hoyer may not be anyone’s ideal starting quarterback, but ask the Texans last season if they would have taken him back. If Hoyer struggles, Matt Barkley is there to take the reigns. Another not so inspiring name, but he did show flashes last season in Chicago. Realistically, San Fran is waiting to see if they can lure Kirk Cousins away from the Redskins next season and are just trying to get by in the meantime. While they wait, Garcon stands to benefit from the lull in Kyle Shanahan’s offense. Last season Shanahan’s offense had the most net yards gained per pass attempt, had the most points scored on offense, the second-most yards gained, had the second most passing yards and third most passing touchdowns. No, the 49ers aren’t the Atlanta Falcons who made it to the Super Bowl last season, but they do have the offensive mastermind who helped lead the way. They may not have the weapons, but the fact they only won two games last season bodes well for fantasy purposes, as they will be forced to air the ball out late in games while playing catch up. Give me Garcon getting 10 plus targets a game on an offense with no other option than to toss the ball to the vet. John Brown June 17th ADP: 10.10 | 9.10 (PPR)
Larry Fitzgerald is 33, Michael Floyd is gone, and John Brown is the guy to buy stock in. Fitzgerald will continue to be the go-to-guy as he has always been, but Brown is a poor man’s DeSean Jackson. D-Jax has been going around the seventh round, while Brown falls all the way down to rounds 10 or 11. In Brown’s first two years in the league, he had 11 grabs of 20 yards plus each season. In 2015 he went from having just two receptions of 40 yards plus to six receptions of 40 plus. Last season was a throwaway year for the Cardinals as a whole.
I’ll just go ahead and admit now that Brown had a terrible year last season, posting 517 yards on 39 grabs. Talk with anyone who knows the NFL, and they would probably say the Cardinals were awful offensively. This is due in large part to Carson Palmer going from the top quarterback in terms of total quarterback rating in 2015 to the 18th last season. We all knew Palmer was due for a downfall, but for it to be so abrupt is shocking.
A big reason for Palmer’s struggles last season was his offensive line’s protection. Palmer went from being the 22nd most sacked quarterback in 2015 to the fifth most sacked last season. Arizona attempted to address these issues in the draft, but Palmer will need to learn to get the ball out earlier if he wants to play beyond this season. Even if he doesn’t have another two seasons in the tank, Brown is still 27 years old and in his three years in the league has a 1,000 yard receiving season to his credit.
It’s obvious Arizona is going to lean on David Johnson again, but defenses have to be ready for the passing game. Palmer had the eighth most pass attempts last season, and that ranking likely won’t curtail much in 2017. Floyd was targeted 71 times last season. Those targets will need to be dispersed and who better to throw to than John Brown. Brown will not only break off huge chunk plays for the Cardinals while taking the top off of defenses, but he also will keep defenses from stacking the box to shut down DJ.
Mike Wallace
June 17th ADP: 10.10 | 10.02 (PPR)
Wallace was huge for the Steelers in 2010 and 2011. After those two seasons, he dropped off and appeared to be done after posting just 473 yards with the Vikings in 2015. Thankfully for Wallace and his fantasy owners, he had a resurgence with Baltimore last season and put up his third 1,000-yard season of his career.
Outside of Breshad Perriman, Wallace shouldn’t have much competition for targets much like Garcon in San Fransisco. Wallace paced the Ravens in 2016 with 72 receptions on 117 targets. The next two names on the list, Steve Smith, and Dennis Pitta won’t be on the field for Baltimore in 2016 for different reasons. Regardless of the reasons, this will be the main factor in Mike Wallace posting WR2 numbers in 2017.
Steve Smith had 70 receptions on 103 targets, while Pitta had 86 grabs on 119 balls thrown his way. The two combined for 1,528 yards and nine touchdowns. All of those targets, receptions, yards, and touchdowns are now up for grabs and Wallace is ready to eat as much of that workload as he can. With the Ravens choosing to address defense in this year’s draft and signing zero name brand receivers to address their losses in the passing game, they must have faith in Wallace.
Pitta’s season-ending, and possibly career-ending, injury happened recently, so Baltimore may explore other options at wideout. Eric Decker and Jeremy Maclin have recently hit the market and could be good options for the Ravens, but Wallace is the one taking reps with Flacco and the one who knows the offense. This will help him out tremendously having already earned the Super Bowl winning quarterback’s trust. Not to mention Perriman was just a rookie last season and didn’t make any type of marginal contributions. Buy in on Wallace posting another 1,000 yard plus season.
Cole Beasley
June 17th ADP: 14.10 | 11.10 (PPR)
Beasley has never recorded a 1,000-yard season. What he has done is increased his yardage total every year he has been in the league and played in 16 games the past three seasons. He also led the Cowboys in receiving yards in 2016 with 833 yards on 75 receptions. Cowboys superstar receiver Dez Bryant played in 9 games in 2015 and 13 last season. This has allowed Beasley to build a strong rapport with the new franchise quarterback Dak Prescott.
In Dak’s rookie season he targeted Beasley 98 times. The 98 looks Beasley’s way accounted for over 20% of Prescott’s total targets in 2016. Just like previously mentioned Landry, Beasley is starting to put his name into consideration for one of the top slot receivers in the game. The same article by Pro Football Focus that has Landry named the best slot man in the league has Beasley sitting behind Edelman at number three.
Obviously, the Cowboys are a run-first team with one of the best running backs in the NFL. Dallas did lose pieces of their star-studded offensive line, which may force the Cowboys into more throwing situations in 2017. If that is the case, Jason Witten and Beasley will continue to be the go-to guys for Dak. Rookie signal callers love their tight ends and slot receivers as Prescott showed last season. Now that teams have tape of Prescott, they may be able to pick up on some of his tendencies and be able to bring more pressure with the lesser offensive line. If that is the case, Witten and Beasley will continue to serve as Dak’s safety valves.Pope Saint Paul VI (Latin: Paulus VI; Italian: Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini ( Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanːi baˈtːista enˈriːko anˈtɔːnjo maˈriːa monˈtiːni]); 26 September 1897 – 6 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements.[8] Montini served in the Holy See's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential advisors of Pius XII, who in 1954 named him Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese. Montini later became the Secretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.
Upon his election to the papacy, Montini took the name Paul VI. He re-convened the Second Vatican Council, which had automatically closed with the death of John XXIII. After the Council had concluded its work, Paul VI took charge of the interpretation and implementation of its mandates, often walking a thin line between the conflicting expectations of various groups within Catholicism. The magnitude and depth of the reforms affecting all fields of Church life during his pontificate exceeded similar reform programmes of his predecessors and successors. Paul VI spoke repeatedly to Marian conventions and mariological meetings, visited Marian shrines and issued three Marian encyclicals. Following Ambrose of Milan, he named Mary as the Mother of the Church during the Second Vatican Council.[10] Paul VI described himself as a humble servant for a suffering humanity and demanded significant changes from the rich in North America and Europe in favour of the poor in the Third World.[11] His positions on birth control, promulgated famously in the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, were often contested, especially in Western Europe and North America. The same opposition emerged in reaction to the political aspects of some of his teaching.
Following the standard procedures that lead to sainthood, Pope Benedict XVI declared that the late pontiff had lived a life of heroic virtue and conferred the title of Venerable upon him on 20 December 2012. Pope Francis beatified him on 19 October 2014 after the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession. His liturgical feast was celebrated on the date of his birth on 26 September until 2019 when it was changed to the date of his sacerdotal ordination on 29 May. Pope Francis canonised Paul VI on 14 October 2018.
Early life [ edit ]
His father, Giorgio Montini
Giovanni Battista Montini was born in the village of Concesio, in the province of Brescia, Lombardy, Italy, in 1897. His father Giorgio Montini was a lawyer, journalist, director of the Catholic Action and member of the Italian Parliament. His mother was Giudetta Alghisi, from a family of rural nobility. He had two brothers, Francesco Montini, who became a physician, and Lodovico Montini, who became a lawyer and politician. On 30 September 1897, he was baptised with the name Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini. He attended the Cesare Arici school, run by the Jesuits, and in 1916 received a diploma from the Arnaldo da Brescia public school in Brescia. His education was often interrupted by bouts of illness.
In 1916, he entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest. He was ordained priest on 29 May 1920 in Brescia and celebrated his first Holy Mass in Brescia in the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Montini concluded his studies in Milan with a doctorate in Canon Law in the same year. Afterwards he studied at the Gregorian University, the University of Rome La Sapienza and, at the request of Giuseppe Pizzardo at the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici. In 1922, at the age of twenty-five, again at the request of Giuseppe Pizzardo, Montini entered the Secretariat of State, where he worked under Pizzardo together with Francesco Borgongini-Duca, Alfredo Ottaviani, Carlo Grano, Domenico Tardini and Francis Spellman. Consequently, he never had an appointment as a parish priest. In 1925 he helped found the publishing house Morcelliana in Brescia, focused on promoting a 'Christian-inspired culture'.[17]
Vatican career [ edit ]
Diplomatic service [ edit ]
Montini had just one foreign posting in the diplomatic service of the Holy See as Secretary in the office of the papal nuncio to Poland in 1923. Of the nationalism he experienced there he wrote: "This form of nationalism treats foreigners as enemies, especially foreigners with whom one has common frontiers. Then one seeks the expansion of one's own country at the expense of the immediate neighbours. People grow up with a feeling of being hemmed in. Peace becomes a transient compromise between wars." He described his experience in Warsaw as "useful, though not always joyful". When he became pope, the Communist government of Poland refused him permission to visit Poland on a Marian pilgrimage.
Roman Curia [ edit ]
Montini on the day of his ordination in 1920
His organisational skills led him to a career in the Roman Curia, the papal civil service. In 1931, Pacelli appointed him to teach history at the Pontifical Academy for Diplomats In 1937, after his mentor Giuseppe Pizzardo was named a cardinal and was succeeded by Domenico Tardini, Montini was named Substitute for Ordinary Affairs under Cardinal Pacelli, the Secretary of State. His immediate supervisor was Domenico Tardini, with whom he got along well. Pacelli became Pope Pius XII in 1939 and confirmed Montini's appointment as Substitute under the new Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione. In that role, roughly that of a chief of staff, he met the pope every morning until 1954 and developed a rather close relationship with him. Of his service to two popes he wrote:
It is true, my service to the pope was not limited to the political or extraordinary affairs according to Vatican language. The goodness of Pope Pius XII opened to me the opportunity to look into the thoughts, even into the soul of this great pontiff. I could quote many details how Pius XII, always using measured and moderate speech, was hiding, nay revealing a noble position of great strength and fearless courage.
When war broke out, Maglione, Tardini, and Montini were the principal figures in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.[21][page needed] Montini was in charge of taking care of the "ordinary affairs" of the Secretariat of State, which took much of the mornings of every working day. In the afternoon he moved to the third floor into the Office of the Private Secretary of the Pontiff. Pius XII did not have a personal secretary. As did several popes before him, he delegated the secretarial functions he needed to the Secretariat of State. During the war years, thousands of letters from all parts of the world arrived at the desk of the pope, most of them asking for understanding, prayer, and help. Montini's task was to formulate the replies in the name of Pius XII, expressing his empathy, and understanding and providing help, where possible.
At the request of the pope, Montini created an information office regarding prisoners of war and refugees, which from 1939 until 1947 received almost ten million requests for information about missing persons and produced over eleven million replies. Montini was several times attacked by Benito Mussolini's government for meddling in politics, but the Holy See consistently defended him. When Maglione died in 1944, Pius XII appointed Tardini and Montini together as joint heads of Secretariat of State, each with the title of Pro-Secretary of State. Montini's admiration was almost filial when he described Pope Pius XII:
His richly cultivated mind, his unusual capacity for thought and study led him to avoid all distractions and every unnecessary relaxation. He wished to enter fully into the history of his own afflicted time: with a deep understanding, that he was himself a part of that history. He wished to participate fully in it, to share his sufferings in his own heart and soul.
As Pro-Secretary of State, Montini coordinated the activities of assistance to the persecuted hidden in convents, parishes, seminaries, and in Catholic schools.[26] At the request of the pope, Montini established together with Ferdinando Baldelli and Otto Faller the Pontificia Commissione di Assistenza (Pontifical Commission for Assistance), which aided large number of Romans and refugees from everywhere with shelter, food and other material assistance. In |
a website, have a Tumblr, an Instagram account, a tour website, a tour page, and a YouTube channel. Since I don’t feel comfortable posting much about my personal life, almost the entirety of my time online is spent promoting one of my books. I usually do it somewhat obliquely, using random jokes to deliver the requisite dose of self-serving self-deprecation. But there is no doubt that in every instance, like a Jehovah’s Witness or shady mortgage financier, I am blatantly hawking some aspect of what I have chosen to view as a career.
It reeks of desperation, these pleas, this constant litany: read me, recognize me, buy me, buy me again. On an authorial scale, being relatively unknown and resolutely Mid-list is like spending a few years on the floor of a deafening concert, angling for attention from every quarter, stuck in a sweaty throng of the equally disregarded, ultimately reduced (en masse and from the obstructed view seats) to holding up a lighter and screaming at the bass player–who couldn’t possibly give less of a shit, even if he could hear above the distortion and tinnitus and quart of hastily guzzled Jack Daniel’s.
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I have 975 followers on Twitter, an embarrassing pittance for anyone trying to move units. That number rises and falls, but tends to remain fairly constant regardless of what I tweet: funny, political, serious, emotional, or just plain propaganda. I find composing (composting?) a worthwhile thought in the span of 140 characters to be a mostly pointless exercise, the writerly equivalent of being sewn into a sleeping bag with a flashlight and the Dummy’s Guide to Semaphore. I also feel a mixture of contempt and sadness when I see other authors (often friends of mine) typing things like “Here’s my new book trailer!” or “I’ll be appearing at Barnes & Noble on Wednesday!” or “Win a signed copy of something so valueless I’m giving it away for free!” mainly because it’s embarrassing to watch their yearning for bandwidth slam against the indifference of a million kitten-occupied Twitter accounts. And yet I write exactly the same sort of things myself, again and again and again.
I have two Facebook pages; a personal and an author page. My author page has 2,229 “fans,” a large percentage of which seem to hail from Malaysia. I have no idea why. On my personal page, I have 775 friends, most of whom I do actually know, or at least have met at some reading or conference or cocktail party. Although there are plenty I have zero clue about and who can’t possibly know me. Those are the ones who tend to comment the most enthusiastically, which is a disconcerting notion.
Meanwhile, my family has acquired Promo Fatigue Syndrome–a condition associated with reflexive conversation-ending, rude topic-changing, abrupt room-leaving, and a tendency to insist that they have “long since given up reading books of any kind.” Our neighbors rarely come out of their houses. At work, my colleagues shamble by, bleary-eyed with exhaustSEAN. Even the rare sub-group of geeky acolytes and plucked-eyebrow fanboys that once bought Infects T-shirts and You Killed Wesley Payne stickers by the fives and tens decided to block me long ago.
And then, on November 16th, 2011 at 7:55 a.m., a very dangerous critical mass was reached: every single person I ever went to school with, from kindergarten to high school to college, became fully sentient. By which I mean, acquired the vague awareness that I have a book or something out. At noon of the same day a second damning mark was plateaued: each of those classmates independently reached the subconscious but irrevocable conclusion that they have absolutely no desire to hear about any goddamned thing I’ve ever written, ever again.
I don’t blame them one bit.
In fact, I’m almost certain my years-long squat of self-promotion has been entirely pointless. If I could have back every minute I’ve spent on social media and apply it to churning out actual prose, I would probably have finished at least one bestselling swords-and-incest fantasy trilogy instead. Maybe even two. In any case, it’s pretty clear that whoever reads what I post (a diminishing coterie, to be sure) has either already bought whatever book I’m flogging, or never had any intention of doing so in the first place. Everything else is just more white noise, a narcissistic armada of turds floating down the center of the Hudson, or the river of pixels, or the throat of the cybersphere. We’ve all heard it before, seen it before, been pitched everything from Sham Wow to rote sham. We’ve sat through a lifetime of fifteen-second commercials in order to watch the ubiquitous YouTube clip of some Khaki Dad taking a Wiffleball to the nuts. Like everyone else, I am truly and deeply bored by the incessant marketing and self-promotion that comprises a majority of any day spent in front of any screen.
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But not nearly as bored as I am by my own.
So why do I keep shoving the collective face between my spread pages? Why do I continually force the communal nose deep into my gluey bindings?
Mainly because publishing a book is an exercise in terror.
Yes, nothing rivals the ennui and impotence that comes with the very real possibility that a week after your book is published, (the culmination of years of obsessive scribbling, mental wreckage, familial damage, and quivering vulnerability) it will be quickly forgotten, widely ignored, aggressively un-reviewed, pulled from shelves, and thoroughly remaindered. In writing there is no safety net, no structure below, just an Amazon ranking and the mystery of Internet buzz. There is the kindness of friends and the randomness of reviews, but they pale in the face of rote indifference.
I had no clue what I was getting into when my first book came out. I barely told anyone. I was embarrassed to. It would have directly contravened my lifelong policy of remaining enigmatically detached from all things that even hinted at vanity, while secretly being very vain–I just wanted the accolades to originate from somewhere less obvious. Not any more. I am now my biggest booster, each sentence a hypo to the cultural mainline filled with blinking promotional neon and liquified thesaurus.
But late at night, when I am alone and naked in our vintage pink-tiled bathroom, I look in the mirror and cringe at the notion of my twenty-year-old self catching a glimpse at the hoop-jumping fool I am now. That young dude would be truly horrified. That young dude would smash furniture and tear shit up. In fact, he’d kick my ass out into the street like Denzel busting a crease in Ethan Hawke, denounce me as a media whore, fling my laptop into the ocean, and then force me to get re-hired at my old construction job, pronto.
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The thing is, it wasn’t always this way. Publishers used to do most of the marketing for the books they put out. The best an author could do was finish the last chapter and then show up reasonably sober for a tri-city book tour. The hope was that the book would eventually be widely reviewed, and then take off on the strength of word-of-mouth. But social media has crushed that seemingly innocent past.
I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone, and acted for a long time like not connecting to the internet was some sort of anti-corporate political statement. Or at least a nod toward the many pleasures of being a stubborn anachronism. But those days are long gone. Authors are a manufactured persona, often just as much of a commodity as their books. They are expected to become promotional machines, a brand, an online industry of extra-novel content that pours from the smokestack of their Innate Marketing Genius, while releasing noxious gas from the vent of their publisher’s Zero Marketing Budget. In other words, you are responsible for your own book unless you’re John Grisham. And even he bitches about his promo budget.
It’s essentially the record business model. A label signs 100 bands and tosses a few singles out there, hoping one gets noticed and blows up. Meanwhile, they spend all their cash stroking Mariah Carey, who is going to sell the same shit-train of albums regardless. The label does nothing to promote the 100 unknown bands, and if their singles die–which almost all of them do–so be it. Contracts were made to be canceled. But there are rare unexpected and random hits, and that’s where the money comes from. Suddenly The Black Keys, once an indie/cult fave, sell a single to Volkswagon, and then the label swoops in with a posse of suited publicity tools, VH1 chicks, and comped tables at Spago.
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Writers are an odd lot. A volatile mix of bravado, insecurity, insatiable need, unusual discipline, and occasional talent. Despite that fact that writing itself is a lonely, obsessive, and mentally unstable vocation–just the sort of pursuit that lends itself to anti-social habits and behaviors–authors are likewise expected to be great in front 0f a crowd, hilarious at the podium, and engaging at the lectern. They are expected torepresent the worth of their prose through expressions of personal charm. Which is, of course, completely ludicrous. But since the collapse of publishing (or at least the explosion of dire, whiny articles about the collapse of publishing), publishers themselves no longer spend the requisite money to advertise the existence of all but a handful of titles.
So, as a self-employed independent contractor of suspect means, you either have to get out there and market yourself, or choose to remain silent and hope for the best. In an industry where 150,ooo titles were published last year, hoping for the best tends to be a failing strategy–if not a bit naive. Therefore one is forced to ask themselves, “If I am not going to make the effort to publicize my own work, why aren’t I a third-year law student instead?” Further, and most damningly, “If people are not reading what I write, why am I writing at all?”
For me, the answer is pure communication–an intellectual exchange. Telling a story is the first step. Having that story read and enjoyed and interpreted and understood is the second. Obviously I would like to do so on the largest scale possible. Forget bestsellers and movie rights and relative fame and huge advances (although all those things would be nice in their relative ways), the bottom line is that if I am not communicating with a sizable group of readers, if I am writing in a vacuum for a static body of acquaintances–spending six hours a day in front of a laptop for ten years suddenly seems like a masturbatory and delusional exercise.
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The great white hope of writing is to reach the point where you no longer have to pimp yourself at all, where you tap into a weird alchemy in which you suddenly have enough name recognition and sales that word-of-mouth and momentum do all the work for you. Then you can sit back and troll Facebook, posting cake recipes and cat pictures and acting like your royalties are preordained and that you are way, way too cool to flog yourself ever again–as if you ever had.
Yeah, I want to get there. But mainly because I love writing, I love what I do, and I don’t ever want to go back.
Oh, and by the way, my new book, Wise Young Fool comes out in exactly one week. It’s a raw-throated punk rock black comedy love story. Slated to move a million units. Or at least a couple dozen.
On August 6th, 2013, it all starts over again.On Saturday, July 2, 2016, for the second time in less than a year, a United States women's national team stood upon a medal stand and hoisted a World Cup trophy in the air, celebrating yet another impressive World Cup win.
This year it was the United States Deaf Women’s National Team (USDWNT), who defeated Russia 3-0 earlier that day to win their second consecutive Deaf World Cup title.
Starting goalkeeper and team captain Meghan Maiwald summed up the win in one word: "Priceless."
"It makes everything so worth it: the good and tough times, the struggle to fundraise, spread awareness and find the time to train on our own after family, career and school. It is something we work so hard for in a four-year span, and it all comes down to one moment," she said.
Defender Gracie Fitzgerald, who at just 17 years old was a fixture on the team’s back line throughout the tournament, agreed with Maiwald, adding, "It was both overwhelming and satisfying knowing it was the second World Cup for the U.S. Deaf Women’s National Team, and for me, personally, it is my first one ever."
The USDWNT, coached by former USWNT players and Women’s World Cup champions Amy Griffin and Joy Fawcett, was first brought to many fans’ attention in the weeks leading up to the World Cup. The team, which has to cover its own costs since it’s not funded by U.S. Soccer, began printing and selling t-shirts to cover the expenses to compete in the tournament.
Emily Cressy moves the ball down the field against Poland (Quinn Fitzgerald, Quinngenuity)
Soon players on the USWNT and in the NWSL began posting pictures of them wearing the shirts to generate more support for the team. USWNT goalkeeper Hope Solo wrote a blog on her website about the team and its fundraising efforts, and Becky Sauerbrunn and Heather O’Reilly wrote an article for espnW about why they were supporting the team.
The attention from professional soccer players who have become household names in their own right caused the USDWNT to see a major increase in their fan base.
"It’s amazing for us to go through this time where our team is starting to make its way into the spotlight. To have our idols from past and present USWNT women tweeting at us and getting the word out, it’s a lot to take in. I am humbled, and I know my team is so honored and grateful to even have a fan base behind us every step of the way," center back Sydney Andrews, who won her first Deaf World Cup with the team back in 2012, said of the team’s sudden rise in fame.
"It’s almost like we don’t know what to do or how to respond, so we just get really, really, really excited. I mean really excited. After games, the few girls who had cell phone service would check Twitter and all of us would gather around and we looked at all tweets, photos, good lucks and congrats, and for myself personally, I was overjoyed, almost overwhelmed, with emotion because of the flood of love and support," she added.
Fans at home were able to continue showing their support for the team by following along with the team’s social media accounts and streaming each of the Deaf World Cup matches online, something the team was uncertain of until just before the tournament’s start.
"It was such a godsend that the tournament organizers were able to live stream every match, and it was quality. That just increased the visibility, along with the live updates on Twitter that fans were able to follow. Fans really got to see us for the first time since the team was formed over 15 years ago," Maiwald said.
With thousands of fans back home watching, the USDWNT began its journey to its second World Cup win. However, the road to the championship final was an unusual one as the tournament shifted to a round-robin format when one team pulled out at the last minute.
Mia Marin struggles to maintain possession of the ball in the Deaf World Cup final (Quinn Fitzgerald, Quinngenuity)
In their first match of the tournament, a June 22 match against Turkey, the USDWNT walked away with a 3-0 shutout, earning them their first three points of the tournament.
They then went on to compete against Russia on the 24th, a game that ended in a 4-1 win courtesy of an Emily Cressy hat trick, her first of the tournament. The win secured the U.S.’s spot at the top of the table, where they would remain for the rest of the tournament.
The USDWNT then took on Great Britain on June 26, defeating the British with another 3-0 shutout.
Host-nation Italy was the team’s next opponent, and the two faced off just two days later. Forward Emily Cressy tallied four goals in the match, while Chloe Rice scored the first two goals of her international career and Fetlework Blitch converted a penalty kick to give the USDWNT a solid 7-0 win.
On June 30, the USDWNT took on Poland in the last game of round-robin play. They notched their spot in the tournament final with a 4-1 win.
For the second time in the tournament, the USDWNT faced Russia. It was also the second time the two teams played in a Deaf World Cup final. Every time, the U.S. was victorious.
In the championship final, Cressy scored the game winner, and her partner up top, Casey King, added a brace to ensure a championship win for the team.
Emily Cressy proved to be one of the most dynamic players on the field for the USDWNT, and she said it was simply a matter of trying to lead by example.
"I played in the 2005 Deaflympics in Australia when I was 14, and I looked up to the veterans on the team. I hoped to help lead my team this year like they did back then," she said.
For her 13 goals and five assists in the tournament, Cressy was named Most Valuable Player, awarded the Golden Boot for most goals scored and was named to the tournament’s Best XI.
"Those accomplishments felt great but the biggest accomplishment for me was representing the U.S. and winning the gold as part of a great team," Cressy said of her accolades.
Defender Sydney Andrews controls the ball for the USDWNT (Quinn Fitzgerald, Quinngenuity)
The team’s undefeated, title-winning performance is impressive on its own, but it’s even more impressive in light of how much time the team trained together. The team held only two camps to prepare for this year’s Deaf World Cup, each of which was only four days long.
"We had so many eyes on us and we had a young team with new coaches. Basically, we were all still getting to know each other throughout the tournament. That may sound strange, but a lot of people probably don’t realize that we were only together for a total of 8 days before we left for Italy," midfielder Kate Ward said.
Not to mention that goalkeeper Meghan Maiwald was playing with a torn ACL and still only allowed two goals.
With the win, the USDWNT has now won two Deaf World Cup titles and three Deaflympics. The team remains undefeated and untied in international play, has tallied 146 goals, and only conceded 10 goals since the team formed in 1999.
It is the most successful, most dominant team in U.S. history.
"I guess it’s true that our record makes us one of the most successful teams in America. It’s amazing, to say the least. Our record on the field pretty much says it all," Ward said.
The team’s next big tournament is the 2017 Deaflympics, which will take place next July in Samsun, Turkey, and the players said they will be back and won’t return home empty handed.
"I will be attending the Deaflympics next year, and I can't wait to win the gold with the team," Fitzgerald said.
"You guys can expect to see me at the next event," Andrews agreed. "There's something about this team, the journey and the experience that keeps a hold of you. This team definitely has my whole heart."
Their new fans couldn’t agree more.Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward release date announced
Watch the new trailer from PAX East.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, the first expansion to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, will launch for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac on June 23, Square Enix announced at PAX East.
Early access will begin on June 19.
The expansion will introduce massive new zones, flying mounts (including flying chocobos and single-rider airships), three new jobs, and more to the world of Eorzea. According to producer and director Naoki Yoshida, there will be around 1.5 times as much area to explore in Heavensward‘s new zones.
The PlayStation Blog has a user Q&A with Yoshida, which touches on a few other aspects of the expansion.
Get the fact sheet and a new trailer below.Editor's Note: This story is one in an occasional series on the ICA. To view the entire series online, go to TribLIVE.com/PittsburghICA/.
After six months of legal jousting, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto won a key courtroom battle against the state Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority on Friday — a small battle in a larger war to force the release of millions of dollars in gambling revenues.
But attorneys representing the ICA said they also won in the courtroom and predicted they would win the war, too.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Christine A. Ward ordered the ICA to hand over stacks of documents detailing years of spending and deliberations by the agency, formed in 2004 to help oversee the nearly bankrupt city’s finances.
Lawyers representing Peduto’s administration complain that the five-member ICA board, now down to only two appointees, appears to be arbitrarily withholding as much as $20 million in revenues generated by the North Side’s Rivers Casino in 2014 and 2015 and earmarked for city coffers.
They argue that Pennsylvania law mandates the ICA to release the cash by the end of January, but the agency’s often-secretive board refuses to explain why the funds appear to be blocked.
“The city doesn’t even know if the board made a decision because we’re not allowed to see it, much less challenge it in court,” said Downtown attorney Brian P. Gabriel, who represents the Peduto administration.
Philadelphia attorney Matthew H. Haverstick, representing the ICA, told Ward that the issues go beyond wrangling over the gambling revenues. The city, he said, is trying to turn the authority into a mere “pass-through” without the ability to force fiscal reforms inside Pittsburgh government.
Haverstick argued that the ICA’s ability to withhold gambling revenues from the city is an important tool in prodding changes designed to stave off financial woes that once plagued Pittsburgh. He hinted during his argument that the ICA would appeal any decision by Ward but said later that it appeared his team had won her over.
“Reading her two orders together, it appears as the ICA has discretion to withhold money from the city. The only question remaining is whether the ICA properly exercised its discretion when withholding the money, which we believe the facts will show that it did,” Haverstick said.
Attorneys representing the city said that was not necessarily true. They pointed to Ward’s decision not to toss out the case completely or move it to Commonwealth Court.
Ward instead gave the ICA 20 days to hand over documents.
Haverstick said the agency turned over nearly 1,000 pages of records Friday. City officials said they have yet to leaf through them but believe they fail to include all the files that Pittsburgh seeks.
After the hearing, both sides told the Tribune-Review that they might work out a settlement to end the litigation.
“Right now, there’s no pending proposal to end this, but who knows what tomorrow brings?” Gabriel said.
Carl Prine is a Tribune-Review staff writer.As the United States faces Japan on Sunday in Vancouver, B.C., in the Women’s World Cup final, the boom in U.S. women’s soccer can be traced back 16 years. But will the game’s slow, steady growth be enough to ensure the survival of women’s pro soccer in America?
Michelle Akers, the pride of Seattle and a pioneer of women’s soccer, put it aptly in 1999.
The sport was about to burst like the grand finale of a fireworks show, straight into the public consciousness. The nation was riveted to a charismatic group of female athletes like never before — and perhaps never since. At least until now.
Watch: Women’s World Cup Final, U.S. vs. Japan, Vancouver, B.C., Sunday, 4 p.m., Ch. 13
“We’re at the epicenter of a big rock being thrown into a huge pond,’’ Akers said famously as the U.S. National Team prepared for its Women’s World Cup title match against China. “We just don’t know what the ripple effect will be.”
The U.S. beat China on penalty kicks in front of 92,000 fans at the Rose Bowl (including President Bill Clinton) and 40 million television viewers, still the most to watch a women’s sports event. Brandi Chastain stripped down to her sports bra after her game-clinching kick, and a women’s soccer revolution was born.
Or was it?
As the Americans try on Sunday in Vancouver, B.C., for their first World Cup title since that cultural watershed moment, it’s fair to ask just where those ripples have taken us.
The first time a women’s soccer boom was predicted for this country came in 1991, when Akers’ goal in the 88th minute gave the U.S. a victory over Norway in the title game of the first Women’s World Cup.
The next time was in 1996, when the U.S. women won the Olympic gold medal in Atlanta. Then came the star-studded ’99 team with Chastain, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and the other players who captured the American public’s fancy.
Chastain was on the cover of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated. Her sports bra went on display in the Sports Museum of America in lower Manhattan. The U.S. team, elevated to celebrity status, embarked on a post-World Cup victory tour of friendly matches that averaged 34,000 fans — and resulted in five straight shutouts.
It was the forefront of a genuine soccer boom — one that is still being felt today in this country. You can see it in the booming numbers for youth participation. According to FIFA, more than half of the world’s registered female soccer players are from the U.S.
What the post-’99 boom (supplemented by Olympic gold medals for the American women in 2004, 2008 and 2012) hasn’t done, however, is ensure a profitable and robust professional league.
Two women’s pro leagues have started and folded since then, in fact. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) lasted from 2000 to 2003. Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) made it from 2009 to 2012. When the WPS shut down, it was replaced by the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), which is in the midst of its third season, with nine teams, including the Seattle Reign FC.
The NWSL, like the leagues before it, hopes for a bounce from the Women’s World Cup. It hopes the current group of American stars proves as charismatic and captivating as the previous generation. Certainly, there is an intriguing mix of established stars like Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Hope Solo, a breakout player in Carli Lloyd, and a new crop in Julie Johnson, Morgan Brian, Tobin Heath and Lauren Holiday. Soccer aficionados say there is a reserve of even younger players behind them, just ready to burst out internationally in the upcoming years.
To Lesle Gallimore, the University of Washington’s women’s soccer coach and a star player in the 1980s and ’90s, it’s not so much a new boom as a more enduring model of slow, steady growth. She notes the vast improvement of the women’s game worldwide, compared with the early days of the U.S. team when only a few international rivals — mainly Germany, China and Norway — offered stiff competition.
“There are vastly more opportunities now,’’ Gallimore said. “We’re definitely light years ahead of where we used to be.”
The media attention and television coverage surrounding the World Cup continues to grow exponentially. All 52 World Cup matches will be televised on one of Fox’s outlets, and 16 of them on the prime Fox, by far the biggest sustained televised output ever of women’s soccer.
Gallimore believes the current pro league is better set up to succeed than its predecessors, which she called “just not great business models.” Now the league is subsidized — at least for now — by the U.S., Canadian and Mexican federations.
“It’s a great model, but how long can the U.S. stay in that business?’’ Gallimore asked. “Probably not forever. It’s probably a five-year plan to see if the league can stand on its own two feet, and then it (the U.S. federation) will have a decision to make.
“It’s a good model, with good owners, and they’ve chosen good cities. The World Cup will no doubt be a positive thing for women’s professional soccer. But it won’t send it over the top. It’s just a lot of gradual growth.”
It turns out the ripple effect of 1999 has resulted in a solid foundation for women’s soccer — one that doesn’t rely on periodic bursts of the rapt attention a World Cup or Olympics bring to sustain it.NEW YORK, N.Y.—The newly-elected Tunisian president vowed Thursday to crack down on Islamist extremists after they encouraged crowds to attack the U.S. embassy in the capital Tunis. President Moncef Marzouki, in an interview during the annual United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders, also called for the Arab League to send a force to Syria.
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in New York City. He vows a crack down on Islamist extremists. (Sept. 27, 2012) ( Mario Tama / GETTY IMAGES )
Marzouki’s promised crackdown on hardline Muslims in Tunisia follows months of struggles by his Islamist-dominated governing coalition to stem a small but aggressive minority of extremists emboldened since the fall of the North African nation’s secular dictator in last year’s revolution, which kicked off the Arab Spring. Salafi extremists have pressured bars to shutter and bullied university campuses to become more conservative, threatening Tunisia’s secular traditions. “The more we wait, the worse it will become,” Marzouki said. “We have no choice, a crackdown will happen.” “The Salafis are not just a danger to our democracy, and... our image abroad,” Marzouki added, but also to “relations with our friends, the Americans.”
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Marzouki has promised that his government will protect the rights of women and religious freedom, while building a robust democracy. But the party also relies on conservative Muslims for votes, and has been reluctant to be associated with a crackdown on the Salafis before elections, expected next year. It is concerned security forces would commit the kind of human rights abuses that were common under the former regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Last week, several thousand demonstrators attacked the U.S. embassy, tearing down the American flag and raising one associated with hardline Muslims, while looting and burning buildings. Four demonstrators were killed and dozens injured. The protest was part of a wave of violent demonstrations around the Muslim world after excerpts of a crude anti-Islam film was dubbed into Arabic and uploaded to YouTube. The protests have led to the deaths of dozens of demonstrators and the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. Marzouki said the crackdown would involve arrests of those planning or involved in violent riots. The president said he cautioned security forces not to engage in torture or other abuses, but conceded that would be difficult to avoid. The former exile said he and many other members of his government were once thrown in jail for their beliefs, and many were harshly interrogated and abused.
“We don’t want to behave like the dictator,” Marzouki said. Tunisia is rewriting its constitution, which is seen as a test of Islamist influence in newly-democratic Arab nations. Marzouki said the charter would be ready by January, around the second anniversary of the revolution. Marzouki said he would not allow the word “sharia,” or “Islamic law,” to be part of it.
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Marzouki is expected to face sharp resistance on blasphemy laws, which he does not want to be part of the constitution, though they enjoy broad political support. Relations between men and women would be defined by the word “equality,” Marzouki said — and not the term suggested by Islamists, “complimentary.” In his speech to the General Assembly on Thursday, Marzouki called for the creation of an international constitutional court to rule on the legality of elections and deter tyrannical regimes. Marzouki asked the UN to declare dictatorship a “scourge” to be eliminated by a bold program similar to those dedicated to eradicating polio and small pox.Frank Lampard will be able to extend his stay at Manchester City further into 2015 if his parent club New York City FC decide to hold a pre-season training camp in England.
Lampard has quickly become an integral part of Manuel Pellegrini’s thinking at the Etihad Stadium, having impressed with goals and match-winning performances since joining on loan from City's sister club in August.
With the American MLS season due to start in March and the 36-year-old initially expected to head to New York for pre-season sometime in the New Year, suggestions that City may try to keep hold of him a little longer have caused some consternation across the Atlantic.
Frank Lampard could be at Manchester City until February if New York agree to pre-season training in England
The City loanee has bagged some important goals so far this term and could see his deal extended
However, it is understood one possibility that could help satisfy both clubs is New York City using the English club’s new Etihad Campus training facility as a base for their own pre-season training camp in January or February.
Recently opened, the theory is that City’s new £200m facility could host NYCFC for training and accommodation while the MLS team play two or three friendly games against local lower league opposition in the North West.
This would enable Lampard to meet and spend time with his new team-mates while continuing to play for City as the NYCFC players went through stages of pre-season fitness work that he wouldn’t need.
Lampard celebrates scoring for Manchester City with new team-mate Pablo Zabaleta
The former Chelsea star has been impressive in midfield for Manuel Pellegrini's side so far this term
City are aware the issue of Lampard’s availability is a sensitive one in America, where NYCFC have used the former England player’s impending arrival in marketing drives and to boost season ticket sales.
However, Lampard has already proved valuable to Pellegrini, scoring four times before injuring his thigh against Tottenham last weekend.
The former Chelsea star has said he will leave the decision about his future to the two clubs.
Lampard has been a major hit at the Etihad and even netted against his former side Chelsea
Meanwhile, Lampard has an outside chance of recovering from injury ahead of City’s visit to another of his old clubs, West Ham, on Saturday.
Lampard missed the Champions League trip to CSKA Moscow after being carried off on a stretcher against Tottenham last Saturday, but his thigh injury is not a serious one.
It is understood he remains a doubt for the trip to Upton Park but if he does miss the match he should be back for next week.
Lampard was voted City’s player of the month for September by fans and has already scored four goals for the club.Stefano Domenicali says he has left Ferrari with the aim of shaking things up and thus helping the team to get back on track.
The news of his departure was officially confirmed by Ferrari after it had leaked out this morning.
“There are special moments that come along in everyone’s professional life, when one needs courage to take difficult and very agonising decisions,” said Domenicali in a statement.
“It is time for a significant change. As the boss, I take responsibility, as I have always done, for our current situation. This decision has been taken with the aim of doing something to shake things up and for the good of this group of people that I feel very close to. With all my heart, I thank all the men and women in the team, the drivers and the partners for the wonderful relationship we have enjoyed over all these years.
“I hope that very soon, Ferrari will be back where it deserves to be. My final words of thanks go to our President, for having always supported me and to all our fans. I only regret that we have been unable to harvest what we worked so hard to sow in recent years.”
Meanwhile Luca di Montezemolo said: ““I thank Stefano Domenicali, not only for his constant dedication and effort, but also for the great sense of responsibility he has shown, even today, in always putting the interests of Ferrari above all else. I hold Domenicali in esteem and I have watched him grow professionally over the twenty three years we have worked together, I now wish him every success for the future.
I also want to wish all the best to Marco Mattiacci, whom I know to be a highly regarded manager and who knows the company well. He has accepted this challenge with enthusiasm.”Last week, for the first time in 70 years in Germany, students from the ‘Chabad Berlin Jewish-Traditional School’ were tested on the halacha and mitzvos of keeping kosher as part of their high school finals.
The student’s, studying in the eleventh grade, were tested on their kosher halacha and mitzvos finals project, becoming the school’s first group of students to be tested on these topics as part of their high school finals. The project’s grade will be added to the student’s total GPA, which includes all the other mandatory core subjects in Germany, making it an official part of the student’s official high school diploma.
In addition to teaching the core subject (foreign language teachings, math, and sciences), private schools in Germany are allowed to integrate different subjects into their curriculum, provided that they are acknowledged by the ministry of education and are being taught in German. As part of this policy, the ‘Chabad Berlin Jewish-Traditional School’ has put together a unique curriculum, combining Hebrew, halacha, Chumash and Torah studies, along with all of the required core subjects.
The school, from which the high school was developed, was |
recent album, Art Angels, and her set. Grimes – Claire Boucher, on her passport – then lets loose the Japanese-themed melody from Genesis, off her previous album, 2012’s Visions. Flanking her are two fierce dancers, Alison and Linda, who recall the Security of the First World, Public Enemy’s old pseudo-paramilitary helpmeets, crossed with ninjas.
The martial rhythm section on Venus Fly is multiplied tenfold. The build is monstrous, the drop apocalyptic
Soon, she’s unleashing gut-juddering sub-bass for Realiti, crunchier, and weirder than on record. She starts Flesh Without Blood off conducting the air, strumming a guitar riff and then singing about a false friendship in a bubblegum coo. “Got a doll that looks like you,” she smiles meaningfully. Bittersweet hook after bittersweet hook plays out on her gear. The bass is carnivorously loud; HANA, Boucher’s support act-cum-band member, whacks drum pads and tosses her plaited horsetail around. The tune is huge. Everywhere you look, there are women dancing.
That pop music can be done with so much sweet, kaleidoscopic ferocity comes as a shock after a lifetime of regretfully accepting that the dead-eyed Britney version was the only way mainstream pop could work. There is no doubt that Miley Cyrus is having a ball, but you can still just see the marionette strings when she moves.
Seeing Grimes tour Art Angels, her fourth and most accessible album (released last November), is like entering a parallel universe, where riot grrrl won the World Cup, where the K-pop-worshipping PC Music scene (Sophie et al) gained control of the means of production, currently hogged by a small cabal of producers who might not have the best interests of pop starlets at heart, where Peaches is as big as Madonna.
Grimes the cult producer used to stay glued conscientiously to her equipment. In her new incarnation, she spends an hour bounding dementedly around, head-banging, running back to her workstation to start the next beat, play a keyboard line or trigger a sample. The stage set is as cheap as you like, what look like army surplus tarpaulins lit from beneath in lurid pinks and yellows, or strafed by lasers. When she’s not singing, Grimes cradles the microphone in the crook of her neck like a phone, both hands feverishly organising the live bits of the show’s playback.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Grimes and her crew are having a blast so palpable, so unrelenting, it actually feels like a game-changer.’ Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
And so it goes on, euphorically, menacingly, with Grimes mixing what she calls “deep cuts” (mostly songs off her previous album, Visions) with the bulk of Art Angels, everything marinated in an enhancing dry rub of MSG cut with PCP.
A big red bow controlling a mane of blond hair, lurid turquoise T-shirt over cut-offs, she is possessed by gleeful energy. Then, between songs, Grimes becomes Boucher, a nervous young Canadian woman, embarrassed at the repeated pauses she has to take because the crowd won’t stop cheering, even when she asks us nicely. “Stop it, it makes me stressed out, I’m very shy!” she blethers. Cue more screaming. The only thing to do is to start rapping in Russian – the vocal to Scream, originally in Mandarin, by Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes.
Later in the set, for Venus Fly, the song’s martial rhythm section is multiplied tenfold. The build is monstrous; the drop, apocalyptic. The dancers have lasers shooting from their fingertips for a revamped version of Be a Body. For Go, a non-album cut that Grimes did with Blood Diamonds, they have daggers.
Soon afterwards, Grimes apologises for having swallowed her own hair. Before Oblivion, she reminds us to hydrate, and not crush our peers. (The girl behind me has already fainted.)
She plays her encore straight after the main set, because, thanks to her nerves, “Once I’m gone…” It’s easily the most explosive track off Art Angels, Kill V Maim, which may (or may not) be about The Godfather if he were a gender-bending vampire. It features the keynote chorus: “Hey, oh, don’t behave.” Hosting the pop rave of your dreams, Grimes and her crew are having a blast so palpable, so unrelenting, it actually feels like a game-changer.Armageddon Is Two and One-half Minutes Away
Armageddon Is Two and One-half Minutes Away
Paul Craig Roberts
Are you ready to die? You and I are going to die and not from old age, because our fellow Americans are so stupid, ignorant, and brainwashed that they believe the lies that are leading us to our certain destruction. This is what the Atomic Scientists tell us. And they are right. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-doomsday-clock-two-and-a-half-minutes-to-midnight-ever-closer-to-nuclear-war/5600715
Can you comprehend the absurdity? President Trump is under full-scale attack from the military/security complex, the US presstitute media, the Democratic Party, and from many Republicans, such as Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham and Republican Senator from Arizona John McCain simply because President Trump wants to reduce the dangerous tensions between the two major nuclear powers.
What explains the total lack of concern for their own lives on the part of the populations in South Carolina and Arizona who send to the Senate and keep sending to the Senate two morons determined to provoke war between the US and Russia?
It should send shivers up your spine that you can ask this same question about all 50 states, and almost all congressional districts.
You can ask the same question about the bordello known as “the American media.” There will be no one alive to post or to read the headlines of the war that they are helping to promote.
The United States and the rest of the world with it along with all life on earth are being sent to their graves by the total failure of American leadership.
What is wrong with Americans that they cannot understand that any “leader” who provokes war with a major nuclear power should be instantly institutionalized as criminally insane?
Why do Americans sit night after night in front of the TV absorbing lies that commit them beyond all doubt to their deaths?
America has failed itself and the world.Time magazine's person of the year 2011 isn't a celebrity, an artist, an entrepreneur or a politician. The "person" is the anonymous marker of a global movement: The Protester (although it should be noted that this is not the first occasion where Time has picked a group as its annual figurehead, having previously celebrated "The American Soldier" in 2003, "The Good Samaritans" in 2005, and "You" in 2006.
As Time's editor, Rick Stengel, argues, to celebrate the protester is to defend the idea "that individual action can bring collective, colossal change". This collectivity has spread like wildfire in the last year or so – each protest, revolution and occupation triggering new uprisings against state oppression, class inequality and police brutality. "From the Arab spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow" declares the Time cover, with Stengel pointing out "the word protest has appeared in newspapers and online exponentially more this past year than at any other time in history".
But how to represent this collective subject, to give a face to this global anger? It is hard for the media and the state to forsake their need to celebrate (and punish) charismatic figureheads, especially when it comes to protest movements. But the anonymity, the leaderlessness (which is not to say structurelessness) of many of the global protests are indications of their strength and of their mass character.
Previously known for the Obama "Hope" poster, Shepard Fairey's illustration of the global protester reveals some of the problems with trying to represent the character of recent resistance. At first glance, the woman looks to be a fusion of several kinds of protester – a woollen beanie hat, a teargas-preventing scarf partially covering a female face. This woman could equally be protesting in Egypt as in New York, or both.
Time's person of the year issue. Image by Ted Soqui/Corbis
In fact, as the LA Times points out, Fairey based his illustration on a photograph of a protester from Occupy LA, Sarah Mason, who was wearing a woolly hat and a scarf with a red "99%" written across it. Mason, when informed that her image had been used for the Time magazine cover, gave the perfect response, in keeping with the egoless nature of the movement: "It's not about me".
But while celebrating the protester, whoever he or she may be, we would do well to look behind the feelgood images and sanctioned defiance. As has been pointed out many times this year, protest is hardly celebrated evenly: while European and US leaders were keen to celebrate the "democratising" dimensions of the Arab spring, they were far less keen when protest happened closer to home. The police and the courts will stop at nothing to prosecute student, anti-tax and anti-austerity protesters, those involved in the unrest in August, and anyone else they feel has disrupted the order of things. Some protests, for example those in London over the disputed election results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, receive scant media attention, even when large numbers of arrests have been made.
Behind the sanitised image of the generic protester lie real people beaten and killed by police and armies, imprisoned, teargassed, tortured. The paradox of protest is that for every march that changes very little, there is the equal chance it might change everything. It's hardly likely those with the most to lose are going to roll over without a fight.
In the meantime, those, such as Legal Defence and Monitoring Group, who work tirelessly to defend protesters, observe protests, and support those arrested and injured by the police, should be backed. Behind every "generic" protester is the threat of real state retribution: behind every celebrated protest are many more that are ignored.According to a new video released by the Islamic barbaric group ISIS, which also identifies itself as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a Japanese Christian man who had traveled to Iraq in an attempt to rescue a friend who was captured by the terrorist organization has been beheaded.
As previously reported, Kenji Goto, 47, who became a Christian in 1997, told reporters last year that he felt compelled to do what he could to help rescue Haruna Yukawa, 42, after he was abducted in August near the city of Aleppo. Yukawa had been through a number of difficult life situations, including bankruptcy, his wife’s cancer diagnosis and a suicide attempt, and thought that perhaps becoming a military contractor would change his life for the better.
After learning that Yukawa had been captured by Islamic insurgents, Goto left Japan in October and eventually made his way into the ISIS-seized city of Raqqa.
“I need to go there at least once and see my fixers (freelance journalist connections) and ask them what the current situation is,” he told Reuters. “I need to talk to them face to face. I think that’s necessary.”
The seasoned journalist said that he believed he wasn’t as high risk as those from other countries.
“He said that as a Japanese journalist he expected to be treated differently than American or British journalists,” friend Toshi Maeda explained to reporters. “Japan has not participated in bombing and has only provided humanitarian aid. For that reason, he thought he could secure the co-operation of ISIS.”
But just before the end of the month, days before he planned to return back home, Goto went missing. He hadn’t been seen until last week when he was shown in a video with Yukawa and a member of ISIS, who has been nicknamed by the media as “Jihadi John.” The two were dressed in orange jumpsuits and had their hands either chained or tied behind their backs.
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ISIS threatened to kill the men if they were not provided with a $200 million ransom, and last Saturday, a second video appeared, which featured Goto holding what is believed to be a photograph of Yukawa’s dead body. He advised that ISIS had said it would free him in exchange for would-be female suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi.
Earlier this week, Goto was featured in a second video, holding a photograph of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh, and warning that ISIS would kill both of them if al-Rishawi was not released.
On Thursday, Goto’s wife issued an emotional plea on behalf of her husband.
“My husband and I have two very young daughters. Our baby girl was only three weeks old when Kenji left,” she wrote. “I hope our oldest daughter, who is just two, will get to see her father again. I want them both to grow up knowing their father.”
But on Saturday, a video was released online entitled “A Message to the Japanese Government” that showed the purported beheading of Goto, generating outrage worldwide.
“Japan will work with the international community to bring those responsible for this crime to justice,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed.
An “I am Kenji” social media effort quickly emerged as well in a show of support for the reporter.IT IS the spirit of choice on the upmarket cocktail bar scene whether distilled from an Icelandic waterfall or flecked with gold.
But now a farmer who produced Scotland’s first potato vodka just three months ago has won a double gold medal and sliver for at the prestigious 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
The Ogilvy Vodka has a distinctive taste as well as bottle. Picture: Contributed
Graeme Jarron, from Hatton of Ogilvy farm in Angus, produces 2,000 bottles of Ogilvy Vodka a month, which sells at £34.99 and is building up a growing following of devotees who are turning away from mass-market producers in favour of small-scale artisandistillers.
Mr Jarron, founder of Ogilvy Spirits, decided to branch out into the highly competitive vodka world after becoming disappointed at the low prices supermarkets were offering for his potatoes.
He also realised that the key ingredients for the new venture – Maris Piper potatoes and water from the Ogilvy burn – were already on site.
The project got under way after a small consultation project with researchers from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh
People are reacting against bigger brands and want home-grown products Paul Waterson
“I studied Agriculture at the Scottish Agriculture College (SAC) near Aberdeen and I knew when I returned to work on the farm that I wanted to do something a bit different,” Mr Ogilvy said.
“I did some research and realised producing a vodka from potatoes would not only be unique to Scotland but also a great example of ground to glass ideology.
Mr Jarron continued: “I approached Heriot-Watt University in 2012, as I knew of their International Centre of Brewing and Distilling.
A group of students helped me do some research into the possibility of using Scottish potatoes to produce vodka. The results were positive and after working on a feasibility study and business plan with the SAC we decided to take the plunge.”
Ogilvy Spirits then recruited a Heriot-Watt University PhD student, Abhishek Banik, as the distiller on the venture.
Mr Banik said: “Graeme’s aim was to create a sipping vodka that, similar to a whisky, would give a multitude of flavours and could be savoured.
The result is a vodka which can be drunk on its own with a few cubes of ice and a slice of pear.
Mr Banik added that the vodka has a range of notes including toffee and caramel which are achieved through specific distillation techniques.
Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said there had been an “explosion” in small artisan distilling businesses.
“It is really good to hear about Ogilvy Vodka getting international recognition for what’s going on in Scotland.
“People are reacting against bigger brands and want home-grown products. They are in effect “drinking less, but drinking better” and want something unrecognisable with a bit of character to experiment with.”
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SCOTSMAN TABLET AND MOBILE APPS
iPhone | iPad | Android | KindleBy Paul “RegiTime” Regan
One thing I have noticed when sweating players I am working with, especially players that are struggling the most, is their propensity to rush nearly all of their decisions.
We are not blessed with a huge amount of time at the online felt but we do have more than enough time to regularly go through a number of basic thought processes which can help us immeasurably.
When I ask players why they rushed a particular decision, a common answer is that they thought an action was “standard”, i.e.; they flop top pair, so naturally, they make a c-bet. This of course is completely standard in most instances but what if our c-bet gets raised? If called, which turn cards are we going to continue firing on? If called, which turn cards are we slowing down on? The above questions are questions we’ll regularly need to have answers for and sometimes, 30 seconds isn’t enough to find the best answer.
“I wish I’d had more time” Is something players often say to me when faced with one of the above questions. There is a simple way to give yourself more time AND relieve some of the pressure of having to figure out what the best move is.
The time can be found by planning ahead using the time left after deciding to fire our c-bet. So, we decide after 2 seconds that c-betting is the correct play. We still have 28 seconds left to use, so why not use them now to consider our options should certain scenarios arise?
It’s way better to decide we’re bet/folding before getting raised. When we get raised, we can become frustrated, trying to find the most appropriate action under the stress of frustration can often lead to us making a poor decision. If we have already made a decision to bet/fold, bet/call, or bet/3-bet before we’re faced with the question, we’re going to find ourselves regularly making more correct decisions at the table.
“Why does the ace always hit?” A scare card arriving on a subsequent street is a regular source of annoyance and frustration. This annoyance and frustration is heightened significantly when we’re not properly prepared for it.
Again, we should be using any spare time we have from previous decisions to consider how we’re going to react to particular cards on future streets. Again, this protects us from being forced to make tough decisions under the added pressure of a diminishing time bank whilst also suffering the added stress/frustration of seeing a card we didn’t particularly want to see.
You’re almost certainly a better poker player than your results currently suggest. In spots where you frequently struggle, you’re almost certainly better equipped to deal with them than you think.
How often, when reviewing a hand do you think to yourself that you made a bad play? When you identify a bad play you have made, it’s proof that you have the skill/knowledge to deal with that situation, so what went wrong in live play?
Almost certainly, you rushed.
The next time you fire up a session, open less tables. Force yourself to be pro-active rather than reactive. Instead of having x amount of tables blinking at you and constantly feeling under time pressure, learn to go though a routine of asking yourself a series of “what if” type questions before clicking the action button.
With experience, this will become second nature to you and you will feel able to add more tables again. The difference then will be when you add those tables back into your game, you’ll be using your time so much more efficiently that your win rate is significantly less likely to be affected by the increase in volume.
Time is precious. Use it wisely and most definitely don’t waste a second of it.Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the Kremlin on March 5. (AP Photo/Sergei Karpukhin, Pool)
Everyone has their off days, but when you're the proudly virile and uncontested leader of one of the most-watched countries in the world, your days off make people nervous. Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't been seen for days, and now people are beginning to wonder why.
On Thursday, Putin's spokesman announced that the president would not attend a meeting with the Federal Security Service (FSB), which he usually attends. But no, Putin was "absolutely" healthy, Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Ekho Moskvy, before adding that the president's handshake was so strong it could “break your hand.”
Putin's absence at the FSB meeting comes just a day after he unexpectedly canceled a trip to Kazakhstan. "The visit has been canceled. It looks like he [Putin] has fallen ill," an anonymous Kazakh official told Reuters afterward, prompting a flurry of speculation.
To make matters more confusing, on Wednesday the Kremlin released an image of Putin meeting with the regional governor of Karelia. But local Web site Vesti Karelii reported that Putin actually had met with the head of the Republic of Karelia, Alexander Khudilainen, on March 4. In fact, RBC.ru reported that a number of events posted by the Kremlin appeared to have been recycled from earlier events. If this is correct, the last time Putin was seen in public may have been March 5, when he met the Italian prime minister in Moscow.
On Friday, as speculation grew further, state TV released footage showing Putin meeting with the head of Russia's Supreme Court at his residence outside of Moscow. It was not clear, however, when the meeting had occurred.
Getting worked up by an absence of a few days may seem silly, but these things happen in authoritarian regimes: North Korea's Kim Jong Un disappeared for weeks last year, intriguing the world. In that case, Kim later reappeared with no real explanation and continued going about his business as usual (don't be surprised if that happens in Russia, too). Russia isn't North Korea, but it's still an intensely personalized political system. Little of political substance happens without Putin's personal approval, and it's hard to imagine how the country would respond if he really were sick.
There's also a history here. At the end of the Soviet era, three separate Communist Party chiefs died suddenly in office, and during the end of Boris Yeltsin's time as president of Russia, alcoholism and poor health led to a number of unexplained and embarrassing absences. Again, Putin is certainly no Yeltsin -- he's a black-belt in judo and known to be extremely health conscious -- but many Russians now assume that the state would lie about the health of its leaders.
This isn't the first time there has been speculation about Putin's health. In 2012, there were a series of rumors when he was briefly absent from public life; most focused on some kind of back ailment. Putin returned, with little explanation. Then, last year, after a New York Post article said Putin might have cancer, Peskov told reporters: “Bite your tongue! Everything’s fine."
Now, with the Russian president absent again, Putin's health is the talk of Moscow. But while rumors are everywhere (some say he has had a stroke; others suggest plastic surgery) it's all just speculation at the moment. On Twitter, users have posted their own theories under the hashtag #ПутинУмер or #PutinIsDead. Another, less macabre, hashtag -- #WhereIsPutin -- is also popular.
Related:
Italian prime minister in Moscow to discuss Russia-E.U. ties
BBC: Nemtsov’s daughter says Putin to blame for death
Russia has a history of finding convenient Muslim scapegoats
This post has been updated to include mention of the images released of Putin on Friday.#Python/Pandas script to analyze baby names database 1880-2012 #from the U.S. Social Security Administration # #By David Taylor Feb. 2014 # #www.prooffreader.com (for blogged results) # #prooffreaderplus.blogspot.com (for scripts, calculations, links, gits, etc.) # #Disclaimer: not a professional programmer, more interested right now in results in a reasonable time. # That said, constructive critique and suggestions are always totally welcome. I'm not proud. # In particular, there is a lot of very needless duplication of boy and girl databases and code # in loops that refer to them, when I could just subset a larger database every time, # but I have enough memory in my computer and not enough in my head so I just found it easier # to work in this inefficient fashion. Your mileage may vary. # Note that I usually use column names instead of indexes, my brain just deals with them better # right now, as I get more used to pandas I'm already starting to adapt. # Also, sometimes I just print-dump everything to a csv file and work with it in Excel. Sorry! #Instructions: #1. Download data set at (as of Feb. 2014) http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/names.zip #2. Unzip into a working directory #3. Change the working directory strings in this script. import pandas as pd import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import re as re import scipy import os os. chdir ( "C:/_Dropbox/Dropbox/py/babynames/yobs" ) #change this to your working directory #read yob files, arrange into data frames and concatenate into one data frame #this portion taken from O'Reilly's Python for Data Analysis (2009) years = range ( 1880, 2013 ) #remember in python a 2013 upper bound means the last value used will be 2012 pieces = [] yobcolumns = [ 'name','sex', 'births' ] for year in years : path = 'yob %d.txt' % year frame = pd. read_csv ( path, names = yobcolumns ) frame [ 'year' ] = year pieces. append ( frame ) df = pd. concat ( pieces, ignore_index = True ) os. chdir ( "C:/_Dropbox/Dropbox/py/babynames/" ) #change this to your working directory #add column 'pct' that is the number of births of that name and sex in that year #divided by the total number of births of that sex in that year, multiplied by #100 to turn into a percentage and reduce all those leading zeroes def add_pct ( group ): births = group. births. astype ( float ) group [ 'pct' ] = ( births / births. sum () * 100 ) return group df = df. groupby ([ 'year','sex' ]). apply ( add_pct ) #add rank of each name each year each sex df [ 'ranked' ] = df. groupby ([ 'year','sex' ])[ 'births' ]. rank ( ascending = False ) #subset girls and boys dff = df [ df. sex == 'F' ] dfm = df [ df. sex == 'M' ] #create names dataframe. This DF discards individual birth or pct values, and instead collects data on unique names. #There is one row per unique combination of name and sex. temp_count = pd. DataFrame ( data = dff [ 'name' ]. value_counts (), columns = [ 'year_count' ]) temp_min = pd. DataFrame ( data = dff. groupby ( 'name' ). year. min (), columns = [ 'year_min' ]) temp_max = pd. DataFrame ( data = dff. groupby ( 'name' ). year. max (), columns = [ 'year_max' ]) temp_pctsum = pd. DataFrame ( data = dff. groupby ( 'name' ). pct. sum (), columns = [ 'pct_sum' ]) temp_pctmax = pd. DataFrame ( data = dff. groupby ( 'name' ). pct. max (), columns = [ 'pct_max' ]) temp_f = temp_count. join ( temp_min ) temp_f = temp_f. join ( temp_max ) temp_f = temp_f. join ( temp_pctsum ) temp_f = temp_f. join ( temp_pctmax ) temp_f ['sex' ] = "F" temp_f. reset_index ( inplace = True, drop = False ) temp_f. columns = [ 'name', 'year_count', 'year_min', 'year_max', 'pct_sum', 'pct_max','sex' ] temp_f = temp_f [[ 'name','sex', 'year_count', 'year_min', 'year_max', 'pct_sum', 'pct_max' ]] temp_count = pd. DataFrame ( data = dfm [ 'name' ]. value_counts (), columns = [ 'year_count' ]) temp_min = pd. DataFrame ( data = dfm. groupby ( 'name' ). year. min (), columns = [ 'year_min' ]) temp_max = pd. DataFrame ( data = dfm. groupby ( 'name' ). year. max (), columns = [ 'year_max' ]) temp_pctsum = pd. DataFrame ( data = dfm. groupby ( 'name' ). pct. sum (), columns = [ 'pct_sum' ]) temp_pctmax = pd. DataFrame ( data = dfm. groupby ( 'name' ). pct. max (), columns = [ 'pct_max' ]) temp_m = temp_count. join ( temp_min ) temp_m = temp_m. join ( temp_max ) temp_m = temp_m. join ( temp_pctsum ) temp_m = temp_m. join ( temp_pctmax ) temp_m ['sex' ] = "M" temp_m. reset_index ( inplace = True, drop = False ) temp_m. columns = [ 'name', 'year_count', 'year_min', 'year_max', 'pct_sum', 'pct_max','sex' ] temp_m = temp_m [[ 'name','sex', 'year_count', 'year_min', 'year_max', 'pct_sum', 'pct_max' ]] names = pd. concat ([ temp_f, temp_m ], ignore_index = True ) # create years dataframe. This DF discards individual name data, aggregating by year. total = pd. DataFrame ( df. pivot_table ( 'births', rows = 'year', cols ='sex', aggfunc = sum )) total. reset_index ( drop = False, inplace = True ) total. columns = [ 'year', 'births_f', 'births_m' ] total [ 'births_t' ] = total. births_f + total. births_m newnames = pd. DataFrame ( data = names. groupby ( 'year_min' ). year_min. count (), columns = [ 'firstyearcount' ]) newnames. reset_index ( drop = False, inplace = True ) newnames. columns = [ 'year', 'new_names' ] uniquenames = pd. DataFrame ( columns = [ 'year', 'unique_names' ]) for yr in range ( 1880, 2013 ): uniquenames = uniquenames. append ( pd. DataFrame ([{ 'year' : yr, 'unique_names' : len ( unique ( df [ df. year == yr ]. name ))}]), ignore_index = True ) years = pd. merge ( left = total, right = newnames, on = 'year', right_index = False, left_index = False ) years = pd. merge ( left = years, right = uniquenames, on = 'year', right_index = False, left_index = False ) #births dataframes, just the number of births per year births = df. pivot_table ( 'births', rows = 'year', cols ='sex', aggfunc = sum ) births_f = dff. pivot_table ( 'births', rows = 'year', cols ='sex', aggfunc = sum ) births_m = dfm. pivot_table ( 'births', rows = 'year', cols ='sex', aggfunc = sum ) # It takes my $400 Acer desktop computer about 15 seconds for this cell. If you want to compare, put the following, uncommented, # as the first line: # %%timeitEvery share makes Black Voice louder! Share To Share To
“First the water, now trash” frustrated flint residents voice out their disappointment in the government.
Flint, Michigan is being widely known for its unstable water supply for years already. The city is currently battling with another harmful problem. According to a statement by the Mayor of Flint, Karen Weaver, trash in the community will not be collected until further notice. As of 1st August, garbage pickup was stopped because the government couldn’t come to a long-term agreement with its garbage disposal company after their contract expired.
The inhabitants of the city have been advised not to leave trash cans out to be collected because as it stands now, there is no one contracted to do that. City officials say, they are yet to enter into a new agreement with another company to do the job. Hence, the issue will be resolved in a few days, but given their track record, their assurances don’t give residents any hope.
The woes of Flint started in April 2014 when the state government of Michigan switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Just about last year, medical research revealed that the water of Flint was contaminated with lead. Residents immediately raised alarm over the polluted water the government provided, sparking global outrage. Two years down the line, the after problem has still not been resolved and inhabitants of Flint, Michigan still battle with access to good drinking water.
This clearly shows that government is bias towards neighborhoods consisting of mostly Black people. A city without water now has to deal with the noxious situation of keeping trash in their homes. First, it was the water, now it is garbage. It seems authorities are intentionally making living conditions tough in Flint to force people to leave. What is next, will they suddenly stop providing electricity too? Will it be the same if the city is inhabited by white people only? Hardly ever.
Ensure to visit this page for all exclusive news and updates. Kindly SHARE this article on any social media of your choiceWait...Is This Rapper On The New Fall Out Boy Single?
By James Wilson-Taylor
Pete Wentz just let slip a few details on what to expect next from the FOB boys (and when it's going to drop).
Fall Out Boy fans across the internet are going nuts over rumours that rapper Post Malone is set to appear on the new single from the band.
The hip hop artist recently posted an Instagram pic of himself with Pete Wentz who is decked out in MANIA-era purple clothes with a dude in a llama costume spotted in the back of the shot.
A post shared by Posty (@postmalone) onMay 26, 2017 at 7:12pm PDT
Looks like some kind of music video shoot to us...
Pete has already confirmed that the second single from MANIA will arrive at the end of June in his own Instagram message, promising that "this one is for the kid warriors out there hunting the purple buffalo" which we are sure is nowhere near as filthy as that sounds.
Keep your eyes peeled towards the end of the month then...
Fall Out Boy's seventh album MANIA is released on September 15th. The band will embark on a US arena tour this Autumn.
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Listen to the #PopBuzzPodcast with All Time Low right here or subscribe for free on iTunes to get new episodes sent straight to your phone every Friday.Despite all of the horror, fear, and loss in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, people have responded with bravery.
Many people who finished the marathon after the bombings just kept on running to area hospitals to see if they could donate blood or otherwise help.
We've found the tweets, images, and stories that document some of the amazing responses to the tragedy.
First responders (Photo: Kylie Atwood/CBS News) twitter.com/pourmecoffee/s…
One responder got someone to safety, then went back to help again:
Buddy tells me 1st responder wheeled this woman out of danger and then went back to scene. #Boston twitter.com/LukeRussert/st…
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) April 15, 2013
An inspiring Google Doc has hundreds of entries with Boston area people willing to house and pick up people who are stranded:Area restaurants are feeding locals and runners, even if they can't pay:
Boston Area restaurants open their doors to to runners and locals "pay ony if you can" @elpelontaqueria
— Lindsay Crouse (@lindsaycrouse) April 15, 2013
Woman comforts another possibly injured person: A couple finds each other after the explosions (via The Atlantic):
Reports of Marathon Runners that crossed finish line and continued to run to Mass General Hospital to give blood to victims #PrayforBoston— NBC Sports Network (@NBCSN) April 15, 2013
Comedian Patton Oswalt posted something wonderful for Boston facebook.com/pattonoswalt/p… twitter.com/michaelhayes/s…— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) April 15, 2013
Former New England Patriot Joe Andruzzi was spotted helping an injured woman after the blast:Whether you were single and miserable or coupled-up and showered with roses this week, the best thing to come out of Valentine's Day 2017 is the news of Australia's favourite love-making song.
Spotify has revealed the top ten songs to appear on people's sexy playlists (via Gizmodo Australia), and taking first place "by a landslide" was John Williams's 'Cantina Band' from the Star Wars: A New Hope soundtrack.
Yes, folks, Down Under likes to get down to a jaunty song played by four weird squid-looking guys called Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes.
In the old 'Legends' canon, this type of music was called 'jizz music' – presumably a play on jazz rather than some highly prescient naming on the part of Lucasfilm's writers. A 'jizz', it turns out (thanks, io9), is a reed instrumental central to music in that genre.
Spotify compiled its list by looking at which songs occurred most often in playlists with'sex' in the title |
one of each module currently available. Note that modules will be stored in the Hangar while not in use, the Master Set cannot launch with all included modules active simultaneously.
Sizing her up
In addition to its incredible modularity, the MISC Endeavor is one of the largest ships currently available on the civilian market! Find out how she stacks up to the competition in this handy chart.
Name Length (m) Mass (Tonnes) Hull E 372.10 3,241 Idris-P Frigate 238.50 1,600 Endeavor 200.00 1,000 Orion 170.00 5,400 Reclaimer 158.00 600 Starfarer 90.00 350 Redeemer 37.50 42 M50 11.00 12
Known specifications
LENGTH 200m BEAM 48m HEIGHT 20m NULL - CARGO MASS 1,000,000 Kg CARGO CAPACITY 500 standard cargo units ( SCU ) MAIN THRUSTERS Front : 2xTBD, Rear : 7xTBD WEAPONS 2xS3 Remote Turrets (Laser Repeater)
All specifications are subject to change for game balancing.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Oct. 12, 2017, 1:22 AM GMT / Updated Oct. 12, 2017, 1:33 AM GMT By Dartunorro Clark
President Donald Trump called the Iran nuclear deal "one of the most incompetently drawn deals I've ever seen" on Wednesday night, just hours after his top advisers had briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the president's plan for dealing with the agreement.
"It should have been taken care of long ago," Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity taped in Harrisburg, Penn., where the president had promoted his tax plan.
"I think it was one of the most incompetently drawn deals I've ever seen...we got nothing," Trump added.
Related: White House Briefs Congress on Iran Decertification Plan
Trump's announcement of his Iran plan could come this week.
The president's decision about whether to decertify the agreement with Iran comes ahead of a deadline Sunday that triggers a 60-day window for lawmakers to determine whether to reimpose sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program that were lifted as part of the 2015 deal.
Trump also lashed out at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who backed the Iran agreement negotiated by then-President Barack Obama.
"Clinton gave them billions of dollars, gave them lots of other things and before the ink was dry on the contract they were already starting again with the missiles and with the nuclear, frankly," the president said in the interview.
"They got a path to nuclear weapons very quickly and think of this one — $1.7 billion in cash — this is cash out of your pocket. You know how many airplane loads that must be?"
Trump added, "So this is the worst deal. We got nothing. We got nothing."
The Obama administration has previously acknowledged the $400 million cash payment airlifted to Iran in January was used as leverage to ensure the release of four U.S. prisoners.
The payment was part of a $1.7 billion settlement of a decades-long legal dispute related to the sale of military equipment prior to the Iranian revolution. The Obama administration denied claims that the transaction amounted to paying a ransom for the four American hostages, insisting that the timing was coincidental.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listen as U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Jordan's King Abdullah during the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20, 2017. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson briefed lawmakers Wednesday on Trump's plan for Iran, officials told NBC News.
Administration and congressional sources say that the president's decision on the agreement is part of a larger strategy to crack down on Iran's missile program and its support for terrorism.
The White House denied that advisers had briefed lawmakers about the president's specific plans, but officials said McMaster left no doubt that Trump intends to decertify, as he has indicated numerous times in the past.
Trump often excoriated the nuclear agreement on the campaign trail, once describing it as "a deal at the highest level of incompetence."
Last month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told NBC's Lester Holt in an interview that decertification is tantamount to withdrawing from the agreement, and will have consequences. "No one will trust America again," he said.BENGHAZI, Libya/LONDON (Reuters) - A British diplomatic team, which is reported to have included special forces soldiers, left Libya on Sunday after being captured by rebels in the eastern town of Benghazi.
Foreign Secretary William Hague speaks at the Conservative spring forum, in Cardiff March 6, 2011. REUTERS/Toby Melville
The government said the team left Libya after running into difficulties. It did not mention the special forces soldiers.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said the problems the team had encountered had been “satisfactorily resolved” and Britain would send another delegation to meet rebel leaders soon.
“This diplomatic effort is part of the UK’s wider work on Libya, including our ongoing humanitarian support,” he said.
A rebel spokesman in Benghazi confirmed that the team, including the crack troops, had left Libya.
Earlier the Sunday Times had said the eight armed but plain- clothed soldiers belonged to the Special Air Service (SAS) whose regiment has seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan and has a special place in British military folklore.
A Libyan human rights activist with links to the rebels told Reuters the team was seized because they had aroused suspicion.
“They (the rebel army) did capture some British special forces. They could not ascertain if they were friends or foes,” said the source in Benghazi. We do not know why they (British government) did not get in touch first or (detail) the purpose of their mission.”
The Sunday Times said the team were intercepted as they escorted a junior diplomat through rebel-held territory. He was preparing the way for a visit by a senior colleague to try to establish diplomatic contact with the rebels, it said.
Rebel sources expressed puzzlement about the mission.
“If this is an official delegation, why come with helicopters? Why not say ‘we are coming, permission to land at the airport?’ There are rules for these things,” one said.
Britain has taken a strong stance against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and wants to work with rebels to help oust him.
British Defence Secretary Liam Fox said earlier that a diplomatic team had gone to Benghazi but he declined to comment on whether special forces had been captured.
“It is a very difficult situation. There are a number of different opposition groups to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. They do seem relatively disparate,” Fox said.
“We want to clearly understand what the dynamic is there because we want to be able to work with them to ensure the demise of the Gaddafi regime, to see a transition to greater stability in Libya and ultimately to more representative government,” he said.
Fox ruled out the use of British military ground forces in Libya but said a no-fly zone remained a possibility. NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels on March 10-11 would examine no-fly zone options.He was at the pool with his carer when he became erratic, striking out at the pool staff and repeatedly hitting his head against a brick wall. He died in the ambulance on the way to John Hunter Hospital. Almost immediately his family began fighting over whether he would be buried in New Zealand or cremated in Australia. Pono's mother Te Rina Abraham, who lives in New Zealand, wanted to bury her son there. However, his father Steven Henry and sister Piki Aperahama wanted the body to be cremated in Sydney and the ashes to be divided equally between both parents.
Members of the family took to social media to air their grievances. Two days after her brother's death, 19-year-old Piki attacked her mother on Facebook. "You haven't seen your son let alone any of your children in years and now you think you have a say? My brother is dead and still somehow my mother seems to make it about her, YOU WERE NOT THERE, my nana, papa and aunties raised me and the boys, they made sure we had a roof over our heads and were always fed." Her mother replied by text saying, "You f---ing lying little c--- say you did everything for your brother and how much you love him while he lays here in Newcastle alone on ice." The feuding family took the matter to NSW Supreme Court. "I have found this decision most difficult," said Justice Stephen Rothman.
"The circumstances are tragic. The Court is not King Solomon. Whatever happens, one or other party will be disadvantaged," he said in his judgment handed down earlier this week. He noted both parents are New Zealanders whose son Pono was born in Sydney in January 2000. His parents separated when he was three-months old and he lived with his mother. However, at 8, Pono was removed from his mother and placed with her parents. One of the major issues between the parents was a dispute over Maori culture.
His mother argued that Maori culture forbade cremation and that "a deceased must be buried so as to return the body to the earth from whence it came". Ms Abraham's older sister, Maata Takiari, a liaison officer and secretary with the Maori Performing Arts Group in Brisbane, gave evidence on behalf of Pono's father that although Maori tradition was to bury rather than cremate "it is not uncommon for Maori families to decide to cremate a body because it is cheaper than a burial," she said in her affidavit. Pono's sister Piki testified that her brother did not have a strong connection with Maori culture or New Zealand, having been there only three times in his life. Ms Aperahama told the court the family wanted a traditional Maori service in Penrith, lasting from three to five days, during which family and friends could come to pay their respects in accordance with traditional Maori practices. Justice Rothman agreed with Ms Aperahama and her father and ordered that the body be released to them.
The judge also ordered that after the funeral service and the cremation, both parents were to receive half of the ashes.Nester’s dialogue in this comic (and thus, the basic idea for this comic) was taken from a Facebook status update of Ben’s. So, at least 58.7% of the credit for today’s comic belongs to him.
And speaking of the good Dr. Burgis, did you know that he is hosting the next Philosophers’ Carnival on June 28th? You didn’t? Well, now you do! This promises to be the best Philosophers’ Carnival ever (since the one I hosted here, anyway), so those of you with blogs (you know who you are… I mean, if you have a blog, I assume you know it) should hurry up and produce a philosophicalish entry and submit it for Ben’s consideration.
Finally, for those of you who enjoy punny comics (and if you’re here, there’s a good chance that you do), this recent one really made me chuckle.Aufetaeum Ruboryp Gender Alpha (pictured), Radical Temperament Passive Diet Vegetation Height 6.20m Weight 276.57kg Genus Rangifae Planet Mesanqiu Chast Discovered by Kildynn Release Atlas Rises
Aufetaeum Ruboryp Gender Alpha (pictured), Radical Temperament Passive Diet Vegetation Height 6.20 m Weight 276.57 kg Genus Rangifae Planet Mesanqiu Chast Discovered by Kildynn Release Atlas Rises
Aufetaeum Ruboryp is a species of Fauna in No Man's Sky. Individuals of this Rangifae (diplo) species can be found on the planet Mesanqiu Chast in the HUB1-A9 Dabindarf III system.
Both genders are mostly brown-green in color, have short and thin tails, and "standard" diplo feet with three white, possibly bony toes.
The Alpha gender displays a reddish-black crest on the top of its head, which seems to be made of a hardened material. Smaller, spiky scales of the same material and color extend halfway down its neck. Yellowish red lumps can be found on its torso, mostly on the upper half. Its eyes are yellow and don't have an obvious pupil visible.
The Radical gender is basically identical to sauropods from Earth biology, with the exception of a large, somewhat butterfly-shaped crest which protrudes from where its neck meets the shoulders. This gender's eyes have black sclera (the white part in human eyes), red irises, and goat-like horizontal slit pupils.
Gallery & Videos [ edit | edit source ]With 800 horsepower from a highly-tuned RB26, solid 295-section rubber at all four corners, and four wheel-drive, there are bound to be fireworks. The AGY Skyline GT-R isn’t the lightest time attacker at 3,050 pounds, but its tidal wave of torque make it a rocket. Plus, it has traction like you cannot believe. How can a car, on street tires, deliver that turbocharged torque so effectively to the pavement?
The frightening power is delivered in the typical RB26 fashion: a knockout punch high in the revs. With a massive Garrett single turbo replicating a small hurricane under the hood, the way the boost comes on abruptly, to say the least, but at least the engine’s been stroked to a solid 2.8 liters for more beneath 5,000 rpm.
To handle the asphalt-churning power, AGY employs an ATS carbon clutch and LSD, as well as a strengthened S690RS gearbox. However, wonderful traction or not, it’s a car nearing thirty years old, and as such, still slides around in a classic style when some wheelspin loosens the rear.
Rounding the first hairpin, the rears are totally lit yet, with some accurate countersteering and a sensible use of the power available, there’s still plenty of drive off the corner. When the road straightens out it accumulates some serious speed in little time. At Tsukuba Circuit, where hairpins and long straights are the dominant features, the GT-R’s phenomenal traction and colossal power can work wonders.In a study published July 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Salk Institute for Biological Sciences researchers have found that brain cells called astrocytes — not neurons — can control the brain’s gamma waves.
They also found that astrocytes — a type of glial cell traditionally thought to provide more of a support role in the brain — and the gamma oscillations they help shape are critical for some forms of memory, such as object recognition.
(When you’re expecting something or when something captures your interest, unique high-frequency electrical rhythms called gamma waves sweep through your brain. Gamma waves have been associated with higher-level brain function, and disturbances in the patterns have been tied to schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, epilepsy and other disorders.)
Evidence linking gamma waves with attention and memory, influenced by astrocytes
“This is what could be called a smoking gun,” says co-author Terrence Sejnowski, head of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “There are hundreds of papers linking gamma oscillations with attention and memory, but they are all correlational. This is the first time we have been able to do a causal experiment, where we selectively block gamma oscillations and show that it has a highly specific impact on how the brain interacts with the world.”
A collaboration among the labs of Salk professors Sejnowski, Inder Verma, and Stephen Heinemann found that activity in the form of calcium signaling in astrocytes immediately preceded gamma oscillations in the brains of mice. This suggested that astrocytes, which use many of the same chemical signals as neurons, could be influencing these oscillations.
To test their hypothesis, the group used a virus carrying tetanus toxin to disable the release of chemicals released selectively from astrocytes, effectively eliminating the cells’ ability to communicate with neighboring cells. Neurons were unaffected by the toxin.
After adding a chemical to trigger gamma waves in the animals’ brains, the researchers found that brain tissue with disabled astrocytes produced shorter gamma waves than in tissue containing healthy cells. And after adding three genes that would allow the researchers to selectively turn on and off the tetanus toxin in astrocytes at will, they found that gamma waves were dampened in mice whose astrocytes were blocked from signaling. Turning off the toxin reversed this effect.
Unexpected effects on object recognition and cognitive behavior
The mice with the modified astrocytes seemed perfectly healthy. But after several cognitive tests, the researchers found that they failed in one major area: novel object recognition. A healthy mouse spent more time with a new item placed in its environment than it did with familiar items, as expected.
In contrast, the group’s new mutant mouse treated all objects the same. “That turned out to be a spectacular result in the sense that novel object recognition memory was not just impaired, it was gone — as if we were deleting this one form of memory, leaving others intact,” Sejnowski says.
The results were surprising, in part because astrocytes operate on a seconds-or-longer timescale, whereas neurons signal far faster, on the millisecond scale. Because of that slower speed, no one suspected astrocytes were involved in the high-speed brain activity needed to make quick decisions.
“What I thought quite unique was the idea that astrocytes, traditionally considered only guardians and supporters of neurons and other cells, are also involved in the processing of information and in other cognitive behavior,” says Verma, a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and American Cancer Society Professor.
It’s not that astrocytes are quick — they’re still slower than neurons. But the new evidence suggests that astrocytes are actively supplying the right environment for gamma waves to occur, which in turn makes the brain more likely to learn and change the strength of its neuronal connections.
Sejnowski says that the behavioral result is just the tip of the iceberg. “The recognition system is hugely important,” he says, adding that it includes recognizing other people, places, facts and things that happened in the past. With this new discovery, scientists can begin to better understand the role of gamma waves in recognition memory, he adds.
Collaborators included researchers at Sogang University in South Korea, University of Lisbon in Portugal, University of Sassari Medical School in Italy, and Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
The work was supported by a Salk Innovation Grant, Kavli Innovative Research Awards, a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Fellowship, a Life Sciences Research Foundation Pfizer Fellowship, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the Bundy Foundation, Jose Carreras International Leukemia Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Institutes of Health.
Abstract from PNAS paper
Glial cells are an integral part of functional communication in the brain. Here we show that astrocytes contribute to the fast dynamics of neural circuits that underlie normal cognitive behaviors. In particular, we found that the selective expression of tetanus neurotoxin (TeNT) in astrocytes significantly reduced the duration of carbachol-induced gamma oscillations in hippocampal slices. These data prompted us to develop a novel transgenic mouse model, specifically with inducible tetanus toxin expression in astrocytes. In this in vivo model, we found evidence of a marked decrease in electroencephalographic (EEG) power in the gamma frequency range in awake-behaving mice, whereas neuronal synaptic activity remained intact. The reduction in cortical gamma oscillations was accompanied by impaired behavioral performance in the novel object recognition test, whereas other forms of memory, including working memory and fear conditioning, remainedunchanged. These results support a key role for gamma oscillations in recognition memory. Both EEG alterations and behavioral deficits in novel object recognition were reversed by suppression of tetanus toxin expression. These data reveal an unexpected role for astrocytes as essential contributors to information processing and cognitive behavior.Urgent:
Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll
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Washington Post: '3 Pinocchios' to Obamacare Enrollment Numbers
The Latest Obamacare Abominations
The White House has been dealt a stunning new blow on Obamacare sign-up numbers with reports showing that only about half of the people "enrolled" at healthcare exchanges in various states have actually paid their premiums.With the March 31 deadline for enrollment just seven weeks away, the number of sign-ups in federal and state marketplaces has slowed down to an alarming figure since the sudden surge in the latter part of December and early January.But the bigger problem for the Obama administration is that roughly 50 percent of consumers who had supposedly enrolled for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform have missed their payment deadline for Jan. 1, according to Investor's Business Daily's website Investors.com In Washington state, the exchange had set a goal of signing-up 340,000 participants by the end of next month, but little more than half that number, 170,000, had filled out the Obamacare forms.But even more devastating for the proponents of the Affordable Care Act is that only 88,071 of those had paid their premium as of Feb. 1st, which is a little more than half the sign-ups, or a little more than 25 percent of the number that Washington had hoped to enlist by March 31 with their premiums paid up.In Wisconsin, Deputy Insurance Commissioner Dan Schwartzer said only about half of the 40,752 state residents that signed up for health insurance through Obamacare by December 31 have paid their premiums and are currently receiving coverage, according to the ABC TV station WXOW19 In Nevada, they had hoped to have 115,000 signed up for Obamacare by the March 31 deadline for individuals. But so far it looks like it's going to fall well-short of that goal with just 14,999 having paid their premiums by Feb. 1, which amounts to 66 percent of those who enrolled.In Minnesota, Conservative Intelligence Briefing reported that 27,775 households had received private coverage from the MNsure exchange as of January 18. But only 14,500 have paid or have payments pending – a little more than half.Minnesota, which has a goal of 67,000 sign-ups by March 31, has also been hit by a slow-down in Obamacare enrollments. After having soared by 4,000 a week for five weeks over December and early January, the rate has gone back to the November crawl of just 700 a week.Investors.com says that the January data from New York, Colorado, Maryland and Kentucky also shows that the Obamacare sign-ups havein the second half of the month.According to the report, the "spotty" payment rate may indicate that the demographics of paid enrollees "may be older and possibly sicker than even the national sign-up data have signaled."Obamacare needs young and healthy customers to sign up with the state and federal healthcare exchanges to keep the cost down for older and less-abled consumers.The White House had estimated that exchange sign-ups had reached the three million mark by January 23, an increase of 800,000 over December 28.But thenumber is still far short of the seven million Americans that the president had hoped to enlist by the March 31 deadline of Obama's signature healthcare reform lawCopies of President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 federal budget are laid out ready for distribution on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal, snubbed by some Republican allies, is just the latest example of an administration that seems at times clueless or indifferent toward Congress.
Since becoming president, Trump has at times wrapped congressional Republicans in a clumsy embrace that many have welcomed, wooing House members with Oval Office facetime or trips on Air Force One. At other times he’s misread, ignored or disregarded both parties on Capitol Hill.
Early on, the administration’s botched rollout of Trump’s immigrant travel ban caught Republicans off-guard and scrambling to get basic information for their constituents. Two weeks ago, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey with little to no heads-up to GOP leaders, some of whom were left struggling to explain, much less defend, the president’s decision.
Now, with Trump’s approval rating hovering around 40 percent and a special counsel investigating his campaign’s ties with Russia, some Republicans are concerned his stumbles could even cost them their House majority. As a result, Trump is receiving strikingly little deference on Capitol Hill for a president so early in his administration.
“Trump does not have much invested in Congress and Congress doesn’t have much invested in him,” said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “Congressional Republicans and Trump ran separate campaigns last fall and credit their elections to different coalitions, and at the end of the day while they’re Republicans they’re only united by their agenda.”
And thus far that agenda — starting with repealing Democrat Barack Obama’s health care law and a tax code overhaul — remains undone as the two sides struggle to work together and bridge their own divides.
Some Republicans said that that they had heard nothing from the administration beforehand prior to the release of a budget notable for harsh cuts to domestic safety-net programs from Medicaid to food stamps to crop insurance that congressional Republicans were never going to accept.
“You would hope that they would want to ask the folks who know the most about it,” said Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, adding he and his staff were not consulted ahead of the proposal of large crop insurance cuts which he cannot support.
“It has to be a collaborative process and I hope that the administration will take our views into consideration moving forward,” said Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., when asked whether the administration had taken Congress’ views into account. “Obviously we are the branch of government that has to pass any piece of legislation.”
White House allies dispute such complaints, but at times Trump himself hardly seems to have his finger on the pulse of lawmakers of either party.
The president expressed amazement that congressional Democrats weren’t cheering the Comey firing, since they too had been critical of Comey for his handling of the investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. And then the White House floated the name of former Sen. Joe Lieberman to replace Comey, apparently in the mistaken belief that Democrats would embrace the onetime Democratic senator who’d subsequently betrayed the party, in the view of many, by endorsing Republican John McCain over Obama for president in 2008.
And even while decrying the large cuts in the president’s budget, which longtime GOP Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky deemed “draconian,” GOP lawmakers were also expressing frustration that Trump was leaving Social Security and Medicare largely intact — another area where Trump’s goals stand in conflict with those of congressional Republicans.
“I think they’re trying to do their best to come up with a budget that gets where we need to go but doesn’t take on in a significant way entitlement programs, which is where most of us know the money is,” said Sen. John Thune of North Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican. “And so that part is frustrating.”
Leading the defense of the president’s plan is Mick Mulvaney, the director of Office of Management and Budget and a former congressman elected in the 2010 tea party wave. Trump tapped several current and former members of Congress for his administration, starting with Vice President Mike Pence, but few have any significant, long-term experience working on major legislation.
The same is true of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, a former head of the Republican National Committee.
Congressional Republicans fear that a lack of accomplishments will cost them in next year’s midterms. They haven’t forgotten that even before taking office, Trump undercut GOP efforts in one Senate race.
Trump managed to thwart one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s goals by appointing Montana GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke to run the Interior Department. The president ignored pleas from McConnell allies who wanted Zinke to run for Senate against one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats, Jon Tester of Montana.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Erica Werner has covered Congress since 2010. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawernerI have never posted an iPhone photo on Deviantart before because of the lack of quality, but this shot actually turned out pretty well for an iPhone camera and I'm so excited about the costume, I just have to share!!! I color corrected the image a bit and added a watermark but it is not photoshopped otherwise.So here you have a sneak peek of my newest cosplay: Jessica Rabbit - Who framed Roger RabbitCostume made & modeled by meiPhone photo by Brian BolingJessica Rabbit has always been one of the most mesmerizing cartoon characters to me - as a kid she made me watch the movie over and over again, and as a cosplayer, she was always a huge challenge for me to portrait. I've been collecting materials for her for almost 2 years, and wanted to make this costume to the best to my abilities.I drafted & made a custom corset to create the extreme shape and then made the dress to fit over it. I engineered 2 Victoria's Secret Miraculous bras into the corset, which is steel boned coutil. The extreme illusion is created by pulling in the waist, padding the top and wearing a booty bump hahaha. No photoshop, although even with my final measurements of 41-23-39 it's still not Jessica Rabbit's accurate measurements. Hers are probably indeed humanly impossible. ^_^;;;Also, I went with the hot pink (fushia) colored dress from the movie, deliberately, instead of red, because I've always viewed Jessica as orange hair, pink dress, purple gloves.There are Swarovski crystals on the dress & gloves, which were glued on with help from Mary Cahela!I adore my wig which is a Matilda from Arda Wigs! Styled with help from Ara Fernando!The exaggerated bedroom eyes makeup involving covering up eyebrows with wax was created by me!Debut: Dragoncon, Friday, 6pmOther Deviations of this costume:WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates – mostly Republicans – despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.
And that the imam who’s being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.
Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.
He’s devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He’s scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the “Dark Ages.” Yet he’s also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.
FULL AP STORY FOLLOWS BELOWIf you were anywhere near the internet last week, you will have come across reports of 'DarkMarket', a new system being touted as a Silk Road the FBI could never seize.
Although running in a similar fashion on the face of things—some users buy drugs, other sell them—DarkMarket works in a fundamentally different way to Silk Road or any other online marketplace. Instead of being hosted off a server like a normal website, it runs in a decentralized manner: Users download a piece of software onto their device, which allows them to access the DarkMarket site. The really clever part is how the system incorporates data with the blockchain, the part of Bitcoin that everybody can see. Rather than just carrying the currency from buyer to seller, data such as usernames are added to the blockchain by including them in very small transactions, meaning it's impossible to impersonate someone else because their pseudonymous identity is preserved in the ledger. Andy Greenberg has a good explanation of how it works over at Wired.
The prototype includes nearly everything needed for a working marketplace: private communications between buyers and sellers, Bitcoin transfers to make purchases, and an escrow system that protects the cash until it is confirmed that the buyer has received their product. Theoretically, being a decentralized and thus autonomous network, it would still run without any assistance from site administrators, and would certainly make seizing a central server, as was the case with the original Silk Road, impossible.
But even if the source code for the project is already up on GitHub, don't expect hundreds of DarkMarket clones to pop up on the web any time soon. Its creators won the first prize at the Toronto Bitcoin hackathon for the system's 'proof-of-concept.' In other words, it should be treated more as a first draft rather than a finished product. For example, it doesn't yet contain anonymity protections, which are an essential component if you don't want to get caught while buying or selling your drug of choice.
But all of this focus around illegal drug sites is missing the full point of DarkMarket. Even though the name may be synonymous with dodgy dealings on the deep web (there is a vibrant discussion on Reddit about changing it to FreeMarket for that very reason), the technology underpinning it—a decentralized, peer-to-peer system built on a network already established by Bitcoin and the blockchain—has ramifications far beyond online black markets, including freedom of speech and the proliferation of secure communications tools.
I called up Damian Cutillo and William Swanson, the developers of DarkMarket along with Amir Taaki, to talk about their project.
The pair explained to me what pulled them into this project: Swanson was keeping an eye on the technical side, and Cutillo, having studied libertarian ideologies, was interested in the philosophical issues as well. Both joined the project at the last minute, when Takki asked if they wanted to take part in the hackathon.
“It was just one of those times that you got in the flow and things started happening,” Cutillo said. “I could really feel how powerful it was while we were doing it.” He said that at around 5 o'clock in the morning, after a whole night of coding, Taaki shouted, “Guys! We're gonna do this!”
So why are we seeing this now? Why hasn't another group of hackers already released an open source, decentralized trading platform? “One of the important pieces of the puzzle that must be present is Bitcoin,” Swanson explained. “You cannot do this without some sort of a decentralized payment system, because if all of your funds have to run through the banks, that's your choke point. We saw that with Wikileaks: [it] was almost shut down all because the payment processor decided not to support it.” As he pointed out, Bitcoin has only been around for five years, and its applications are still embryonic.
Carrying on from that, he said it was necessary for other Bitcoin-dependent projects to fall apart before these developments would have been made: “We don't want to make that parallel too strong, but in a certain sense it [Silk Road] had to fail first, for people to realise that it was a failed model.”
It was only October 2013 when the FBI seized the servers of the infamous deep web marketplace. “This is basically instantaneous in computer time,” Swanson said.
In its place, the pair both believe that DarkMarket has the potential to act as a platform for a marketplace truly free from government control. In the demonstration in Toronto, MDMA wasn't the only product listed on DarkMarket. A species of tomatoes that is banned in the EU for safety reasons, marmalade made from soon-to-be-discarded produce from grocery stores, and an asthma inhaler were also listed, which, although seemingly innocuous, are all illegal to sell without regulation.
The last item in particular highlights the less obvious uses of this kind of market. When traveling to the US, it is nearly impossible to purchase an inhaler without a prescription, even if you know you have a condition that requires it. You would need to visit a doctor, be diagnosed, and then allowed to purchase one. “Why can't [someone who has asthma] just buy one, like he needs it?” Swanson asked.
At bottom, underneath all the hype around illegal drugs, DarkMarket is a decentralized trading platform for currency and data. The reason it's so powerful is because it's supported by the computers already working away on Bitcoin. Having some of the data nestled within the blockchain, DarkMarket is essentially piggybacking off all of those keen to generate some cryptocash. “Bitcoin is the most powerful computer network on the planet; that opens up these impossibilities,” Cutillo said.
And it's what might come next, beyond the marketplace, that really excites the team. They imagine the technology could be used for a Wikileaks clone or similar whistleblowing site, which, because it's not running on a central server, would be impossible to shut down. Or a system “where when you upload files [to the] peer-to-peer network, they get dispersed; not just a file, but an actual Wiki or some kind of website page, which gets published in multiple places simultaneously,” Damian said; it would work in a similar way to Bittorrent. If something like the Snowden documents, or any information for the matter, was uploaded using the tech behind DarkMarket, it would be much harder, if not impossible, to censor.
Another application is marrying this tech with some of the open source telephony systems available. Swanson pointed out that the Nokia 1000 is the most popular phone in the world, and its use has rocketed in third world countries. “It's a feature phone and not necessarily easy to trade Bitcoin with right now,” he said. But if they could combine a decentralized SMS service with an interface for Bitcoin, they could create, in essence, a network “outside of any one telecom company or government,” meaning that it could not be shut down. “That's huge; that's actually what we are talking about here, not selling pills and pot, etcetera.”
Those were just some of the ideas that the guys had in our brief phone conversation. The pair stressed that, as Taaki said in the demonstration video, “this is just to get the idea out there.”
“We just did this in a day,” Damian continued. “It's the seed for the imagination. Now that people know that it's possible, they will actually work on it. Sometimes that's what deters someone from working on something; when it seems impossible.”
So what is the future of DarkMarket |
). Brief intense exercise (like sprinting) with long recovery times (that will depend on your age, etc.) are the best way.
The shocking turn of events
I changed my diet, I was in the middle of totally changing my lifestyle, getting enough rest most of the time, being smart with exercise, taking it easy with alcohol, etc. and I got good results, really, but not all that I wanted, I wanted all my energy back, I wanted my focus, my motivation, my drive and I wanted some more morning erections that, well, they were kind of returning but not very much, it was getting better but something was missing, something was not entirely right, I could sense I had to push one more button that I had not discovered, yet.
And then it happened, almost by “chance” as many important things in life do, and in about two or three weeks of making that little change, everything turbocharged to the stars.
One problem with this is that, unlike the rest of this report, I’m not saying that this is a scientific truth proven by many studies, unfortunately I can assure you that everything is damn obscure and shady about this issue, which, in my books, it’s a big red warning sign to start.
One day I stumbled into an Internet forum researching about testosterone and some guy talked about his problems in bed and… Aspartame.
Yes, aspartame, the artificial sweetener that substitutes sugar and is present in every diet soda and many other things we buy, like low fat products and other “fake” foods.
“Aspartame? What the hell? Is that thing dangerous? Why they put it on food if it’s so dangerous? It can not be”.
After saying that I remembered all the other things in this report, so I took a magazine, carefully rolled it and proceeded to hit myself in the head for displaying so much idiocy in so few words.
Some more guys got into the conversation and commented about their aspartame experiences too and how it affected their masculinity.
You know, an Internet forum is not exactly the most accurate way to get information (sorry to break the news), but I decided to go deeper, to see if there is some scientific proof to it. I wanted to watch with my own eyes and think for myself, as I did with every point in this material.
And I did it, because I was religiously drinking two cans of diet soda daily for almost two or three years, and I was a compulsive sugar-free chewing-gum eater since I can remember, I always had one in my mouth, those were my guilty pleasures and I thought nothing was wrong with something that was as caloric as water or a simple chewing-gum.
As I researched more another unpronounceable word was added to my dictionary: excitotoxins.
Basically they are toxins that excite our nerve cells so much that they die. Things like glutamate or aspartate (present in, oh surprise, aspartame) do that.
As men we can think that our brain is not a deadly target, if you take a look it’s clear that we don’t tend to use it very much, so we may think that this issue (and zombie outbreaks) are not a serious threat for males, but seriously, it can be a real problem.
If you go to the studies many of them conclude that aspartame is safe, well, better said, aspartame is not safe, is a toxin, we know that, but our “normal” daily dosage seem harmless.
In fact some controversy sparked in the Internet, aspartame was venom and it was regarded as a hoax but so much noise was made that a new study chimed in to stop the controversy and saying that even large dosages of aspartame were safe34.
Well, this was becoming confusing but it seemed that there was no reason to worry (you know even when aspartame is clearly a toxin, but it seems ok to put that in ourselves), then I read this at the end of the press release of the study I’ve just referenced.
*“The study was conducted at MIT’s CRC. Electro-encephalograms were done at the Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. This work was supported by a grant from the NutraSweet Co. to the Center for Brain Sciences and Metabolism Charitable Trust.”*
Wait.
What?
Nutrasweet? I’n not American so I did not recognize the name at first, but it didn’t sound very independent, then I saw that Nutrasweet makes aspartame, but you know, you can not question the business ethics of a multimillion dollar company right?
I used again the rolled magazine and I decided to know more.
One of the main points in its defense is that the blood barrier protects our beloved brain from the excess of neurotoxins like aspartate and glutamate, if they pass they can kill certain neurons, allowing too much calcium into the cells if the reach them, but, supposedly, they don’t pass.
So we eat toxins, but our brain is protected. Fair enough, because that’s true (at least to a point), our bodies are wise even when we are idiots, but take a look at this:
Small children don’t have the barrier fully developed (at least they advise against sugar-free stuff and children, in a very little font size, of course), some conditions can damage the barrier (mmmh, not good), some physicians I read said that it does not fully protect against all the glutamate or aspartate (damn, I don’t know if it’s entirely true, but this seems fishy) and, above all, one thing we know for certain is that not every part of our brain is protected by the blood barrier…
What?
What parts?
The Area postrema, a zone made to detect toxins and send the signals that say “vomit, you dumbass, you are taking toxins”. Ok, I get it, it’s logical to leave that out because it has to feel the effects to raise the alarm.
The pineal gland, that needs to secrete and send to the blood the hormones that influence our circadian rhythms (you know, the sleep/wake cycles). Well, I don’t appreciate that much, good sleep is good testosterone.
The Posterior Pituitary Gland, because their hormones must reach the bloodstream too (wait a minute, some things are making a connection, I can hear the rusty gears of my brain moving).
The Median eminence of the hypothalamus, that’s the link between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. Again it’s not protected because hormones secreted by the pituitary gland gather there and have some drinks before being secreted into the bloodstream.
You read that and your sleepy neurons sparked like a Christmas tree because they remembered something I said in the beginning… Yes! The hypothalamus is the funny animal that gives the order to create testosterone! Right? And then the order goes to the pituitary gland!
Well, right, it’s not the animal, but damn right, the hypothalamus passes the initial hormones to the pituitary gland to get the cycle of testosterone started. Read again the part of how testosterone is made.
And that very mechanism is not protected by any blood barrier, so it’s quite possible that the bastard messes directly with the commander in chief of our manliness.
I went deeper, and aspartame does very nasty things, like methanol (i.e. Wood alcohol) in the body when taken, that alone is a good reason to kick it, but I wanted to know how it specifically related to testosterone, because it’s real that it’s a neurotoxin (no one denies that) and precious parts of the brain (the ones related to testosterone) are not protected, were my logical suspicions right?.
I came to a study about rats and aspartame, the conclusion was that their pituitary glands and hypothalamus were messed up thanks to the substance, so the testosterone production went very badly because the mechanism responsible of testosterone (the circuit of LH hormones, etc.) went to hell35.
The rats were in a prepuberal stage (they were becoming adult rats) and I quote the study.
*“The degenerative aspects of brain and pituitary observed in Aspartame-treated rats suggests that it is reasonable to assume that the same infant-to-adult relationship would be true for the Aspartame consumption in humans to children in the prepubertal period of development, especially.”*
So there is scientific evidence that support that aspartame is not so harmless to our beloved hormone, and that I was not misguided with my early suspicions about the damn toxin messing up with the testosterone creation mechanism in its very same starting point.
I decided to drop every gram of aspartame just because it’s a toxin, but this added weight to my quest for recovery. So goodbye forever guilty pleasures, it was not nice to know you… bastards.
I tossed completely diet sodas and chewing gum, I was going to be my own study subject, and two or three weeks after dropping aspartame the results turbocharged. I awoke some mornings with a gigantic tent in my sheets (well, you are a man, you know I had to say that at one point or another, and no, it’s not gigantic at all, but it was alive and kicking, again), my penis seem larger and healthy again when resting, instead of shy and retracted, and my mood, my drive, my focus multiplied again fueled by the change of lifestyle and the absence of excitotoxins.
I was consuming a good aspartame daily for years (I even noted other side effects sometimes, like constant sweet sensation in my mouth, that altered how other food tasted, but I never gave it credit for anything, much fewer testosterone problems) and I can feel that I’m not fully recovered yet, but I know one thing, dropping aspartame was a multiplier to all of this.
If you don’t mess with aspartame you have been smarter than me, if so, try for yourself, I don’t especially want to be sued by some sweetener corporation so I just say: “try and you will see”.
And (for the first time in this pages I’m going to ask that) trust me, I know that I’m not the only one that after quitting started recovering his manhood.
My body, turbocharged by what’s in these pages and without that sneaky saboteur, is going at it again, because he is wise even when I’m an idiot.
Scientific Studies Referenced
University of Zurich (2009, December 9). Testosterone does not induce aggression, study shows.Eisenegger et al. Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour. Nature, 2009.↩ Vermeulen, A. (1996). Declining Androgens with Age: An Overview. In Vermeulen, A. & Oddens, & B. J. (Eds.), Androgens and the Aging Male (pp. 3-14). New York: Parthenon Publishing.↩ S. Dhindsa, M. G. Miller, C. L McWhirter, D. E. Mager, H. Ghanim, A. Chaudhuri, P. Dandona. Testosterone concentrations in diabetic and non-diabetic obese men. Diabetes Care, 2010; DOI: 10.2337/dc09-1649↩ Dhindsa, S. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, November 2004; vol 89: pp 5462-5468.↩ 3 Zoppi, F. R., et. al. (2002). Sexual activity and plasma testosterone levels in hypertensive males. American Journal of Hypertension, 15(3), 217-221. ↩ Interrelation between plasma testosterone and plasma insulin in healthy adult men: the Telecom StudyD. Simon, P. Preziosi, E. Barrett-Connor, M. Roger, M. Saint-Paul, K. Nahoul and L. Papoz ↩ Increasing Insulin Resistance Is Associated with a Decrease in Leydig Cell Testosterone Secretion in MenNelly Pitteloud, Megan Hardin, Andrew A. Dwyer, Elena Valassi, Maria Yialamas, Dariush Elahi and Frances J. Hayes↩ Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Volume 32, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 20-39. Nicole M. Avenaa, Pedro Radaa and Bartley G. Hoebel. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton.↩ Induction of Estradiol Metabolism by Dietary Indole-3-carbinol in Humans, JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst (1990) 82 (11): 947-949. doi: 10.1093/jnci/82.11.947Jon J. Michnovicz and H. Leon Bradlow↩ Effects of dietary zinc depletion on seminal volume and zinc loss, serum testosterone concentrations, and sperm morphology in young men. CD Hunt, PE Johnson, J Herbel and LK Mullen. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center, ND 58202.↩ Lisa C. Vinikoor, Jane C. Schroeder, Robert C. Millikan, Jessie A. Satia, Christopher F. Martin, Joseph Ibrahim, Joseph A. Galanko, and Robert S. SandlerConsumption of trans-Fatty Acid and Its Association with Colorectal Adenomas. Am. J. Epidemiol. (2008) 168(3): 289-297 doi:10.1093/aje/kwn13 ↩ J Toxicol Sci. 2010;35(5):743-7. Testosterone-lowering activity of canola and hydrogenated soybean oil in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat. Okuyama H, Ohara N, Tatematsu K, Fuma S, Nonogaki T, Yamada K, Ichikawa Y, Miyazawa D, Yasui Y, Honma S.↩ Wang C, Catlin DH, Starcevic B, Heber D, Ambler C, Berman N, Lucas G, Leung A, Schramm K, Lee PW, Hull L, Swerdloff RS. “Low Fat High Fiber Diet Decreased Serum and Urine Androgens in Men.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Mar 1. PMID: 15741266.↩ Hamalainen E, Adlercreutz H, Puska P, Pietinen P. “Diet and serum sex hormones in healthy men.” J Steroid Biochem. 1984 Jan;20(1):459-64. PMID: 6538617.↩ Testosterone and cortisol in relationship to dietary nutrients and resistance exerciseJEFF S. VOLEK,1,2 WILLIAM J. KRAEMER,1,2,3,4 JILL A. BUSH,1,2 THOMAS INCLEDON,1,2 AND MARK BOETES1,2↩ Schuler, Lou. The Testosterone Advantage Plan. Rodale: USA, 2002.↩ University Of Minnesota (2005, May 2). Food Fried In Vegetable Oil May Contain Toxic Compound. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 26, 2011, from [http://www.sciencedaily.com] Testosterone and cortisol in relationship to dietary nutrients and resistance exerciseJeff S. Volek1,2, William J. Kraemer1,2,3,4, Jill A. Bush1,2, Thomas Incledon1,2, and Mark Boetes1,2↩ Regulation and perturbation of testicular functions by vitamin A. G Livera, V Rouiller-Fabre, C Pairault, C Levacher, and R Habert. Society for Reproduction and Fertility↩ Bishop, D. T., Meikle, A. W., Slattery, M. L., Stringham, J. D., Ford, M. H., West, D. W., Borecki, I. B. and Rao, D. C. (1988), The effect of nutritional factors on sex hormone levels in male twins. Genetic Epidemiology, 5: 43–59. doi: 10.1002/gepi.1370050105↩ Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009 May;41(5):1102-10. Athletic performance and vitamin D. Cannell JJ, Hollis BW, Sorenson MB, Taft TN, Anderson JJ↩ Effect of vitamin D repletion on testicular function in vitamin D-deficient rats. Sood S, Reghunandanan R, Reghunandanan V, Marya RK, Singh PI.↩ Association of Vitamin D Status with Serum Androgen Levels in Men. E. Wehr; S. Pilz; B. O. Boehm; W. März; B. Obermayer-Pietsch. Posted: 09/17/2010; Clin Endocrinol. 2010;73(4):243-248. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing↩ Vitamin K deficiency reduces testosterone production in the testis through down-regulation of the Cyp11a a cholesterol side chain cleavage enzyme in rats. Hitoshi Shirakawaa, Yusuke Ohsakia, 1, Yoshihiko Minegishia, Naofumi Takumia, Kousaku Ohinataa, Yuji Furukawaa, Takeo Mizutanib and Michio Komaia↩ Garlic Supplementation Increases Testicular Testosterone and Decreases Plasma Corticosterone in Rats Fed a High Protein Diet. Yuriko Oi1, Mika Imafuku, Chiaki Shishido, Yutaka Kominato, Syoji Nishimura and Kazuo Iwai. Laboratory of Nutrition Chemistry, Faculty of Home Economics, Kobe Women’s University, Suma-ku, Kobe 654-8585, Japan and; * ; Riken Chemical Industry Limited Company, Fushimi-ku, Kyoto 612-8404, Japan↩ EFFECTS OF ACUTE ALCOHOL INTOXICATION ON PITUITARY-GONADAL AXIS HORMONES, PITUITARY-ADRENAL AXIS HORMONES, {beta}-ENDORPHIN AND PROLACTIN IN HUMAN ADULTS OF BOTH SEXES – Frias et al. 37 (2): 169 – Alcohol and Alcoholism. Alcalc.oxfordjournals.org. doi:10.1093/alcalc/37.2.169. Retrieved 2009-10-15.↩ Testosterone Increases in Men After a Low Dose of Alcohol. Taisto Sarkola, C. J. Peter Eriksson↩ Sleep loss results in an elevation of cortisol levels the next evening. Leproult, Rachel; Copinschi, Georges; Buxton, Orfeu; Van Cauter, Eve. Sleep: Journal of Sleep Research & Sleep Medicine, Vol 20(10), Oct 1997, 865-870.↩ Mood changes, body mass index and bioavailable testosterone in healthy men: results of the Androx Vienna Municipality Study. Kratzik CW, Schatzl G, Lackner JE, Lunglmayr G, Brandstätter N, Rücklinger E, Huber J.↩ Reduced Serum Testosterone and Prolactin Levels in Male Distance Runners. Garry D. Wheeler, MS; Stephen R. Wall, MA; Angelo N. Belcastro, PhD;David C. Cumming, MB, ChB↩ Testosterone Is Significantly Reduced in Endurance Athletes without Impact on Bone Mineral DensityL. Maïmouna,b, S. Lumbrosoc, J. Manettad, F. Parisc, J.L. Lerouxe, C. Sultanc↩ King, J., Panton, L., Broeder, C., Browder, K., Quindry, J., & Rhea, L. (2001). A comparison of high intensity vs. low intensity exercise on body composition in overweight women. Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, 33, A2421↩ Loebel, C.C., and W.J. Kraemer. A brief review: Testosterone and resistance training in men. J.Strength and Cond.Res. 12(1):57-63. 1998↩ Aspartame: neuropsychologic and neurophysiologic evaluation of acute and chronic effects. PA Spiers, L Sabounjian, A Reiner, DK Myers, J Wurtman and DL Schomer ↩ ULTRASTRUCTURAL ASPECTS CONCERNING THE HYPOTHALAMUS-PITUITARY COMPLEX REACTIVITY FOLLOWING CHRONIC ADMINISTRATION OF ASPARTAME IN JUVENILE RATS. Constantin PUICĂ, Constantin CRĂCIUN, Mircea RUSU, Mihai CRISTESCU, Maria BORSA, Ioana ROMANBiological Research Institute, Cluj-Napoca. Babes-Bolyai University, Electron Microscopy Center, Cluj-Napoca. University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca[↩]In the confusing and fast-changing world of medicine, few voices carry as much weight as that of the World Health Organization.
But a new, Canadian-led analysis takes a poke at that reputation, concluding the UN agency often makes strong recommendations on how to treat or prevent illness based on weak evidence, potentially leading to patients getting less-than-optimum care.
The study concluded that 73 of 289 strong recommendations the agency issued over a recent five-year stretch — on topics ranging from maternal health to tuberculosis — were based on low-quality evidence and warranted only conditional advice.
“Historically, WHO recommendations have been extremely untrustworthy and not evidence-based,” said Dr. Gordon Guyatt, the study’s lead author. “Things have gotten better, but there is still a ways to go. … If the truth is that an intervention is ineffective or minimally effective, [patients and health workers] would want to know this.”
Historically, WHO recommendations have been extremely untrustworthy and not evidence-based
An official with the agency, however, says the problems are minor and that people have no reason to distrust its advice.
Dr. Guyatt and other critics suggest the issue extends beyond the Geneva-based WHO. Many other health organizations are likely still issuing advice based on flimsy science, the product of an unstructured process humorously dubbed GOBSAT — “good old boys sitting around the table,” he said.
Experts on guidelines-writing panels are often influenced by conflicts of interest, whether a bias toward their own prior research or financial ties to pharmaceutical companies and, until recently at least, the WHO was no exception, said Dr. Guyatt, an epidemiology professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.
“They would sit around and do whatever they wanted to do and direct the world, and be very pleased they directed the world.”
The goal is to move such panels toward more “evidence-based medicine,” a phrase Dr. Guyatt coined and a ubiquitous buzz-word in modern health-care. It involves putting more weight on better-quality science, with randomized-controlled trials being the pinnacle of evidence.
Susan Norris, a WHO official who helps oversee the writing of expert guidelines and commissioned the Canadian-led research, said it has identified areas where the process can be improved, and changes are being implemented. But she objected to Dr. Guyatt’s description of some of the recommendations as “inappropriate,” saying the agency remains trustworthy.
“Incorrect advice is not being communicated,” said Dr. Norris. “WHO’s process is state of the art, in terms of how we develop guidelines. … There’s always room for improvement, but the WHO has made tremendous improvements as the science has evolved.”
The agency’s guidelines panels also have daunting tasks, she added, trying to make research findings relevant for front-line health workers and patients in a host of disparate countries around the world.
They would sit around and do whatever they wanted to do and direct the world, and be very pleased they directed the world
Health organizations began producing guidelines about 30 years ago. The WHO regularly convenes leading international experts to hash out advice, which is especially important in poor- and middle-income countries with less-developed medical systems, said Dr. Guyatt.
After concerns were raised seven years ago, the agency implemented a system, called GRADE, for rating — and publicly disclosing — the quality of evidence behind the advice it issued. GRADE also permits strong recommendations with weak evidence in certain circumstances, such as when the proposed treatment could be life-saving and the side-effect risk is minimal.
The WHO is definitely making progress, said Dr. Guyatt.
The new study, however, found that of 289 strong recommendations in 33 guidelines it issued between 2007 and 2012, 73 were not only based on weak evidence, but could not be justified under any of the exceptions the system allowed.
One such recommendation, for instance, strongly advised using “uterine massage” to treat postpartum hemorrhage — heavy bleeding after giving birth. Because the advice is backed up by “very low-quality” evidence and could delay more effective treatment, it should have been just a conditional recommendation, the study concluded.
The guidelines issued by some medical-specialty groups have come under similar scrutiny — and even harsher criticism — in recent years.
A 2013 British Medical Journal article said the documents can play a valuable role, but that widespread financial conflicts of interests among the authors and sponsors of guidelines have turned many into “marketing tools of industry.”
“Biased guidelines can cause grave harms to patients, while creating a dilemma for doctors, who may face professional or legal consequences when they choose not to follow guidelines they distrust,” said the article.
National Post
tblackwell@nationalpost.comA few months ago, I had mentioned in an article that the Paper Champion would be making strides to bring you more comprehensive coverage of Magic: The Gathering. One year and one hundred posts later we have taken the first step in doing so.
The Paper Champion will be moving to a new and improved site. From this point forward, you will be able to find new posts and news at www.paperchampion.net
This move, while somewhat awkward at first will be the open door leading the site in the direction for my vision of what the site should be. All the articles previously written to this point can be found there and will be accessible to all readers.
I appreciate all my readers and I hope you enjoy the changes that are still to come.
Swing Last
Aiokii
Like this article? Visit www.paperchampion.net or contact Aiokii in the comments below or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Aiokii can also be found on MTGO, hit him up for a game sometime. Also, take the time to check out Reddit Budgetdecks for cheap discussion and deck ideas.#MEAction UK response to NICE 2017
Background information
UK clinical guidelines are written by a body called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The current guidelines were last revised in 2007 and contain recommendations that people with ME consider unsuitable and potentially harmful. These guidelines also impact how ME is perceived in other countries, so it is not an isolated UK problem.
It is clear to us that the 2007 guidelines require an update, so we were dismayed to hear that NICE had looked at the evidence and is inclined to think no update is required. In July 2017 stakeholder organisations were given two weeks to respond to the proposal not to update (link https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg53/documents/surveillance-review-proposal). Two weeks to agree and write an effective argument, at a time when those with milder ME were flying off on holiday. For us, as a grassroots network of people with ME, this timeframe seemed like an almost insurmountable barrier to full participation.
However, with a team of about fifteen people we rallied together to team write. We got advice on wording from experts and references from the wider online community. We busied ourselves with writing and commenting (up to the limit of how busy a group of mostly people with ME can be!). What has resulted from our team effort is an unexpectedly comprehensive explanation of our reasons for disagreeing with the no update proposal. We hope it will also be useful for you all as a general document about the state of play for ME UK politics and research in 2017.
This is our response to NICE: PDF / HTMLThe Supreme Court appeared split Tuesday over the best way for states to draw election districts. (Photo11: AP)
WASHINGTON — A majority of Supreme Court justices agreed Tuesday that the standard by which election districts are drawn is imperfect. They just couldn't come up with a better way.
Debating a Texas case that could upend the political balance in the nation from New York to California, the more conservative justices indicated they were open to changing the way state and municipal voting districts are drawn to equalize population. Because non-citizens are included, that system boosts the number of heavily Hispanic districts, helping Democrats.
The more liberal justices opposed a switch to using only the number of eligible voters, which would render non-citizens invisible when drawing districts — along with children, prisoners, some ex-felons and some people with intellectual disabilities. That boosts the number of rural, mostly white districts, helping Republicans.
By the end of the hour-long oral argument on the most consequential case to come to the court so far this term, it seemed the conservative justices might have five votes to move away from using total population. But they couldn't come up with a practical alternative.
It seemed doubtful they would demand that maps be drawn nationwide to equalize the number of voters rather than people — a ruling that would amount to a political upheaval. Rather, several justices wondered if both measures could be used, at least in places such as Texas where relying on total population has caused deviations of nearly 50% in the number of eligible voters from one district to another.
"Why is one option exclusive of the other? Why can't you have both?" Justice Anthony Kennedy asked William Consovoy, the lawyer representing two Texas conservatives challenging district lines for the state Senate. "You have population equality and voter equality, both, especially when you have indicated that a voter-based apportionment is valid and serves important purposes."
Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested using both total population and eligible voters in drawing election districts. (Photo11: AP)
The answer came from the more liberal justices, who warned that focusing on both total and voter population likely would jeopardize other goals, such as compactness and municipal boundaries. They also noted that congressional seats, which would not be affected, are apportioned based on population, and that survey data on eligible voters is less reliable.
Perhaps most important, they said, is the need to keep districts relatively equal in terms of population so that all residents have the same access to their elected officials. "There is a voting interest," Justice Sonia Sotomayor acknowledged. "But there is also a representation interest."
The challengers' argument boils down to this: Texas' population-based system puts more voters in districts with fewer non-citizens and others who cannot vote, thereby diluting the weight of their votes. In heavily Hispanic districts or others with large numbers of non-voters, the remaining residents' votes carry greater weight.
The equal protection clause of the Constitution is supposed to guarantee each person the same political power. The problem is that the Supreme Court has never decided who should be counted — all people, or just voters.
"It's called 'one person, one vote,'" Chief Justice John Roberts said of the constitutional principle at stake in the case, Evenwel v. Abbott. "That seems to be designed to protect voters."
Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution "seems designed to protect voters." (Photo11: AP)
The case has pitted scores of civil rights organizations, who want to protect the interests of minorities, against a lesser number of conservative and libertarian groups who want the metric changed so that voting comes before representation.
"In a case like this where there is a 45 percent deviation... why isn't Texas required at that point to recognize that these interests that are legitimate under the Constitution, which are voter-based, should not be accommodated?" Kennedy asked Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller.
But if voting had been the requirement between 1868 and 1920, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, women would not have been counted when legislative districts were drawn. "They were not eligible voters," she said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned that switching to eligible voters would have left out women a century ago. (Photo11: Getty Images)
The case is the brainchild of Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, which has filed several Supreme Court challenges to racial and ethnic preferences in voting and higher education.
Blum brought the challenge to the University of Texas affirmative action plan that will come before the justices on Wednesday, as well as a challenge to the Voting Rights Act that resulted in the court's 2013 decision striking down the requirement that mostly Southern states and municipalities get federal approval for any changes in voting practices.
If the court rules that districts should be based on eligible voters rather than total population, other states with large numbers of non-citizens would see the biggest change, such as California, New York, New Jersey, Arizona and Nevada. Cities such as Chicago and Miami also would be affected.
In many other states, the rules could change but require no immediate moving of district lines because the results from using total or voter populations are not significant.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1XZxPwbMitchell Layton/Getty Images
Legendary Indiana Hoosiers basketball coach Bobby Knight endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally in Indianapolis on Wednesday night.
According to TheHill.com's Jonathan Easley, Knight threw his support behind the presumptive GOP nominee with less than a week to go until the citizens of Indiana vote in the state's primary Tuesday.
Politico on Twitter relayed a portion of Knight's endorsement in which the three-time national champion called Trump "the most prepared man in history to step in as president of the United States":
"If you people will do this, if you will do this, you will be having our government take its first step toward what all of us want America to be like," Knight said, per Easley.
"They talk in a negative way when they want to about Donald and say he isn’t presidential," Knight added, per Easley. "I don’t know what the hell that means. To me I think of Harry Truman; they said Harry Truman wasn’t presidential. And damn he went on to be one of the three best presidents in U.S. history. [Trump] will at some point be one of those also."
Knight is not the first sports figure to endorse Trump, to be sure.
Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan recently introduced Trump before a crowd of more than 10,000 people at a rally in upstate New York, per ESPN.com's Mike Rodak, and he publicly praised the candidate's brash attitude.
"There's so many things I admire about Mr. Trump, but one thing I really admire about him is, you know what, he'll say what's on his mind," Ryan said, per Rodak. "But so many times, you'll see people, a lot of people want to say the same thing. But there's a big difference. They don't have the courage to say it."
Former Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman and golfer John Daly have also endorsed Trump over the past few months.
With 57 delegates at stake in a winner-take-most Indiana primary, Trump could further solidify his place as the Republican nominee if he can build on Wednesday's momentum and triumph once more.Walt Disney World’s theme parks will continue offering express lines for annual passholders for a while, a spokeswoman says.
Disney introduced designed entrances at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom late last year and said the feature would last until sometime in January. It was presented as a “thank you” to folks who purchase annual passes.
“Given the positive feedback we received, the special entrance lines will be extended through the spring season,” the Disney spokeswoman said.
After going through the standard security checks at the four theme parks, passholders can look for round red signs with a Mickey Mouse image that indicate the special entrances. Only annual passholders can gain entry to the parks in these areas.
The signs are on wheels, thus portable, and may be positioned at different locations at various times of the day.
dbevil@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5477
Super Bowl drones were Disney Springs clones »
Another VIP tour for Magic Kingdom introduced »
Epcot arts festival visitor put life into paintings »First of all, let me just say that my secret santa stalked the crap out of me. The attention to detail, not to mention the generosity of my santa, was absolutely incredible.
The Holidays were pretty crappy for me this year (a lot of work, a lot of bad news, and it was the third anniversary of my dad's death). I was not in a very good place, and I was struggling to try to see the positive side of things.
And then I got home at 1am this Friday (Saturday, technically?) and found all the boxes piled up in my bedroom.
Santa, you completely turned my whole Holiday season around. I felt pure joy and happiness. It was like being a little kid again on Christmas morning. I spent about two hours just tearing wrapping paper like some deranged, giddy child. I must've said "Oh my God!" about a thousand times. I was exhausted after my flight, but way way too excited to sleep.
I can't remember the last time I was that undeniably happy. You made me forget my troubles for a while, and I woke up the next day full of energy and feeling like "You know what? Fuck sadness."
So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. It meant more to me than you will ever know, and I wish I had the words to properly express my thanks.
I LOVE EVERY SINGLE THING YOU SENT
Here is an album of the unboxing/unwrapping process: http://imgur.com/a/DvD9DLooks like the newest burger for the "manly man" (as described in this commercial's title, "Beef 2012 Manly Man Campaign") at McDonald's in China features two beef patties, bacon, and...a hefty glob of mashed potatoes? The commercial starts by calling their beef patty "good," then the bacon "better," and finally, the mashed potato "best." Knowing how tasty McDonald's beef patties are, this may very well be the correct order of ingredient deliciousness.
Poking around the Internet hasn't shown the mashed potatoes-in-a-burger combo to be widespread, but here are some examples |
they try to do so, the louder I will speak.
It is time to raise our voices. Let them sound like thunder: Freedom has a price. The price is to always defend it, no matter the consequences. To be brave and let no-one bully us into submission. So, let us do our duty and ensure that Reagan's warning never becomes a reality: Extinction is not an option! Freedom or Islam. You cannot have it both ways. There is no middle way.ZURICH, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS said it has set up a bank in Frankfurt to consolidate the majority of its European wealth management operations, a move aimed at conserving capital and streamlining its structure.
The world’s biggest wealth manager had already stated an attention to funnel the bulk of its European private banking business into one bank, UBS Europe SE, but had not determined where to house the headquarters.
With neutral Switzerland outside of the European Union, Luxembourg was a contender, along with London until Britain’s vote to leave the EU, but Frankfurt had long been viewed as the favourite.
The bank, in a statement on Thursday, said that by merging its wealth management subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain into one legal entity, “UBS has taken an important step to simplify its governance structure and increase operational efficiency across its European operations”.
Its Luxembourg subsidiary had covered Austria, Denmark and Sweden. (Reporting by Joshua Franklin; Editing by Susan Fenton)London (AFP) - Senior ministers in Britain's Conservative government and members of the main opposition Labour Party have held secret talks to ensure a soft Brexit, The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, the talks -- which are said to involve some of the most senior members of Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet -- aim to force her to make concessions on immigration, the European customs union and the single market.
A cross-party Brexit Commission was also reportedly discussed to ensure an orderly withdrawal from the European Union.
May backed the "remain" side ahead of last year's historic referendum over Britain's membership to the EU.
But since coming to power three weeks after the shock vote to leave the EU, the prime minister has advocated a hard Brexit, which would entail Britain leaving the single market and cutting immigration from the bloc.
May's Conservatives unexpectedly lost their majority in parliament in last Thursday's snap general election, causing political chaos ahead of the Brexit talks with the EU which are set to start next week.
Meanwhile the Labour Party has made strong gains off the back of a surge in youth turnout, mainly fuelled by last year's Brexit vote.
The MPs involved in the secret talks are believed to be "remainers" -- those who backed staying in the EU -- who had already forged alliances when they campaigned together in the lead-up to the referendum.
The daily newspaper also reported that May has been "aware" of the secret talks for days but that she has so far done nothing to stop them.Each week The Republican and MassLive showcase dogs and cats available for adoption at shelters at rescue organizations in Western Massachusetts.
With the participation of the shelters listed below, many animals should be able to find a permanent home.
In addition, we'll include on occasion pet news and animal videos in this weekly feature.
The following is a news update:
Dakin Humane Society, with sites in Springfield and Leverett, will offer $20 spay and neutering surgeries throughout June, thanks to a grant from PetSmart Charities.
The offer is for puppies and kittens less than 6 months old.
Kittens as young as 4 months old and puppies as young as 5 months old are old enough to get pregnant and have their first litters just two months later, according to Dakin officials.
"These precious babies shouldn't be parents at 5 and 6 months old," said Leslie Harris, executive director at Dakin.
The first 300 people who sign up and pre-pay for the surgery will be eligible for the discounted surgeries. Those who wish to schedule a procedure should call (413) 781-4019, or visit the Springfield site at 171 Union St.
PetSmart Charities' "Precious, Not Parents" campaign provides $593,000 to spay and neuter clinics across the country for 12,000 puppies and kittens.
The following is a news update:
WESTFIELD — Westfield Homeless Cat Project, a no-kill cat and kitten rescue, will hold a cat food drive on June 27 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Wal-Mart, 141 Springfield St.
Canned cat food is needed to feed hungry kittens, pregnant moms, and other homeless adult cats awaiting adoption. Donations can be dropped off other times at 1124 East Mountain Road. For further information, email: denisesinico@hotmail.com.
LOCAL SHELTERS:
Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society
Address: 163 Montague Road, Leverett
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m.
Telephone: (413) 548-9898
Website: www.dpvhs.org
Address: 171 Union St., Springfield
Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, noon-5:30 p.m.; Thursday, noon-7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m.
Telephone: (413) 781-4000
Website: www.dpvhs.org
Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center
Address: 627 Cottage St., Springfield
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, noon-4 p.m.; Thursday, noon-7 p.m.
Telephone: (413) 781-1484
Website: tjoconnoradoptioncenter.com
Westfield Homeless Cat Project
Address: 1124 East Mountain Road
Hours: Adoption clinics, Thursday, 5-7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Website: http://www.whcp.petfinder.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westfieldhomelesscatprojectadoptions
Westfield Regional Animal Shelter
Address: 178 Apremont Way
Hours: Monday-Friday, noon-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Telephone: (413) 564-3129
Website: http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/ma70.html
Franklin County Sheriff's Office Regional Dog Shelter and Adoption Center
Address: 10 Sandy Lane, Turners Falls
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Friday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Telephone: (413) 676-9182
Website: http://fcrdogkennel.org/contact.htmlAvocados are super tasty and addictive, but it's pretty annoying when they go yucky and brown.
Now an Australian-based company called Naturo Technologies thinks they've got the answer, creating a technology that slows down the browning process of avocados, without the use of chemicals.
SEE ALSO: Sweet potato toast kicks avocado toast off its pedestal
Called the Natavo Zero, the inventor of the technology is agricultural engineer Jeff Hastings. He was frustrated at the amount of wastage when it comes to consuming and processing avocados, since they go brown easily.
"It's one of those fruits that you buy and eat where you inherently suffer disappointment, because it's already gone brown or it goes to waste," Hastings told Mashable Australia.
Hastings explains that the technology works by "turning off" a particular enzyme in the avocado fruit, which causes it to turn brown when it's exposed to oxygen.
Image: naturo technologies
All one would need to do is feed the "avocado time machine" open avocados — whether it be sliced, diced or halved — onto the conveyor belt where it will be treated for 5-6 minutes. The company claims avocados will stay fresh for 10 days after the process.
Hastings wouldn't reveal the actual mechanism which stops the enzyme in the fruit, as it's part of their intellectual property, but explained the machine uses a combination of pressure, temperature, steam and time to switch off the enzyme.
The company is selling two models at the moment, one that processes 250 kilograms (551 lbs) an hour, or one that does 500 kilograms (1,102 lbs) an hour. Yes, these machines are aimed at large-scale food makers.
Image: naturo technologies
Sadly for those of us playing at home, we'll have to stick to squirting lemon juice on our avocados for the time being. But Hastings said there is a possibility for the technology to be replicated for consumer use, it's just they're aiming for other businesses first.
"Our focus is definitely on the industry, [to those] who provide a finished product to consumers, like fast food restaurants or airlines. However, it's not impossible for us to develop a consumer scale product in future," he said.
Anything to stop leftover guacamole from being ruined, hey?Evander Sno (born 9 April 1987) is a Dutch footballer[1] who plays as a defensive midfielder for DHSC. He has also featured for the Dutch under-21 and under-23 international teams. Sno typically plays in a defensive midfield role, but was utilised in nine different field positions during a period on loan to NAC Breda. In addition, Sno was used as a striker for the Netherlands under 21s to cover for a lack of strikers in the squad at the time.
As well as playing in his native Netherlands, Sno also had spells in Scotland with Celtic and England on loan at Bristol City.
Club career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
Born in Dordrecht, Sno came through the youth system at AFC Ajax but left to join Feyenoord at the age of eighteen. He did not play any first-team games during his time at Feyenoord but he was loaned out to NAC Breda during the 2005–06 season, where he made his name.
Celtic [ edit ]
Sno signed for Scottish Premier League side Celtic from Feyenoord of the Netherlands in 2006. At the time he was considered one of the most promising youth prospects in the world.[2] He made his full debut in a League Cup 3rd round victory over St Mirren, drawing praise from his manager for his performance[3] and made his Old Firm debut during Celtic's 2–0 defeat of Rangers on 23 September 2006, replacing Shunsuke Nakamura during the latter stages of the match.[4] In November 2006, Sno scored his only goal for Celtic against Hibernian in an SPL game.[5] Sno went on to play in both legs of Celtic's Champions League last 16 defeat against AC Milan and at the end of the season collected an SPL winners medal after Celtic retained their title, a feat repeated in the 2007–08 season.
On signing for Celtic, it was widely reported in the media that Sno was named after the former Boxing World Heavyweight Champion, Evander Holyfield.[6]
Ajax [ edit ]
In August 2008 Sno re-joined Ajax, signing a three-year contract.[7] He was sent off in his debut match against Willem II Tilburg, although his red card was cleared by the KNVB.[8] After just one season he was demoted from the first team and would play for Jong Ajax.[9]
In August 2009, Sno had joined English club Bristol City on loan for the remainder of the 2009–10 season, making his debut as a substitute against Coventry City.[10] Sno scored his first goal for Bristol City in a 3–2 win over Barnsley at Oakwell,[11] and rejoined Ajax at the season's end.
When sent back to the reserves, Sno had to prove his self-worth an Ajax' first squad member. On 13 September 2010 while playing a match with Ajax' reserves against Vitesse/AGOVV reserves, Sno suffered a cardiac arrest.[12] He was resuscitated, it took the paramedics ten minutes to resuscitate Sno on the pitch and was then taken to a hospital in Arnhem.[12] It was expected that a long period of recovery was going to lie ahead, and he marked his return by appearing in a reserve friendly on 11 November 2010. No direct cause for the cardiac arrest could be found and as a precaution he had an internal cardiac defibrillator placed inside his body.[13][14]
After his contract with Ajax expired, Sno found an agreement with Italian Serie A club Genoa; the move was however canceled at the last minute after the player failed his medical.[15]
Subsequent career [ edit ]
In August 2011, Sno signed a one-year contract with Eredivisie side RKC Waalwijk. Due to his good performances at RKC Waalwijk, several Dutch teams showed interest in Sno. Both Eredivisie teams Roda JC and NEC Nijmegen wanted to sign a contract with him. He signed a two-year contract with NEC at 6 June 2012. Once again, on 29 September 2012, Sno suffered another on-pitch cardiac arrest, however, due to having a defibrillator fitted previously, he was able to walk off the pitch. On 3 April 2013, Sno ended his contract with NEC because of a disagreement with the club.
On 28 October 2013, Sno signed a deal until the end of the season with his former club RKC. After they were relegated to the Dutch Eerste Divisie, Sno left as a free agent and signed with Belgian side Westerlo on 4 June 2014.[16] However, he only played two matches in half a season and dissolved his contract on 7 December 2014.[17]
On 31 January 2015, it was announced that Sno would sign a contract until the end of the season with Dutch Eredivisie side ADO Den Haag.[18] After another spell at RKC, he joined Dutch Eerste Klasse amateur club DHSC in July 2017.[19]
International career [ edit ]
Born in the Netherlands, Sno is of Surinamese descent.[20] Sno was a regular in the Dutch Under-21 team. In October 2006, Sno was included in the Dutch national team for the friendly against England.[21] On 16 July 2008, he was named in the Dutch squad for the Olympic Games in Beijing. In the opening game against Nigeria, Sno received a red card.
Honours [ edit ]
Club [ edit ]
Celtic
AjaxEdit 2: Confirmed bug, will be fixed
EDIT: Title isn't quite accurate, see below.
There are a couple threads in the Crew Skills forum about this issue:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=536852
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=536698
Basically, Rich, Prosperous, and Wealthy missions are bugged and return half of the normal rewards if you don't crit. This causes Rich missions to return less than Bountiful missions for example, see below:
EricJS Quote: Originally Posted by I can almost promise you this is a bug. Why? Because the return for Rich Thermoplast Flux missions also got cut in half. It went from 32 to 16 for a non-crit. Why am I confident this is a bug? Because a Bountiful Thermoplast Flux mission still returns 24. So either it's a bug, or they blew the nerf, having a Bountiful return more makes no sense. And no, this isn't a mislabeled mission like the old Rich Grade 6 missions were, as the Rich missions are more expensive than the Bountiful.
Bingo, I just had a Rich Thermoplast Flux mission crit, and it returned 40, which was the pre-patch number for a crit for that mission. So it looks like the results are getting cut in half for all non-crit missions that I can remember the pre-patch numbers for, crits aren't being affected, and non-Rich missions aren't being affected. Confirmed bug, will be fixed http://www.swtor.com/community/showp...7&postcount=53 Title isn't quite accurate, see below.There are a couple threads in the Crew Skills forum about this issue:Basically,if you don't crit. This causes Rich missions to return less than Bountiful missions for example, see below:.- A massive, well-funded push to increase access to abortion worldwide could be underway at the United Nations, and according to one congressman it could silence faith-based organizations which oppose abortions out of conscience.
At issue is proposed language in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals that will eventually be voted on and adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in September, and will go into effect in 2016.
If the current proposed language is adopted, it could result in “unfettered access to abortion” around the globe, according to the office of Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who is co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
The language establishes targets for global development, among them to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services” by 2030.
The other target in question tries to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.”
This language – “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” – is interpreted to include abortion by most U.N. agencies and Western donor countries, said a former diplomat at the U.N. who participated in numerous negotiations involving sexual and reproductive health language. Such language is usually part of an agenda in which developed countries use financial incentives to pressure poor, pro-life countries to liberalize their abortion laws in accord with the U.N.’s definition of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In this case, the language is but a tiny part of 17 development goals and 170 targets that together establish a broad and comprehensive global agenda for the next 15 years that includes fighting poverty, ending world hunger, and promoting sustainable energy and universal education.
Thus the language is alarming especially for developing countries, Smith noted, because the massive funding required for these Sustainable Development Goals – $5-7 trillion – can also be used as an incentive for developing countries to liberalize abortion laws.
The goals basically state to developing countries that access to abortion and contraception “is what you need if you want economic growth,” Smith added.
Without meeting the sexual and reproductive rights targets established in the development goals, poor countries could risk losing development funding. Most countries allow legal abortion in some circumstances, with only a handful either banning it outright or allowing it in all circumstances.
The result of the goals if the current language is adopted, Smith said, could be a massive expansion of abortion worldwide due to international pressure on countries and charities to offer abortion access.
State and local laws limiting access to abortion could be deemed to violate the “universal right” to abortion services and could be erased. These would include laws such as a minor having to obtain parental or spousal consent to get an abortion.
Faith-based organizations that oppose abortion out of conscience could see their funding wither as a result of these development goals, Smith explained.
For example, the U.S. bishops’ anti-human trafficking program lost a government grant in 2011 once the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began prioritizing grants for organizations that provide abortions to trafficking victims. The bishops’ program could not provide abortions, out of conscience.
Such an example could happen on a mass scale at the global level, Smith warned, when faith-based organizations that do not offer contraceptives or abortions out of conscience will lose funding from countries and international donors.
The Post-2015 goals build upon the original eight “Millennium Development Goals” that the U.N. set in 2000 for the next 15 years, which included cutting world poverty and reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
As these goals were set to expire and in preparation for the Post-2015 agenda, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development met in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. It issued an outcome document, “The future we want,” which set the table for the sustainable development goals in time for the 2013 general assembly meeting.
That document did not include the “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” language that the current proposed goals state, Smith noted.
However, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has been pushing hard for the inclusion of the language, noting that it would constitute a “sea change” from the original Millennial Development Goals.
According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, abortion is indeed a part of these reproductive rights mentioned.
In its Vision 2020 manifesto, “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights – a Crucial Agenda for the post-2015 Framework,” the federation states that “some aspects of the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda are inadequately resourced and sorely neglected, including access to safe and legal abortion, access by adolescents, and access for the poorest and most marginalized groups.”
Also, the World Health Organization, which is the leading international health agency of the United Nations, has already made specific abortion recommendations for countries’ health systems.
In the executive summary of its report “Safe Abortion: Technical and policy guidance for health systems,” the WHO states that “to the full extent of the law, safe abortion services should be readily available and affordable to all women.”
“This means services should be available at primary-care level, with referral systems in place for all required higher-level care,” the report added.
This is evidence that WHO wants to “harmonize the push” and “integrate” abortion into normal health care worldwide, resulting in an abortion surge for the next 15 years,” Smith said.For the eighth time since 2007, Texas Tech has a new defensive coordinator. This time, it's David Gibbs, who arrives after a successful stint calling defense at Houston.
Gibbs has been charged with turning around a Red Raiders defense that ranked 125th out of 129 FBS teams last year.
He spoke with ESPN.com about his plans for the Tech defense, how he's been so successful in teaching turnovers and his thoughts on newcomers Mike Mitchell and Breiden Fehoko:
What is the key to turning this defense around?
Gibbs: Being consistent, and having a plan. I always use the term, don’t be a rat in a trap -- we’re not going to go blitz crazy, stunt crazy. It’s hard to play defense in college football right now, and if you chase ghosts and try to stop every play, in my opinion, you have no chance. You’re better off being sound, making the offense execute and changing the looks as best you can. We’re not going to be splitting the atom. Turnovers also cover up mistakes, and we’re going to coach the heck out of getting turnovers.
You had a ton of success forcing turnovers at Houston. How does one teach turnovers to a defense that has struggled to force them in the recent past?
David Gibbs ran a Houston defense last season that ranked eighth in forced turnovers with 30. AP Photo/Sharon Ellman
Gibbs: You preach it, drill it. Most coaches do. You have to practice it in practice. Lot of time there’s a fine line between teaching tackling and teaching turnovers. You have to find the balance. Sometimes you have to sacrifice some of the tackling. The interceptions, you've got to make people pass when you want them to pass, get them in obvious passing situations, when you can change up coverages. Nothing earth-shattering. Once the turnovers start coming, the confidence comes, like anything else. I don’t know that you can go from getting (15) to getting 40. But you can get to 25-30 without being too crazy.
You're not going to be able to get people in obvious passing downs if you can't stop the run. Arkansas didn't have to do anything but hand the ball off last year. How do you improve the run defense?
Gibbs: It starts up front. Texas Tech struggled with some of the front guys, being out of position, being out of gaps. To me, it’s just fundamental football. It sounds easy. But it’s about the defensive line staying in their gaps, and the linebackers and secondary knowing their run fits. That comes with the coordinating of a defense. From day one, I’m going to be preaching run support calls. Is it always going to be perfect? No. But if you have a system and preach a system, you’re going to be better. You’ll have a chance. Does that mean Arkansas still can’t run you over? No, they still can run you over. But when guys start jumping their gaps to try and go make play and screw their buddy, you’re not going to stop anybody. If you don’t gap up, you’re not going to stop the run. It starts up front and ends with the linebackers and secondary understanding run support calls. It’s life or death with me when it comes to run support calls.
I don't know if you realize this or not, but you're like the eighth defensive coordinator at Tech in like eight years. How important will consistency and stability be for this defense?
Gibbs: If I don’t make somebody punt, I might not be here for a second season. They might want a new guy. I’m consistent. A lot of people out there don’t like me. But they know I’m consistent. I bring consistency being who I am. The more time you have with kids -- longevity and consistency breed more success. I’m excited to be here. It’s a great challenge, which I understand. But I’ve been through this a few times. I see opportunity.
Tech fans are excited to see what Mike Mitchell can bring after sitting out last year after transferring in from Ohio State. What has been your early impression of him?
Gibbs: He’s a great athlete. He can run and hit. The only film I could get on him was from the Thursday scrimmages they had with their redshirt guys. But he was flying around making a bunch of plays. Because of the nature of our defense, we’ll start him out at Will linebacker, where he’ll get to run and make a ton of tackles. He hasn’t played football in two years, he’s going to be rusty. But he’s been grinding every day. I’m excited to work with him. He has the skill set you’re looking for. Hopefully it works out.
Another guy people are excited about is incoming defensive tackle Breiden Fehoko (No. 51 in the ESPN 300). Can he help you guys this season?
Gibbs: He’s going to be in the rotation. We’re going to play at least eight defensive linemen. You have to have two racks of defensive linemen nowadays, whether they’re good enough, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think you can play guys 80-90 snaps and function. So he’s going to play, and play as much as he can. There’s a difference between him and most freshmen in that he has phenomenal strength already even as a baby. A lot of guys that young can’t hold up to the pounding. He has the strength to. We don’t need him to be a superstar, we just need him to be functional in the defense. His time [to be a star] will come. If it comes early, we’ll feel blessed.
Tech had a bunch of young defensive backs on the field last year. How can they improve?
Gibbs: It’s hard to play corner. At least these kids have some experience. Even though it was bad experience, at least it was experience. I’m going to take some pressure off them, the way I call the defense because I’m a DB coach. Maybe not have them on an island as much, allow them to build confidence and keep improving.ADEN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Saudi national freed by U.S. authorities from detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who then became second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, was killed in Yemen, a Yemeni government website said.
Deputy leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Said al-Shehri, a Saudi national identified as Guantanamo prisoner number 372, speaks in a video posted on Islamist websites, in this January 24, 2009 file frame grab. Yemeni armed forces have killed al-Shehri, a man seen as the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a government website said on September 10, 2012. REUTERS/Handout/Files
The Yemeni Ministry of Defense website said Said al-Shehri was killed on Monday, along with six other militants, in what it called a “qualitative operation” by Yemen’s army in the remote Hadramout province in eastern Yemen. It gave no further details.
There were conflicting reports on how Shehri died. A Yemeni security source said Shehri was killed in an operation last Wednesday in the Hadramout that was thought to have been carried out by a U.S. drone, rather than the Yemeni military.
The source said another Saudi and an Iraqi national were among the others killed. U.S. officials declined to comment on whether a drone strike had occurred.
U.S. officials described Shehri as one of the most important al Qaeda-linked militants to be released from the Guantanamo detention facility, where he was taken in January 2002 after being handed over by Pakistan to U.S. authorities.
A former officer in Saudi Arabia’s internal security force, Shehri allegedly joined al Qaeda and helped to facilitate the movements of Saudi militants seeking to travel to Afghanistan via Iran, according to a classified Pentagon report made public by WikiLeaks.
According to the Pentagon document, Shehri was “assessed to be a HIGH risk” prisoner because “he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies.”
A U.S. official familiar with the case said Shehri was one of numerous Saudi militants at Guantanamo released by the administration of President George W. Bush under heavy pressure from Saudi authorities and the U.S. court system.
Shehri was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and put through a Saudi rehabilitation program for militants.
But he later returned to the battlefield in Yemen, and became AQAP’s number two, leading one U.S. official to characterize him as a “poster child for recidivism.” Shehri was wanted by Yemeni authorities for a suspected role in a U.S. embassy attack in 2008.
AQAP, which has planned attacks on international targets including airliners, is described by Washington, which has repeatedly used unmanned drones to target its members, as perhaps al Qaeda’s most dangerous and innovative affiliate.
Residents of the Wadi al-Ain district where last Wednesday’s drone attack occurred said they believed from their contacts with Islamist fighters in the area that Shehri had died then, when missiles struck a house where they were meeting.
“There was a group of people from the Ansar al-Sharia group who were holding a meeting - Shehri was one of them and there were foreigners there too,” said Elwi Suleiman. Ansar al-Sharia is one of a number of Yemeni militant groups linked to al Qaeda.
There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the accounts given by Yemeni authorities and locals.
LAWLESSNESS ALARMS ALLIES
Yemen’s government is trying to re-establish order after an uprising pushed out veteran ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh in February, but faces threats from Islamist militants, southern secessionists and a Shi’ite rebel movement in the north.
Protests and factional fighting have allowed AQAP to seize swathes of south Yemen, and Shi’ite Muslim Houthi rebels to carve out their own domain in the north.
The lawlessness has alarmed the United States and Yemen’s neighbor Saudi Arabia, the top world oil exporter, which view the impoverished state as a new front line in their war on al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Washington backed a military offensive in May to recapture areas of Abyan province. Militants struck back with a series of bombings and assassinations.
A southern Yemeni politician who returned from exile survived an assassination attempt on Monday, a security source said. Last week, 10 civilians were killed in an apparent drone attack that missed its target or was based on wrong information.Logic dictates that the Boston Bruins should trade Milan Lucic.
He’s making $6 million per season through 2016, on a team whose neck is bent against the cap ceiling and has at least three key young players to ink next summer. He’s struggling through his worst offensive season since 2010, with just 18 points in 39 games. And despite not being the agent of intimidation he once was, he remains a coveted power forward for teams that desperately believe they need that snarl.
And, let’s face it: The Bruins are a struggling team that needs a shakeup of some kind.
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So Elliotte Friedman, on Sportsnet 960 in Calgary, dove deeply into the question of trading Lucic on Monday morning. Via Nichols on Hockey:
"Lucic, I mean if you trade him. Here's the thing with Boston. I think the question with Lucic is he's not a $6 million player right now, but he can be one. He is a guy who emotionally controls a team. When Boston was at its best, Lucic was very much their emotional core. He can play a major role. I think the question is - there's two questions. No. 1, is something wrong with his body that it's finally breaking down because of the role he's played? No. 2, are they trying to get him to play whistle-to-whistle and he's simply lost his effectiveness.
"I think one of the biggest questions being asked in Boston as an organization right now is, 'What has happened here?' and, 'How long-term is this? What does it mean?' I think the Bruins are being asked about him. I think there's a lot of hard, internal questions being asked about, 'Do we do it, or do we think that there's still a lot left to give because if we do trade him, we change the makeup of our team in a major way.”
Story continues
Placing Lucic on the block has been kicked around all season as the B’s struggled through injuries and fell behind the pack in the East. Fluto Shinzawa covered it last week in the Boston Globe, noting that Lucic would be 28 in the first year of his next contract:
When Lucic is fully engaged, he is steaming north and south, plowing through bodies, and bruising faces with his fists. This is not kind on opponents or himself. Power forward is a demanding, high-mileage position that does not lend itself to longevity.
There are exceptions, such as Jarome Iginla, Lucic’s ex-linemate, and Arizona captain Shane Doan. The two musclebound right wings are producing into their late 30s.
But Iginla and Doan do not have much company. Recent power forwards who have faded under the weight of their playing styles include former Lucic linemate Nathan Horton, Ryan Malone, Brenden Morrow, and Jamie Langenbrunner.
Dustin Brown, Los Angeles’s hit-first captain, is only 30 years old. Brown is on pace to score a career-low 14 goals. He is on the Kings’ books until 2022 at $5.875 million annually, according to www.capgeek.com. It is an unmovable contract. The Bruins cannot afford to carry a similar cap burden. The alternative, however, is saying goodbye to a brand-personifying player while he still has plenty of rubber on his monster-truck tires.
Fluto hit on something here that’s going to be a tough sell for most analysts: intangibles.
Brown’s captained two Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup championship teams. And while no one will claim he’s as integral to those titles as Drew Doughty or Jonathan Quick, he has 34 points in 46 games during those runs. He hits hard. He makes plays. And if you ask the Kings, his leading by example matters.
Lucic is a leader for the Bruins. He’s a tempo setter and an important voice in that locker room. No, his offensive output isn’t worth the current contract … but let’s be honest, the loss of Jarome Iginla and the health of David Krejci have influenced this greatly. Going from 53.9 percent Corsi 5v5 close to 49.5 percent this season is a by-product of linemates as much as his own ineffectiveness.
But if you take Lucic off the Bruins, you fundamentally change the Bruins. People said that when Shawn Thornton left, which was nonsensical, but it’s reality for Lucic’s departure. Best case scenario, the Bruins flip him for essential pieces to reload on the fly and then open up the money to make sure Dougie Hamilton and Torey Krug remain on that blue line for years.
Worst case scenario, it leads to an identity crisis and they spend the next decade trying to recapture what it was Lucic gave them.
Given his age, his style, the annual value of his next contract and his value on the trade market … would a trade that fundamentally changes the Bruins make sense?
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY:In the days before the video recording act was passed, I'm talking early to mid 1980s, local video rental store owners seemed to see the movie rating system as an optional guideline. As long as they got their 75p they tended to be more than happy to rent you whatever movie you wanted, no matter how old you were. I recall hiring many an old AA or X certificate movie (horror, not porn!) when I couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 - and then when the 15 and 18 cert's came in it was still no problem at the till.It gave us kids access to the kind of films we probably shouldn't have been watching, and I expect made hits out of certain VHS releases that would've flopped otherwise. It also meant that the playground was full of talk about films and characters we shouldn't really have known about, and with us kids talking about these 18/R rated movies it was only a matter of time before the studios cashed-in on it.So here we go, 5 kids cartoons that were based on movies for adults...We mid 1980s school kids really shouldn't have known about a mentally unstable Vietnam vet, but VHS access to First Blood made Rambo a playground hero! This debuted on TV the same time as Rambo: First Blood Part II hit the cinemas - a film no kid was getting into see, legally that is!Both the first 2 RoboCop movies were 18 certificate blood fests, so clearly it was the next logical step to turn the franchise into a Saturday morning kids cartoon, right? It must've been rushed into production because it began screening in 1988, only a few months after the first movie was released on VHS.This 1992 cartoon is |
by the authorities, she evaded arrest by moving across villages in the regions that are now Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur with her dedicated followers.
In early 1932, her forces engaged in armed combat with the Assam Rifles in the North Cachar Hills and Hangrum village. With her dissent growing, the British assigned a special troop of the Assam Rifles led by Captain MacDonald to arrest Gaidinliu.
As soon as Captain MacDonald got a report of Gaidinliu and her followers being located in a village called Pulomi, he launched a surprise attack by sending a large force in the opposite direction. This was done to mislead Gaidinliu. Perplexed by the raid on the village, Gaidinliu and her followers were captured without any resistance on October 17, 1932. She was handcuffed and taken on foot to Kohima and then later tried in Imphal. Her trial went on for 10 months and she was convicted for murder and her attack on the Assam Rifles. While most of her associates were either executed or jailed, she was sentenced to life imprisonment.
From 1933 to 1947, she served time at Guwahati, Shillong, Aizawl, and Tura jails. In 1937, on his tour of Manipur, Nehru wrote about her:
“What suppression of spirit they have brought to her who in pride of her youth dared to challenge the Empire…And India does not even know of this brave child of her hills.” Nehru also called her the “Rani of the Nagas.”
A stamp was released in the Rani Gaidinliu memory of in 1994
In the Northeast, Rani Gaidinliu was first the leader of her own people. Even after her release, she worked to empower and uplift the weak. In 1966, she organised a resistance movement against the Naga National Council (NNC), which led insurgents. However, today many Nagas choose not to acknowledge her. Despite this, she was recognised as a freedom fighter and was awarded the Tamrapatra in 1972 and was felicitated with the Padma Bhushan in 1982. In 1993, Gaidinliu died in disappointment as the government could not fulfil the promises of making a separate ‘Zeliangrong Administrative Unit’ under the Union of India. Only a stamp was released in her memory in 1994. Even today, her sacrifice remains unknown to most.
Enter the SocialStory Photography contest and show us how people are changing the world! Win prize money worth Rs 1 lakh and more. Click here for details!1. Headless Victorian Man
Photo Credit: Victorian Adventure Enthusiast
A headless portrait of a decapitated man holding his head.
2. Family Decapitation
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A headless portrait of a brother and sister with their decapitated mother. Gruesomely, they appear to have done the decapitating.
3. William Henry Wheeler
Photo Credit: Victorian Adventure Enthusiast
Headless portraits of William Henry Wheeler, 1875.
4. Head on a Platter
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A headless portrait of a man presenting his head on a platter.
5. Decapitated Woman
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A headless portrait of a woman with her head on her knee.
6. Head in her Hands
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A headless portrait of a woman, circa 1900.
7. Headless Woman Without the Head
Photo Credit: Cultura Colectiva
A headless portrait of a woman. Unusually, the head is omitted entirely.
8. A Husband with His Decapitated Wife
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A headless portrait of a woman. Her husband holds her smiling face.
9. Decapitated Boy
Photo Credit: Victorian Adventure Enthusiast
A headless portrait of child with is head in his hands.
10. Decapitated Man with His Head Under His Arm
Photo Credit: Flavorwire
A headless portrait of a man carrying his head.
11. Scene of Decapitation
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A man presents the decapitated head of his friend. The body, rather than the head, has been removed from the photograph.
12. Headless Contemplation
Photo Credit: Victorian Adventure Enthusiast
Headless portraits of a man contemplating his own head, while the woman contemplates the head of a friend, a relative, or her own body double.
13. Head on a Plate
Photo Credit: Flavorwire
A headless portrait of a man serving his head on a plate.
14. A Thoughtful and Headless Man
Photo Credit: Cultura Colectiva
A headless portrait of a man holding his decapitated cranium rather thoughtfully.
15. Head on a Floating PlatterA neighbour photographed the damage. Photo: Grossenzersdorf council
An Egyptian man who moved into a house in Grossenzersdorf in Lower Austria told his neighbours the 60-year-old figure of Jesus on a cross outside his home was an 'eyesore' - so he cut it down with an angle grinder.
Shortly after the man bought the house in Augasse, he was heard complaining to his neighbours about the two-metre high crucifix with the figure of Jesus that stood for several decades on the grass verge in front of his property.
"I don't want that. It has to go!", he said, according to a report in the news daily Heute.
Soon, during renovations to his house, he had access to an angle grinder, so he simply cut it down, slightly damaging the Jesus figure in the process.
His neighbours weren't happy. Local mayor Hubert Tomsic of the socialist Christian Democrats (SPÖ) said "I had a conversation with the man about repositioning the cross at a different location in the alley - at his expense."
Tomsic said that such a 'radical' response to the common Christian symbol was offensive, and inflammatory. The right-wing Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) said on Monday that they have lodged a complaint with the police for criminal damage, and denigration of religious teachings.Image copyright Reuters Image caption The boy was found without signs of life after the search that took over 100 hours
A Chinese boy trapped down an abandoned well has been found dead, after a huge four-day rescue operation.
The six-year-old fell into the 80m-deep well in Hebei province while harvesting vegetables on Sunday, state media Xinhua reported.
More than 500 rescuers and 100 excavators were involved after a call for help on Chinese social media by the boy's father.
Rescue efforts were hampered by soft soil which was prone to collapse.
Earlier reports had put the well at a depth of 40m.
The boy was found without signs of life after the search that took over 100 hours, according to a rescue official cited by the Global Times.
The 30cm-diameter well, which was too narrow for an adult to enter, was widened by rescuers who also pumped in oxygen.
The well had been left unused for five years and there were no warning signs.High-profile disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima have given nuclear power a bad name. Despite 60 years of nuclear generation without major accidents in many countries including Britain and France, many people have serious concerns about the safety of nuclear energy and the impact of the radioactive waste it generates. The very high capital cost of building a plant is also seen as a significant barrier, particularly given recent low oil prices. Plans to build a new British plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset are facing fresh opposition after it emerged the estimated lifetime costs had risen to £37 billion.
Yet the high priority of reducing carbon emissions thanks to climate change means nuclear power looks more important than ever. Luckily, the next generation of reactors could hold the answer. With more in-built safety systems and a way to reuse old fuel, they are set to make nuclear power safer and, potentially, cheaper.
Human error and a natural disaster played major roles in the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents, respectively. But in both cases, the failures occurred when the plants could no longer keep the reactors cool enough. At Chernobyl this was because of deliberate action and human error, and at Fukushima because the backup generators to drive the cooling pumps had been destroyed as a result of the tsunami.
An important reason why nuclear power is so expensive is the complex engineering, exacting standards, and advanced manufacturing technology that is used to ensure safe operation. For example, plants usually sits on a “nuclear island” of reinforced concrete that acts as a stable base for the plant and provides a barrier of last resort in case radioactive material is released. The pressure vessel at the core of the plant is made from carefully alloyed and fabricated steel to prevent it from becoming brittle from the decades’ worth of radiation it has to endure.
Modern reactors are safer
Today’s reactor designs also have far more safety features than older installations. These range from duplicate emergency cooling systems to prevent overheating even if some systems fail, through to so-called “core catchers” that would contain the reactor core in a worst-case meltdown event.
Some designs will cool passively in the event of a loss of power to the cooling circuit (as happened at Fukushima). The heat from the core will gradually dissipate from the walls of the pressure vessel and through the cooling circuit by convection. The reactors that are being constructed today benefit from 60 years of experience gained in the design and operation of nuclear power plants around the world.
But future reactor technologies –- so-called “Gen IV” designs – offer even better inherent safety. One of their key features are fully passive cooling systems so the reactor is never dependent on external power for safety. The reactor is carefully designed so that overheating actually reduces, rather than increases, the power output of the core. The core and cooling systems are not pressurised, and using liquids other than water for cooling prevents the risk of creating hydrogen: both of which drastically reduce the risk of explosions as occurred at Fukushima.
Gen IV reactors will also allow more efficient use of nuclear fuel. The fuel in current reactor designs is used only once and then disposed of, which produces radioactive waste that will take hundreds of millennia to decay to a safe level. But this waste contains valuable resources of fissile material that can be reprocessed into new fuel. Burning this fuel in specialised “fast” reactors provides would be much more efficient and generate waste that decays safely within just a hundred years or so. It would also move us towards a closed fuel-cycle that would greatly extend the lifetime of the Earth’s uranium reserves.
More power plants equals cheaper power
Another of the factors that makes nuclear power plants so expensive is that we haven’t built very many in recent years. This means that there is no industrial supply chain of companies with the expertise to manufacture the technology, reducing competition and limiting economies of scale.
For the few plants that have been built, there have often been issues in construction quality as the project has progressed: with the concrete for the nuclear island, the welding of heat exchanger pipework, or the composition of the steel used for the pressure vessel. These have needed expensive fixes or investigation to assure regulators that safety hasn’t been compromised.
So one way to reduce the costs of nuclear power plant is simply to build more of them. There are economies of scale in terms of having identical designs with the same requirements for construction, fuelling, operation and maintenance. In the UK in particular, attention is shifting towards so-called small modular reactors, or SMRs, that produce less power but that have lower upfront capital construction costs.
Perhaps if the latest technology can also convince the public nuclear power has become safer, there will be the appetite to build enough plants to bring the costs down even more.Lost Mothers Maternal Care and Preventable Deaths
This story was co-published with NPR.
At 11:58 p.m. this past June 25, Helen Taylor gave birth to her first baby, a boy, at West Suffolk Hospital in the east of England. At 11:59 p.m., with 15 seconds to spare before midnight, his sister was born. The obstetrician and her team were pleased; the cesarean section was going smoothly, fulfilling Helen’s wish that her twins share a birthday.
But 40 minutes later, Helen had lost over a third of her blood.
Enraptured by new motherhood, she barely noticed when the obstetrician’s head appeared around the surgical drape. “We need to give you a drug to help stop the bleeding, is that OK?” Helen nodded. Ten minutes passed before the question came again. Then again. The fourth time, Helen realized something was seriously wrong.
During pregnancy, the uterine blood vessels that nourish the fetus are wide open. Once the baby is delivered and the placenta removed, these vessels should constrict and close. If they don’t, as with Helen, the mother can bleed profusely. She may reach a point where her body can no longer compensate for the blood loss. The extent of the flow can be unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic. The surgical team’s response must be meticulous. And fast.
Helen’s team — an experienced obstetrician with her resident in training, a pediatrician, an anesthesiologist with an assistant, two nurses (one scrubbed-in, one fetching equipment), and three midwives — responded to her developing hemorrhage with a routine ingrained from rehearsal and real life.
“We are like a Formula One race team at a pit stop,” the anesthesiologist had reassured Helen by way of introduction.
The key to this well-oiled machine is standardization. It used to be that every obstetrician in the U.K. had his or her own signature strategy to manage an emergency. In the U.S., that still sometimes happens. But these days, every British doctor, whether newly qualified or approaching retirement, is required to follow the same guidelines for many aspects of maternity care, including treatment of bleeding. Postpartum hemorrhage guidelines are regularly updated by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and then written into local protocols for practice in every National Health Service hospital. You don’t need to be a doctor to read the guidelines: They are freely available online. Women can find out exactly what standard of care to expect.
Helen’s was the kind of deceptively complex case that shows why a consistent approach is desirable. Her hemorrhage flared from minor (over 500 milliliters) to major (over 1 liter) to massive (over 2 liters) in less than an hour. First, the team gave her IV fluids to help replace the lost volume. After checking for bits of retained placenta, the obstetrician massaged Helen’s uterus to encourage its natural ability to contract, but her bleeding continued. The anesthesiologist lifted the surgical drapes to inject Helen’s thigh with a drug containing syntocinon, which stimulates the uterine muscle to tighten the blood vessels. The same medication was then given by a drip.
But there’s a catch: Drugs that narrow arteries can increase blood pressure. During her third trimester, Helen had developed preeclampsia, a type of hypertension induced by pregnancy that can lead to seizures and strokes. Not only does preeclampsia complicate treatment for bleeding, it makes hemorrhage more likely in the first place.
The immediate danger of more blood loss outweighed the risk of raising the blood pressure. The anesthesiologist followed protocol and administered two more drugs to intensify uterine contraction, with several minutes of watching and waiting in between. Still the blood flowed. The final step would be a transfusion.
Then, just as the team was about to dial up units of O-negative from the blood bank, the obstetrician noticed that her absorbent surgical swabs were taking longer to soak through with red. The uterus felt firmer, more like a bicep than loose tissue. Helen’s bleeding was under control. Due to the guidelines, a more serious crisis was averted. A transfusion wouldn’t be needed after all.
As a medical student at the University of Cambridge in England, I got to know Helen on the ward. This account of her pregnancy, labor and medical emergency is based on my observations and interviews with Helen, her partner Marcus and caregivers at West Suffolk Hospital. The hospital approved my access to interview patients, and Helen gave full consent to share her experience. It’s a tale that highlights the profoundly different approaches in the U.K. and the U.S. to maternal care — and to saving mothers’ lives.
“Ultimately, it’s a story I didn’t think I’d get to tell,” Helen said.
For a pregnant woman in the 1950s, the two childbirth complications most likely to prove fatal were hemorrhage and preeclampsia. Whether American or British, one in every 1,000 expectant and new mothers died.
British health authorities recognized this number was unacceptably high, given that nearly half of the deaths were considered preventable. Starting in the late 1940s, a national commitment was made to standardize maternity care across the NHS, assess each maternal fatality, and learn how it might have been avoided.
That campaign has succeeded. Today, the average mother in the U.K. receives more comprehensive and consistent care, ranging from earlier prenatal appointments to closer monitoring after she gives birth, than does her American counterpart. And if a mother dies, the U.K. investigates and tries to learn from it. Medical authorities in the U.K. view maternal deaths as public health failures that underscore deficiencies in health care systems. In the U.S., maternal deaths are too often treated as disconnected, private tragedies. If they are scrutinized by hospitals or regulators at all, the findings typically prompt institutional rather than national reforms.
Underlying these contrasts is a different view of the medical responsibility to mother and child. In the U.S., laudable aspirations for infant safety have intensified focus on the fetus — more sonograms, continuous fetal heart monitoring and granting rights to the unborn. But these measures may at times distract attention from the mother’s health.
By contrast, British medical professionals are legally required to prioritize a mother’s wellbeing if both she and her baby are in danger. They’re trained to stabilize mom first, and then tend to baby. “That sense that the woman (while the fetus is in utero) is the agent in charge is in place. I think that’s the right way,” said Denis Walsh, a midwife and associate professor in midwifery at the University of Nottingham. “Otherwise you start undermining individual women’s autonomy and then you go down a slippery slope.”
The numbers reflect the difference in national priorities. Today in the U.K., 8.9 women for every 100,000 live births die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. In the U.S., this figure declined in tandem with Britain’s until 1990. It then reversed course, rising to 25.1 women per 100,000 in 2015, almost three times higher than the U.K., and among the worst in the Western world.
These U.S. deaths are not spread equally. Women who are poor, African American or live in a rural area are more likely to die during and after pregnancy. In the U.K., while inequalities persist when it comes to serious complications, according to 2012-2014 data, there is no statistically significant difference in mortality rates between women in the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups. All British women have equal access to public medical services, including free care and prescriptions from pregnancy through the postpartum period.
There is a significant gap between the U.K. and U.S. in outcomes for pregnancy-related conditions that are highly treatable but can lead to death if they are not recognized and managed in time. One in 1 million women die of preeclampsia in the U.K.; that’s less than a single death per year. By contrast, preeclampsia killed an estimated 50 to 70 women in the U.S. in 2016, accounting for 8 percent of maternal deaths. According to the most recent data available, hemorrhage is responsible for 6.5 percent of maternal deaths in the U.K. versus 11.4 percent in the U.S.
The U.K. has achieved these results while spending less on delivering babies. On average, the total price charged for a vaginal birth in the U.S. is $30,000 (£24,000), which rises to $50,000 (£39,000) for a cesarean section, according to Truven Health Analytics, a New York firm that collects health care data. The BBC reported that in the U.K. the average cost for a normal delivery or planned cesarean section on a hospital labor ward in 2016 was $2,300 (£1,755), while a complicated case like Helen’s rose to $3,400 (£2,582).
Ironically, the centerpiece of the U.K.’s strategy to reduce maternal mortality is an American import. In 1949, the British Congress on Obstetrics and Gynecology suggested adopting a new method for reviewing maternal deaths that was already practiced in some parts of the U.S. Fatalities in those regions were assessed by local committees of experts, who published reports in medical journals to educate the profession. The British minister of health agreed to try it. The result was the Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in England and Wales, established in 1952.
The confidential inquiry has far outstripped its American forebears. Now run by MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries in the United Kingdom), its report drives training, assessment and practice in British obstetrics — including the types of treatment protocols that saved Helen Taylor’s life. Crucially, hospitals can neither opt out of MBRRACE’s surveillance nor ignore its recommendations.
In many parts of the U.S., such enquiries do not have the same prominence and clout. There is no federal-level scrutiny of maternal deaths, and only 26 states have an established committee (of varying methodology and rigor) to review them. Nor do all U.S. hospitals routinely examine whether a death could have been avoided. Procedures for treating complications such as preeclampsia, and for responding to emergencies such as hemorrhage, vary from one doctor, hospital and state to the next.
The Richard Doll building at the University of Oxford, named after the epidemiologist who saved millions of lives by establishing the link between smoking and lung cancer, is the home of MBRRACE. That the inquiry can declare itself “the international gold standard for maternity audit and quality-improvement programs” is due to more than 100 doctors and midwives who read the cases in their spare time for free. MBRRACE continues the search for answers begun in 1952: What are the causes of maternal deaths, why are they occurring, and how can they be prevented?
MBRRACE’s full report covers a three-year period and includes data on every woman in the U.K. who has died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after childbirth. It also discusses later maternal deaths — those occurring up to a year after delivery — and makes recommendations for improvements to care. Direct deaths from obstetric causes, such as hemorrhage, sepsis or blood clots, are distinguished from indirect deaths from conditions worsened but not caused by pregnancy, such as epilepsy or certain types of heart disease.
When a woman dies, the delivery unit responsible for her care submits a local report, which includes perspectives of the health professionals who treated her, and a copy of her medical notes. First, a pathologist reviews the documents to pronounce the cause of death. Next, 10 to 15 practitioners from specialties including obstetrics, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, psychiatry and midwifery piece together what happened, and decide whether the death could have been prevented.
Data about maternal age, race and cause of death is extracted and analyzed. Also counted are the survivors who must grow up without a mother’s care. The 2012–2014 report states that “the women who died left behind a further 253 children, thus together a total of 358 motherless children remain.” The individual women are not named, but their stories are preserved in the report through short vignettes. Marian Knight, head of MBRRACE’s maternal program, who trained in obstetrics and is now professor of maternal and child population health at the University of Oxford, insists that statistics alone do not have the same impact.
“Stories are what make the difference,” Knight told me. “That’s what people remember. In the States, they are just collecting numbers. It’s all very well to know a woman died of sepsis, but to know that she died of sepsis because nobody measured her temperature, as they had no thermometers on the postnatal ward, that’s where the instruction Put a thermometer on your postnatal ward might make a difference. It’s not just the what, it’s the why.”
Marian Knight at her home, near Oxford (Andrew Testa for ProPublica)
MBRRACE doesn’t seek to blame individual health professionals, but rather to learn from systemic mistakes. These lessons feed back into NICE’s and the Royal College’s guidelines, standardizing care from Inverness to Southampton. Committing to predetermined pathways of treatment, as in Helen’s delivery, requires humility from clinicians. The power of protocols — informed by the profession’s collective experience and research findings — is that, over time, they will result in better outcomes than one doctor’s instinct.
Catherine Aiken, fellow in maternal-fetal medicine at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, interned at Yale New Haven Hospital before returning to the U.K. “As a behemoth organization, [the NHS] is good at agreeing that there is a way of taking a woman’s observations [vital signs] in labor. If you don’t have a thermometer, the whole thing grinds to a halt until you find one, which can be frustrating at times,” she said. “You have to remind yourself in the moment this is good, and ultimately it will save lives because you have less of the stupid mistakes.”
There are, of course, moments when deviating from a protocol is defensible, but “you should have something that makes you think very hard before you override a safety mechanism in any situation,” Aiken added. “I’m glad that I work in an operation where I would be stopped if I were doing something off-piste,” or in other words, not recognized as best practice.
MBRRACE’s findings also influence how interns and residents are evaluated. Questions about the confidential inquiry appear on the Royal College’s examinations, which all aspiring obstetricians and gynecologists must pass.
The Care Quality Commission, which inspects medical services nationwide, takes MBRRACE’s report to birthing units and labor wards to ask doctors and midwives how they are integrating its findings. PROMPT (Practical Obstetric Multi-Professional Training), a nonprofit formed in response to evidence from the confidential inquiry, runs drills and refresher courses for obstetricians, anesthesiologists and midwives. Protocols are practiced in simulated emergencies to make the pit stop in real crises as efficient as possible.
Despite these measures, the U.K. appears to be one of the poorer-performing European Union countries. France and the Netherlands, the two other nations that conduct enquiries comparable to MBBRACE, have lower maternal mortality ratios (7.6 per 100,000 live births, and 6.3 per 100,000 respectively).
Does comparison with the U.S. mask the U.K.’s shortcomings? Defenders of the British system say the NHS is simply more vigilant in defining and identifying all pregnancy-related deaths. If you search hard enough for bad news, you are likely to find more of it. In the U.K., 85 percent of women who die of causes connected to pregnancy or childbirth have an autopsy, versus 49 percent in the Netherlands and 29 percent in France.
“I’m pretty sure we’re very close, if not perfect, at identifying all of our maternal cases. So obviously our rates look higher,” Knight said.
The U.S. lags behind the U.K. in this area too. In the U.S., for deaths listed as related to pregnancy on death certificates from 2011 to 2013, the autopsy rate is estimated at close to 60 percent, said Dr. William Callaghan, chief of the Maternal and Infant Health Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There is little to no standardization regarding autopsy,” he said. “States and even localities have their own practices.”
Last year, at the age of 42, Helen Taylor had almost given up hope she would ever hold her own baby. After 12 years of trying, and three unsuccessful cycles of in vitro fertilization provided free by the NHS, the chances looked slim.
Balancing her job as a primary school teacher with IVF treatment was “incredibly hard,” she said. After one appointment, she had to lead a sex education class, “talking about eggs and sperm.”
“You had to leave it behind, leave it in the car, and then go into the classroom, put a smile on your face and try and forget about it.” She paused. “You start to bury it a bit.”
After the third failed IVF cycle, a private fertility doctor had bluntly told her the few eggs she had were “poor quality.”
“You’re really scraping the barrel,” he said.
Devastated but determined, Helen and her partner Marcus decided to pay for one final attempt. This time they opted for an egg donor. She was 34 years old, a Caucasian brunette with blue eyes. That’s all they knew.
After implanting a couple of embryos in Helen’s womb in November 2016, her doctor told her to wait two weeks before taking a pregnancy test. But after 10 days, Helen noticed some light spotting: the familiar sign of failure. The next morning, her birthday, she just wanted to get the bad news over with. Three minutes later she was staring at a pair of blue lines. After another four tests, she let herself believe it was true.
Maternal care in the U.K. and the U.S. begins to diverge early in the first trimester. When she was less than a month pregnant, Helen shared the news with her family doctor, following the NHS recommendation to do so as soon as possible. In the U.S., the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says care should be initiated by 10 to 12 weeks, and the first point of contact is likely to be an OB-GYN practice. In Britain, it’s usually a community midwife, and Helen was put in touch with the local branch in Sudbury.
A kindly 40-something woman led the first meeting, known as the “Booking Appointment,” and talked Helen through what to expect from the next months. As a first-time mom, she would be scheduled for 10 prenatal sessions (which would have been seven sessions if this were her second child), and was reassured there would be no limit if she had trouble.
They spent over an hour going through Helen’s past medical history, checking her weight and blood pressure, testing her urine and discussing diet and self-care. The midwife encouraged Helen to consider the NHS “Bump, Birth and Beyond” prenatal classes, a breastfeeding workshop, screening tests for fetal abnormalities and immunizations. She asked whether Helen had concerns about her mental health or domestic violence. (She didn’t.) Screening for both is mandatory in the U.K., but not in the U.S.
To each midwife appointment Helen brought her NHS pregnancy booklet — “maternity notes” — given to every expectant mother. It is designed to ensure that all risk factors are considered, with checklists of questions and space for the midwife’s comments on mom and baby’s progress. At delivery, this booklet provides useful information to the medical team.
Perhaps the biggest difference compared with the U.S. is the way pregnancies are quickly triaged into two broad categories: low or high risk. Low-risk women — those deemed unlikely to have complications — account for 45 percent of pregnancies, and see a midwife every four weeks. A quarter of these women will end up being escalated to the care of an attending obstetrician during or just before labor. But if a pregnancy is uneventful it is possible, even probable, that the woman will not see a doctor over the entire nine months.
In the U.K., all planned births, from home deliveries to complex C-sections, are attended by midwives, whereas in the U.S., midwives are present at just 8 percent of births. Helen would have liked to deliver on a midwife-led birthing unit, but her pregnancy was high risk from the outset because she was over 40 and had conceived by donor IVF, both of which increased the likelihood of complications, including preeclampsia and hemorrhage.
Other factors that can elevate risk include pre-existing medical conditions, increased maternal age or substance abuse. Risk factors may also relate to the baby: If there is more than one in the womb, or if the fetus is small for its age, moves less than expected, or in the last days of pregnancy is positioned breech (with bottom or legs at the lowest point in the uterus).
High-risk women see an obstetrician and a midwife, as well as a specialist if the mother has a co-morbidity — a disease or disorder that could complicate pregnancy and childbirth. Their deliveries take place on hospital labor wards, overseen by an attending obstetrician. Helen’s midwife automatically checked the “location of birth” box that said “Labor ward.”
Risk can change as pregnancy progresses. With this in mind, many hospitals are designed with their maternity unit next to the labor ward. “We are very good at sliding people between the high- and low-risk models of care,” said Sally Collins, associate professor of obstetrics at the University of Oxford. Or, as Helen said to Marcus, “No one can know what’s going to happen. You better cover all your contingencies.”
Helen went back to the IVF clinic for an early ultrasound scan. The NHS routinely offers two ultrasounds for every low-risk pregnancy: at 12 weeks and 20 weeks. High-risk women may be scanned more regularly.
As the sonographer moved the probe over Helen’s jellied tummy, she paused.
“There isn’t just one heartbeat. There are two.”
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
“Does she say anything else?” the sonographer laughed, turning to Marcus.
Despite her excitement, Helen knew twins increased the likelihood of complications. She was booked for a scan every two weeks from 20 weeks, and then would see a doctor for 10 minutes to talk through the results. More business-like than meetings with the midwife, these appointments would give Helen a formal reassurance that the pregnancy was going according to plan.
The first trimester started with nausea, but by the second, Helen was in her element. “It was brilliant,” she said, beaming. “You’re in a position where you can tell everybody, everyone knows, you’ve got a bump but it’s not massive and weighing you down.”
An ongoing complication of pregnancy for Helen was over-Googling. “I would go to the midwife with a list of questions that I was worrying about,” she said, such as what might be causing a rhythmic beat, not as fast as a heart pumping, deep in her abdomen. “Oh, that’s probably baby hiccups,” the midwife said. “Totally normal.” Her WhatsApp group of six other moms and dads from prenatal classes added to this pool of practical wisdom.
As if on a timer, at 28 weeks — the beginning of her third trimester — Helen’s usually low blood pressure started to rise. Her feet swelled, then her ankles, then her calves: the telltale signs of preeclampsia. Although Helen’s blood pressure was at the upper end of normal, the midwife sent her to the hospital twice a week for closer monitoring. There, an obstetrician prescribed labetalol — a drug that widens the arteries to lower the pressure.
On the 34-week scan, the babies were fortunately in the correct position: head-down, four feet kicking above Helen’s navel. A vaginal delivery still looked likely.
Helen wanted her delivery to be as natural as possible, even though she was resigned to the necessity of being induced at 37 or 38 weeks if the babies hadn’t arrived by then, standard practice for the delivery of twins.
The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth The death of Lauren Bloomstein, a neonatal nurse, in the hospital where she worked illustrates a profound disparity: the health care system focuses on babies but often ignores their mothers.
“Natural birth” — now called “physiological birth” within the midwifery profession — is a common request in the U.K., and not something women have to fight for. It tends to be defined by what it is not: no induction, minimal medical involvement and certainly no cesarean section. Every pregnant woman is encouraged to write a birth plan with her midwife, which includes the desired location of birth, medical interventions mom would agree to, the role a partner is to have (cutting the cord, for example), and forms of acceptable pain relief.
Making it more likely that U.K. women get the kind of delivery they want is due to the influence of midwives. The NHS employs over 21,000 midwives, compared with 4,710 OB-GYNs. Unlike obstetric nurses in the U.S., midwives in Britain do not work under the auspices of obstetricians. Midwives are independent practitioners in their own right, but trained to recognize when a woman or her baby is in trouble and needs an obstetrician’s eye.
“A midwife looks at a pregnant woman and sees a beautiful, normal, physiological, wonderful event about to happen,” Oxford’s Sally Collins told me. “An obstetrician looks at a pregnant woman and sees a disaster lying in wait for them. If you’ve got these two health care professionals working together as a team and meeting in the middle, what you end up with is really good health care. The normal women are normalized and the high-risk women are medicalized.”
Thirty-five weeks pregnant to the day, Helen was at home in the twins’ new jungle-themed nursery. Her induction date was over a fortnight away, but she was already hanging up the tiny clothes handed down from her nieces.
At 4:30 p.m., the phone rang. The line was crackly, as usual in her rural neighborhood, but she could just make out the voice of a midwife at the other end.
“Your urine reading is not good, the protein level is very high. You need to come in.”
Helen had a doctor’s appointment the following morning and suggested she could talk through the results then.
“No, you need to come now.”
Hearts racing, Helen and Marcus drove the 40 minutes to West Suffolk Hospital, forgetting their pregnancy notes in the rush. On arrival, the midwife repeated the urine test, which showed |
performing economic region in the world. However the total failure doesn’t bother Brussels - or so it seems. They fail to see the warning signs and continue without limits on integration, backing a wrong policy.
The Eurozone is the worst performing economic region in the world. However the total failure doesn’t bother Brussels - or so it seems. They fail to see the warning signs and continue without limits on integration, backing a wrong policy.
On the contrary the growing crisis, which Commission President Juncker labels a ‘polycrisis’ is wrongly seen as a chance to introduce steps to a closer union. With Brexit they have achieved their first big goal, to have an opponent removed. Now the way is free for a socialised EU and a more state controlled economy in France’s favour. The aim is a version of Europe built on claimed common interests as a dogma, not to increase wealth at all.
Why did France and German politicians prevent the merger of Airbus and BAE in 2012? They didn’t stand for a business driven integrated Europe. They wanted to have a very certain Europe, thereby introducing a hidden agenda. BAE is the total opposite of Airbus. Airbus is planned as a European Champion. It is a creation from industrial policy in response to the challenges of globalisation. BAE is a free enterprise with an international standing of its own. It’s not related to politics, so it is more open to international business.
Obviously the merger was a threat to the concept of the closer union with a stronger state. As a former supervisory board member of the German holding company of Airbus I was annoyed about this political decision. EU-ideology doesn’t support business. Many EU politicians just want to have more power. Business interests are a better bond than Brussels to keep countries together. But the power of economic success is not provided by the EU. Redistribution with funds and common liability is the new EU-agenda.
Surely a more integrated aviation and defence industry would be another precondition for the Brexit. Especially it would be another precondition for the defence union. Now the defence union is a a toothless tiger, it will be a pure state project without basis.
It’s clear we now have a different union from the one Britain joined over 40 years ago. The rules have changed from the principles of subsidiarity and competitiveness to centralisation and harmonisation
It’s clear we now have a different union from the one Britain joined over 40 years ago. The rules have changed from the principles of subsidiarity and competitiveness to centralisation and harmonisation. So it’s not that Britain is leaving the EU, the EU is leaving Britain. Violating the rules of the Maastricht Treaty were the first steps in this downfall leading to the rise of populism. Eurobonds and a European Treasury Department would be the next. The British Prime Minister, Theresa May has come to the only logical conclusion: embracing Brexit to boost the competitiveness of her country.
Likely the liberal minded and business-oriented Britain will have a better trade deal with the US, in place earlier than the incapacitated EU. Not only the Brexiteers are to blame for Brexit. The EU has become incapacitated, and without this handicap Great Britain can continue with the to be the pragmatic voice of reason negotiating a successful business future.The holidays are always mixed with numerous emotions. Tom Crean is here to help relate to some of those emotions you might be feeling this holiday season.
Holidays like Christmas and Chanukah are right around the corner.
We all know that the holidays can be a stressful time. Between shopping for presents, entertaining family and everything in between. It’s a time where we reflect on all the amazing things in our lives. A time to appreciate the people you might be surrounded by or the blessings that have come throughout the year.
Or maybe…
The frustration of finding the perfect gift for someone special. Consequently having to explain to grandma why you have yet to bring home that cute significant other. Dealing with the zany aunt or uncle who hit the liquor cabinet a bit too early. Receiving a gift you might not expect.
All situations that can resonate with college basketball fans around the country. Sometimes there are emotions that you cannot quite express. As a matter of fact, Head Coach Tom Crean is here to help.
Indiana Hoosier fans know that over the tenure of Coach Crean we have been blessed with character. Candid shots of Crean throughout all the highs and lows. All things considered, what better way to explain how you might be feeling this time of year than with none other than the Hoosiers’ Tom Crean.I don’t smoke, but I find myself fascinated by and passionate about the debate over e-cigarettes. Why? Because e-cigarettes illustrate how harm reduction approaches to drug policy, particularly maintenance or substitution therapies, are at once both filled with promise and deeply misunderstood.
The U.S., using public health approaches, has made incredible strides in reducing the number of smokers. But 480,000 people in the U.S. will die from cigarette smoking each year, a number that has remained relatively stable since 2004. While education, prevention and cessation programs must continue, these strategies are unlikely to result in the kind of big reductions in smoking at the population level that we have seen in the past. Many of those still smoking simply cannot or will not quit.
E-cigarettes, electronic devices that deliver nicotine via a vapor, eliminate almost all of the harmful chemicals of smoking and are preferred by smokers over nicotine patches or gum (which have not proven successful at helping most people quit long term). Nicotine is an addictive substance but one with relatively few harmful health effects, especially compared to smoked tobacco. While more research is needed and better regulation of the contents of e-cigarettes could improve consumer safety, research to date suggests that neither the secondhand vapor nor the contents of most e-cigarettes themselves is particularly hazardous. They are certainly far less toxic than cigarette smoke. Some have raised concerns that e-cigarettes will increase smoking among youth or people who have never smoked. So far, however, the research does not bear out these fears.
The risks associated with e-cigarettes, which appear at this point to be modest, must be weighed against the potential benefits. On the individual level, there is good evidence to suggest that some people who use e-cigarettes reduce or eliminate their use of traditional cigarettes, decreasing harm to themselves and reducing exposure to secondhand smoke to those around them. It’s too early to say, what the impact at the population level will be, but in countries, like Sweden, where smokeless tobacco products, like snus, became popular, smoking rates (along with lung cancer and myocardial infarction) dropped dramatically. A substantial proportion (around 30%) of male ex-smokers in Sweden used snus when quitting smoking, and researchers have attributed the drop in smoking nationwide in part to the increasing use of this less harmful smokeless product.
Despite these potential health benefits, many public health officials have come out strongly against e-cigarettes (see for example, the e-cigarette ban in New York City). Rather than opposing substitution and maintenance therapies, like e-cigarettes, the public health community should be embracing them. It’s time for us all to acknowledge that some people will always use nicotine, just as some people will always use other drugs, such as heroin or prescription opioids. They have either tried and failed to quit – often hundreds of times – or they simply choose not to quit.
Addictions can be powerful, but they don’t have to be life destroying. We can remove many of the harms associated with addictions if we provide people with less damaging and legal ways of obtaining the drug they want or need. E-cigarettes provide a way for people addicted to nicotine to get that drug relatively safely, while significantly decreasing the health risks to themselves and others. We know that substitution and maintenance therapies can dramatically reduce the harms associated with drug use, and the public health community should be working to expand them. If we can improve the health of individuals and communities by offering those who cannot or will not quit a safer alternative or substitution, don’t we have an obligation to do so?
Julie Netherland is the New York deputy state director for the Drug Policy Alliance.
View more blog posts.This week on DineSafe there are no closures to report, although Zyng, which was shuttered earlier this month, is now back on the list with a significant infraction for inadequate pest control.
See which other restaurants landed on the DineSafe hit list this week.
Burger Shoppe (688 Queen St. E.)
Inspected on: September 19, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 2, Significant: 1)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Thai Green Chili (1059 Bloor St. W.)
Inspected on: September 19, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 5 (Minor: 3, Significant: 2)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Merchants of Green Coffee (2 Matilda St.)
Inspected on: September 19, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 4 (Minor: 1, Significant: 3)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Pho Phuong (1603 Dundas St. W.)
Inspected on: September 21, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 7 (Minor: 3, Significant: 2, Crucial: 2)
Crucial infractions include: Operator fail to wash hands when required. Operator fail to maintain hazardous food(s) at 4C (40F) or colder.
Time Capsule Cafe (2183 Danforth Ave.)
Inspected on: September 21, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 5 (Minor: 3, Significant: 2)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Niche (626 Queen St. W.)
Inspected on: September 22, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 2, Significant: 4)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
The Common (Annex) (408 Bloor St. W.)
Inspected on: September 23, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 2)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Zyng (730 Yonge St.)
Inspected on: September 23, 2016
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 1 (Significant: 1)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Note: The above businesses each received infractions from DineSafe as originally reported on the DineSafe site. This does not imply that any of these businesses have not subsequently corrected the issue and received a passing grade by DineSafe inspectors. For the latest status for each of the mentioned businesses, including details on any subsequent inspections, please be sure to check the DineSafe site.On Sunday, May 1st, we lost Amy Denissen, a beloved member of the LA/OC Swing dance community. This is the statement her family posted on her Facebook page:
This morning, Amy – our beautiful daughter, sister and friend – is at peace with her loved ones in heaven after a six year journey with ovarian cancer. Amy was full of gusto, passion, compassion and kindness. A committed teacher who cared deeply about her students, Amy was a public sociologist whose research and writing was focused on making this world a better and more just place. A fierce activist for social justice, Amy is celebrating May Day (International Workers Day) with us from her place in heaven. Striking a pose at two years old, Amy never stopped dancing. Dance was a lifelong passion, an art, a celebration, and most importantly – a community. One she cared deeply for. Information on a Celebration of Life and Memorial will be shared in the coming days. Amy, you will dance in our hearts forever. We love you.
Last night, friends of Amy gathered at Joe’s Bar to celebrate her life and remember her. Fittingly, her favorite Swing band, Dave Stuckey and the Hot House Gang, was playing.
Amy was a friend of mine and an amazingly wonderful person. I knew her since the days of the Derby, but have some of the fondest memories of her from a trip a we took to New Orleans with our “gang” of Swing dancers in 2014. We had many game nights, movie nights, BBQ’s, and other gatherings that went beyond Swing dancing. Amy always lit up the room.
In the midst of her illness, Amy was incredibly brave and always had a warm smile for everyone. You would never know that she had a life-threatening illness judging by her demeanor. I never detected even a slight trace of bitterness or anger. She continued to Swing dance and even entered some Swing dance competitions and won!
Amy touched so many people with her kind and caring spirit. We’ll miss you Amy.
I don’t think words can convey the joy that Amy brought into so many lives, so I’ll end with this photo gallery. Many of these have never been seen publicly. Feel free to use these in any memorial for Amy. – BrianRetired FBI agent James Fitzgerald — an expert in forensic linguistics who was key in ferreting out Ted Kaczynski as the Unabomber and who has been an advisor on Criminal Minds and Sleepy Hollow — has been working on the JonBenét Ramsey murder case since the six-year-old’s body was found in her family’s Boulder, Colorado home the day after Christmas in 1996.
Fitzgerald and half a dozen fellow investigators spent months re-investigating the Ramsey case earlier this year. Their findings, and most notably, their potentially explosive conclusion, was filmed for CBS’s two-night, four-hour limited series The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey, which premieres Sept. 18.
Fitzgerald’s specific area of expertise in the Ramsey case is the ransom note, and he talked to Yahoo TV about its significance in the crime, how he interpreted it, which clues revealed the most about the person — or people — involved in JonBenét’s murder, and, yes, how he and his cohorts will end the CBS series by naming the person they believe killed JonBenét Ramsey, as well as those who may have helped that individual get away with murder… until now?
What’s the history of your involvement with the JonBenét investigation?
I was involved about 19 ½ years ago as an FBI profiler and a fledgling forensic linguist when the Boulder PD investigators came to Quantico. That was my initiation, if you will, with this case. They came back at least one or two other times, and I was certainly in touch with them over the phone. My role then was as a profiler, but they knew of my success in the Unabomber case, looking at the manifesto and the writings of Ted Kaczynski. They asked me to focus on the ransom note, the three-page note. That’s kind of where I ran with it. We had other profilers running with the crime scene and the behavior involved, which I participated in, too, but I was the main guy in the FBI looking at the note. That was then. When I came back into it with this team, a few months ago when we started filming, I re-assumed that role.
Related: Ken Tucker Reviews ‘The Case of JonBenét Ramsey’
Forensic linguistics had played an invaluable role in the Unabomber case, right?
Yes, I learned a lot about language analysis, language assessment, and how people do communicate similarly within themselves over the course of time. If they wrote something 10 years ago, you’re going to see some of those writing features come to play in present or future writings. I took that with me to the Ramsey investigation and said, “We’re going to get some [samples] with [JonBenét’s parents], Patsy and John, and any other suspect you have in the case.” Not just handwriting… I said, “Handwriting analysis is great, but it’s not what I do. Linguistic analysis is more about the content — the context, style, which includes punctuation and spelling and all these other features.” I was the first one to suggest that on the case. We proceeded from that point on.
At that time, when you were investigating the ransom note, what things struck you as unusual or interesting about it?
The first thing was the very first two words, which said: “Listen carefully!” This is a written communication meant to be visually comprehended, but here someone is using an audible reference. Right away, I said, “This doesn’t even make sense.” Grammatically it’s correct, the words were spelled right, but it was an unusual way to begin an alleged ransom communication. This whole “foreign faction” thing and whether someone is a foreigner or not… do you consider yourself a foreigner when you’re in someone else’s country? Would you give that information away to the police? Right after the word “foreign,” they misspelled two words: “business” and “possession.” I believe both words were misspelled on purpose, because they both had to do with the double consonant “s.” If you’re going to misspell one word, you’re probably going to, almost by accident, get the other word right. Right then, I knew we had someone pretending to be someone other than who they really are. Within the first three sentences, quite frankly, I was convinced that this was not an authentic kidnapper. It was not an authentic crime syndicate or terrorist group or anything like that. This was someone doing his or her best to make themselves appear to be one of those entities, but it was clear that that was not the case.
What about the amount the alleged kidnapper asked for, $118,000? The amount seems so oddly specific, and it seems like such a low amount for the ransom of a child from a wealthy family.
You’re absolutely right, on both counts. We found out later the Ramseys could have easily come up with a million dollars that next day. They had the wherewithal, financially, to do that. It wasn’t a coincidence that the amount, $118,000, was chosen, because that happened to be the [amount of the] bonus that John Ramsey was awarded that year at his software company. I believe that was a red herring by the author to make it look like, in fact, it was an inside job of some sort. What I think the picture they completed was, that it was truly an inside job — very much inside, in terms of that particular feature right there.
Related: JonBenét Ramsey: Postmurder Interview Tapes With Brother Unearthed on ‘Dr. Phil’
What was your conclusion at that time, about the note and what it might mean in terms of who was involved with the murder?
To be a profiler, to be a linguist, when you’re studying these types of crimes and cases, you have to be a student of history, too. Ever since I was a young kid, I read about the Lindbergh kidnapping and the few other for-profit, stranger-related, kidnappings in the U.S. There’s been very few of them. I knew the Lindbergh kidnapping note was maybe 60 or 70 words. Other notes over the years are 50, 60 words, some even much shorter. All of a sudden, measuring nothing else at this point except quantitatively, we have about 385 words in the [Ramsey] ransom note. Way too much information. Way too much evidence. It’s clear that all of it could have been written in about three sentences. “We have your daughter. We want $118,000 or we’ll kill her. We’ll call tomorrow.” That’s all that was needed. This thing, instead, read like a Stephen King novelette, with people being beheaded and all kinds of nasty things happening to people. The person who was writing this was truly out of his or her element, in terms of trying to be a real criminal or a real kidnapper.
One of the things you can do via forensic linguistics is try to focus in on the age or the gender of the writer of a note, maybe where they’re from, the significance of certain phrases that they use. Was there anything like that in that note?
Yeah, in forensic linguistics there is an aspect to it of linguistic profiling. We look for demographics, we look for personality traits, and yes, in some cases, depending on the style of the author, you can actually come into an age bracket, maybe within 10 years. You can actually come into gender. You can actually relate to issues such as nativeness — are they native English speakers or not, or natives of any language. That is what we did with this particular letter. You’ll see it in [The Case Of], that I spend a solid 10-15 minutes breaking the letter down, almost sentence by sentence, and also painting a picture of what kind of a person may have done this. I did actually say, “We linguists, we’re very conservative when we render opinions like this.” There are a lot of mitigating factors with language. Gender, of course, is kind of on a continuum. It’s not just black and white, man/woman. We’re conscious of that when rendering decisions about gender or the sex of the author. In this particular case, what I wound up saying was that [the note] has a maternalistic sound to it. If you want to make that into female, you can certainly do that. There’s about five or six examples coming out on the show, which almost comes across as a mother talking to one of her children, so maybe that, subconsciously, was in fact happening here.
When you look at the note now, as you have done more recently, did anything strike you differently than it did 20 years ago?
No, not really. I was not an official linguist when I first looked at the note in the late ‘90s, but I went back and got my second master’s degree at Georgetown University, this one in the science of linguistics. I can now look at the language features from more of a scientific, quantifiable perspective, and compare them to other letters and other corpora. I just have more of a scientific approach to what it is I do now. [But] I think I pretty much broke down the note pretty well back then, in terms of the evidentiary features of it and what we needed to look for, if we had some known writings from any suspect. We put some of that together on the show Sunday and Monday night.
You created the CTAD, which is a database of all of the words that should be looked at, if you are profiling a note or a letter?
You’re in the right church. In the FBI, yes, I created the CTAD: the Communicated Threat Assessment Database. Essentially, for the first time in the FBI, we had one specific location where we would have digital versions of every kind of threatening or criminally oriented or problematic communication that the FBI would be handling: bank robbery notes, the very rare ransom letters of kidnappings, many threats, many extortions, much harassment and stalking. I built that up from zero letters to thousands by the time I retired. Now it’s approaching half a million different types of communications — emails, blog entries, old school letters — that are all in there. This wasn’t around when the Ramsey case started, but I made sure that [ransom note] was included in it. A ransom letter like this, which really was never a ransom letter — it was part of a staged crime scene — is now in there, and it can be assessed and compared to other types of communications.
Related: A JonBenét Ramsey TV Primer: What’s the Difference Between the (Many) Shows Devoted to the Famous Cold Case?
How different is the crime-solving technology you had to work with in re-investigating this case, versus where it was 20 years ago? Is it dramatically better?
Yes, it is. The internet has certainly helped in many ways, and various corpora, bodies of documents that can be digitally searched. I think if a linguist would have been brought into the Ramsey case within days — and even with the then relatively new thing called the internet, some searches could have been done — I think we could have convinced the police, “Let’s ask them this question, let’s ask them that question.” Perhaps the matter could have been resolved back then. Yeah, technology really, with the ways in which we can digitize and search these various types of criminally-oriented communications and compare them to other existing ones out there, makes a real big difference and really speeds up the kind of work forensic linguists do.
In the trailer for The Case Of, you say, “This little girl’s homicide to this date has not been resolved. In my opinion, I think we can change that right now.” In the end, were you able to do that with this re-investigation?
The answer is yes, with a caveat that putting handcuffs on someone, in my estimation, would be the ultimate end, and, of course, convicting that person in a court of law. Whether that happens or not is up to other people above and beyond the seven experts who worked on this show. I feel safe and very confident to say that when the seven of us sat around the table in the final day of shooting, and we put all of our information together — all the evidence we learned, some old, some brand new, some reinforced by newer technologies and science — we feel very firm and very much convinced [about] who it is we’re going to name at the end.
You are going to name who you think committed this crime?
Yes.
That’s pretty amazing, after all this time.
Well, we have seven of the best experts in the country, if not the world, working this case — for the second time in some cases. We had the archival information, the historical information, and we also had all the new evidence that was gathered over the years and even in the last few months, in preparation for this show. If it existed out there in the way of evidence, either inculpatory or exculpatory, we had it. We feel very firm in rendering an opinion within the last 15 minutes of the show.
Why is it so important to provide closure at this point? Some people may say, “It’s 20 years later, why are so many resources being devoted to this particular cold case?” Does it maybe deter other crimes from happening, if a case is solved this far past when it occurred?
If we as a species, as human beings, can’t protect the youngest and the most innocent among us, then we fail. Short of protecting them, when something bad does happen to them, death or an assault of some sort, then we owe it to that victim, and we owe it to every other child or innocent victim out there, to bring justice. Of all people, a six-year-old girl who had a lot to live for and did absolutely nothing wrong — I mean, no six-year-old could bring murder upon herself — she was, in fact, murdered. For these almost 20 years, there’s been a person out there who knows exactly what happened and maybe some other people who did some things to cover the tracks there. We’re going to put it out there and make it public. It depends on how you define whether justice is served or not, but this is going to be the closest we can get, or anyone has gotten as far as I’m concerned, in the conclusion of Monday night’s show.
The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey premieres Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m. on CBS, and concludes Sept. 19 at 9 p.m.Jim Cramer, who coined the “FANG” acronym as a descriptor for the high-flying Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google group of tech stocks that have dramatically outperformed the market, made clear yesterday that his endorsement wasn’t necessarily connected to the underlying companies:
A note on these stocks. I picked them largely because over the years they have become anointed by a group of go-go managers, meaning managers who like to be affiliated with the stocks of companies with the most momentum. I by no means have said “buy these stocks” because they represent great value. What I have been saying is that because of the scarcity of actual high-growth stocks these have become default names that managers naturally gravitate to.
It’s not an unreasonable position: the demand for growth in a low-interest-rate environment flooded with capital, plus a healthy dose of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has certainly played a role in the rise of unicorns; it makes sense that the same dynamics would play out in the stock market as well. It’s also a position that has had the good fortune of being right: in 2015 the FANG group accounted for more than the entire return of the S&P 500.
In fact, though, Cramer was more right than he apparently knows: the performance of the FANG group is entirely justified because of the underlying companies, or, to be more precise, because the underlying companies are following the exact same playbook. Sometimes the market does get it right.
The State of FANG
Each of the FANG companies is in a similar position in their respective industries: they haven’t so much disrupted incumbents as they have subsumed them:
Facebook: The late David Carr, who first broke the news about Facebook’s Instant Articles initiative back in 2014, worried that “media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns.” However, as I noted in The Facebook Reckoning, publishers already are. Facebook’s status as the Internet’s home page means that publishers have no choice but to accommodate themselves to the social network, whether that be Instant Articles or an increased focus on video.
The late David Carr, who first broke the news about Facebook’s Instant Articles initiative back in 2014, worried that “media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns.” However, as I noted in The Facebook Reckoning, publishers already are. Facebook’s status as the Internet’s home page means that publishers have no choice but to accommodate themselves to the social network, whether that be Instant Articles or an increased focus on video. Amazon: While the biggest driver of Amazon’s increased valuation has almost certainly been AWS, the e-commerce side of the business continues to grow like gangbusters as well, taking over half of every additional dollar spent by U.S. consumers online, and a quarter of all retail growth online or off. The vast majority of those sales are actually from 3rd-party merchants using Amazon as a discovery and fulfillment platform, but these merchants’ market power relative to Amazon is not unlike publishers relative to Facebook, because Amazon.com is where the buyers are. From a certain perspective this paradigm applies to AWS as well: the reason why AWS’s profitability increases along with growth is that Amazon achieves economies of scale, which is another way to say that AWS’s suppliers have no choice but to be squeezed in order to indirectly serve the customers they used to sell to directly
Netflix: The Internet — and Netflix — made fun of an NBC executive who claimed that “The reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.” Here’s the thing, though: he’s right, in part thanks to Netflix. According to this February 2015 list, 42 past and present NBC shows are streamable on Netflix, for which the latter is certainly paying a material amount. Indeed, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Netflix’s meteoric rise is the fact that the same content producers who are ultimately threatened in the battle for attention are increasingly unable to stop themselves from selling their content to Netflix: the streaming company has too many customers adding to a pile of content money that is too big to ignore.
Google: Google’s position is similar to Facebook’s: any business that wants to be discovered by potential customers has no choice but to follow the search company’s directives, whether that be cleaning up dubious SEO strategies, making their pages mobile-friendly, or soon, adopting Accelerated Mobile Pages. Every now and then someone, usually a set of publishers, tries to defy the search engine’s influence, only to come crawling back within weeks once traffic craters. The reality is that most people find most web pages through Google, which means Google calls the shots — and sells the most expensive advertising of all.
There is a clear pattern for all four companies: each controls, to varying degrees, the entry point for customers to the category in which they compete. This control of the customer entry point, by extension, gives each company power over the companies actually supplying what each company “sells”, whether that be content, goods, video, or life insurance.
How FANG Started
There are also striking similarities to how each FANG company started, particularly when it comes to the pre-existing resources each leveraged:
Facebook: Facebook didn’t launch to the world: it launched to Harvard only. In other words, Facebook started with a preexisting network and, for all intents and purposes, a preexisting infrastructure (Harvard-provided Internet access). What Zuckerberg added was an entry point that provided a much more effective and enjoyable way to tap into and connect with that network.
Facebook didn’t launch to the world: it launched to Harvard only. In other words, Facebook started with a preexisting network and, for all intents and purposes, a preexisting infrastructure (Harvard-provided Internet access). What Zuckerberg added was an entry point that provided a much more effective and enjoyable way to tap into and connect with that network. Amazon: Amazon’s roots were equally humble: the company sold only books and held no inventory; when an order was placed Amazon would order the book from pre-existing book distributors and then ship it on using pre-existing parcel shippers to the end user. What Jeff Bezos and team added was an entry point to a far more extensive selection of books than any offline bookstore could provide and lower prices to boot. Once you bought from Amazon, why would you buy anywhere else?
Netflix: Netflix’s also began with pre-existing assets: off-the-shelf DVDs and the U.S. Postal Service, providing a benefit similar to Amazon’s — a wide selection and delivery to your doorstep. It took a year to figure out the subscription model, which meant lower prices for heavy users and less stress about things like late fees for everyone, and Netflix slowly became the gateway to entertainment for more and more customers.
Google: Google didn’t create any of the pages accessible through its search engine, nor the means of accessing those pages (the browser). Rather, by basing its algorithm on the link (instead of content) it offered a dramatically more effective way to find exactly what you were looking for, making it the natural first stop for anyone looking for anything on the Internet.
None of the FANG companies created what most considered the most valuable pieces of their respective ecosystems; they simply made those pieces easier for consumers to access, so consumers increasingly discovered said pieces via the FANG home pages. And, given that Internet made distribution free, that meant the FANG companies were well on their way to having far more power and monetization potential than anyone realized.
FANG and Aggregation Theory
Last July I described the theoretical underpinning for this shift in power and monetization potential in Netflix and the Conservation of Attractive Profits. By owning the consumer entry point — the primary choke point — in each of their respective industries the FANG companies have been able to modularize and commoditize their suppliers, whether those be publishers, merchants and suppliers, content producers, or basically anyone who needs to be found on the Internet.
Over time, each of the FANG companies has leveraged their ownership of the customer relationship to expand their arena of control, whether that be by expanding their offerings like Amazon or integrating backwards into the previously valuable components of their ecosystem (Facebook owns their network completely, Netflix creates their own content, and Google increasingly monetizes by keeping people on Google properties). All of those moves, though, were predicated on owning the customer relationship.
Long-time readers know that I already summed up this phenomenon in Aggregation Theory, but in some respects I think my chosen name does this idea injustice: the word “theory” sounds abstract and disconnected from the real world, when in fact the elements of Aggregation Theory are not only very much real phenomena but also the connective tissue tying the FANG companies together.
Moreover, understanding where these companies started and how they grew fleshes out the advice I gave at the end of last week’s article Cars and the Future:
Startups looking to disrupt other decades or century old industries should take note: be patient, get your business model and core user base right, and wait for the fundamental changes wrought by the Internet and mobile to come to you.
Each of the FANG companies was technically innovative in their own way (especially Google, the exception that proves the rule), but each of them — like Uber, which that paragraph referenced — also depended to an incredible degree on products and infrastructure that already existed. The key to their now or future dominance was their proximity to customers, superior user experience, and new business models that simply weren’t possible before the Internet.
Note that none of these companies are “disruptors” in the Christensen sense. They are not offering low-margin good-enough products that appeal to customers who are over-served by incumbent companies. Rather, they are “aggregators” who start with the best customers and don’t really compete with incumbent companies, at least in the beginning. In fact, incumbents nearly universally benefit from the presence of aggregators, at least at first (publishers benefited from Facebook, merchants from Amazon, content makers from Netflix, web businesses of all types from Google). It is only when the aggregators’ consumer base becomes dominant that the inevitable squeeze on incumbents — specifically, on their profit margins — begins, and it is in the long-run irreversible.
That, Mr. Cramer, represents incredible value.
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EmailPrimer Primer is The A.V. Club’s ongoing series of beginner’s guides to pop culture’s most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you.
For those who have fallen under Ghibli’s spell, it’s difficult to choose a favorite, but for the uninitiated, the obvious starting point is 1988’s My Neighbor Totoro, which perfectly encapsulates the beguiling mystery of Miyazaki’s films. The story is simple: 9-year-old Satsuki and her little sister Mei move to the country with their father to be nearer the hospital that houses their ailing mother. They pass their time investigating the surrounding woods, which turn out to be full of all manner of magical creatures, including a round, fuzzy forest spirit Mei names Totoro, in imitation of its earth-shaking voice. (Miyazaki compares the creature to an owl or a bear; it also resembles a plump, neckless rabbit.) But as is often the case in Miyazaki’s films, the plot is only a pretext to explore a magical world, sometimes located right under the noses of inattentive grownups. |
actually I remember playing with them WAY back in the day with my friend Lauren. It's silly and girly, but hey, what are pony cartoons for? Anyhow, I made my own MLP--an EVIL pony! MWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!! Maybe not evil... but definitely not your average pony. They symbol on his flank is an old alchemical one meaning Vitriol, which is an old greek name for iron sulphate-- a poisonous acid.** I think I've decided to name him Oxys, which is ancient greek for "acid". Although I also like Thanatos, greek for "death". Maybe I'll give him a brother. I was gonna do a pirate one with skull and crossbones, too.How silly!Nancy Klein Maguire “An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order” [PublicAffairs, 2007]
“In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of Parkminster, the largest center of the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world: the Carthusians.
This is the story of their five-year journey into a society virtually unchanged in its behavior and lifestyle since its foundation in 1084. An Infinity of Little Hours is a uniquely intimate portrait of the customs and practices of a monastic order almost entirely unknown until now. It is also a drama of the men’s struggle as they avoid the 1960s—the decade of hedonism, music, fashion, and amorality—and enter an entirely different era and a spiritual world of their own making. After five years each must face a choice: to make “solemn profession” and never leave Parkminster; or to turn his back on his life’s ambition to find God in solitude. A remarkable investigative work, the book combines first-hand testimony with unique source material to describe the Carthusian life. And in the final chapter, which recounts a reunion forty years after the events described elsewhere in the book, Nancy Klein Maguire reveals which of the five succeeded in their quest, and which did not.”
“Carthusians are contemplative monastics who live in community but spend most of their days alone in their private dwellings. With a lifestyle similar to that of their 11th-century French founder, they wear hair shirts, practice self-flagellation and eat just one meal a day from mid-September to Easter (though some monasteries reluctantly have begun allowing such luxuries as electricity, hot water and flush toilets). Maguire, a Renaissance scholar married to an ex-Carthusian, examines this living museum of a bygone age by following the lives of five young men who entered St. Hugh’s Charterhouse in England between July 1960 and March 1961. As they work, pray and live in solitude, they discover not only God but also themselves.
They do not, however, learn much about the rapid changes taking place beyond their walls, and the men who leave the monastery in 1965 find themselves in a strange new world. Through painstaking research including countless phone conversations, 5,000 pages of e-mails and a reunion of the five men in France, Maguire creates a personal, sympathetic and amazingly detailed description of an ancient order and its contemporary adherents, traveling “toward inner space within the confines of their solitary cells.”” “Publishers Weekly”
See further:
Robin Bruce Lockhart “Halfway To Heaven: The Hidden Life of the Carthusians” [Cistercian Studies, 1999]
“Founded 900 years ago by St. Bruno, the Carthusians are the most completely enclosed religious order in the Catholic Church.
Living alone and in silence in almost perpetual prayer, the monks are the spiritual heirs to the early Christians, the Desert Fathers. As the only order ‘never to have been reformed because never deformed’, the Carthusians have been described as ‘the most precious jewel in the Church’s crown’. There is a Carthusian motto: ‘To make saints, not to publicise them’. Indeed because they shut themselves away from the world and shun all publicity, little is known about these monks, even among other religious orders. In this updated edition of a classic book, which includes new material, Robin Bruce Lockhart remedies the gap in our knowledge–without destroying the mystery of the order. Halfway to Heaven is still the most comprehensive book ever written about the Carthusians. It is also an awesome source of inspiration in the art of contemplation and prayer.”
For the Carthusians, see further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthusians
http://www.chartreux.org/en/
http://www.chartreux.org/en/carthusian-way.php
Like this: Like Loading... RelatedCamelidae - camels, llamas, alpacas, vicugnas The six species in this family are found in two groups. Camels are found in Asia and Africa. Llamas, alpacas, and vicugnas are found in South America. The species in this family are large and most of them have been domesticated. They are herbivores and have three-chambered stomachs. Their top lip is split into two and they can move each part separately! They have long necks and a small head and long legs with padded feet with two large toes. They live in small groups made up of females and their young and one adult male. Although there are no living species of camelidae family in North America today, the fossil record shows that the family started and evolved there. Scientists have found preserved remains in the La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles. The members of the camelidae family that were in North America probably resembled llamas. Members of this family migrated to South America and Asia over land bridges. By the end of the last glacial age, they had become extinct in North America.
The bactrian camel is found in the Gobi desert in Mongolia and China. The Gobi desert is a cold desert and the bactrian camel has many adaptations that help is survive in a cold desert habitat. It has two humps on its back. The hump is not filled with water; it is filled with fat. The camel uses this stored fat when water and food are scarce. While the bactrian camel doesn't store water in its humps, it does have special sack in its stomach that can hold over a gallon of water, and it can go a few days without drinking. In the winter, it has a thick, shaggy coat that helps keep it warm. Its bushy eyebrows; long double rows of eyelashes; and nostrils and lips that close tightly help keep sand out of its eyes, nose, and mouth. The bactrian camel stands as tall as seven feet from its shoulder to its feet and can weigh up to 2,000 pounds. The bactrian camel is an herbivore and eats grass, leaves, thorns, and bark. It prefers salty plants. It has tough lips that let it eat very hard vegetation. Most bactrian camels are now domesticated and there are only a few hundred in the wild.
The dromedarian camel is found in the deserts in Africa and the Middle East. It has one hump that stores fat, not water. It stands 6-7 feet from its shoulder to its feet. It has long legs and padded feet with two toes. It has a long, curved neck and a small head with a long snout with nostrils that can close. Its upper lip is split into two sections, and it can pull its lips in tightly to keep out sand. It is light brown in color and has a shorter coat than the bactrian camel. It eats a wide variety of plants and can eat tough and hard plant parts that other animals can't chew or digest. It prefers salty plants.
The llama, the guanaco, and the alpaca. They are all native to the Andes Mountains in South America and they are all herbivores. The only wild species is the guanaco. The llama and the alpaca are domesticated. The guanaco is found in the grasslands of the Andes Mountains. It has a small head, long legs, and a long neck. It is about 3.5 feet tall from shoulder to feet. It has a shaggy, reddish-brown coat and is white on its undersides. Like the camels, it has a split upper lip. It eats grasses and shrubs. The guanaco lives in groups of females and their young and one adult male. It can run at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour. The guanaco is a protected species in Chile and Peru. The llama and the alpaca are descended from the guanaco. The llama was domesticated from the guanaco 4,000-5,000 years ago. Llama were used as pack animals. The llama is 5.5-6 feet tall from head to toe. It has two toes on its padded feet and can easily grip the rocky surfaces in its mountain habitat. The llama has long, shaggy fur. Its fur can vary in color from reddish-brown, to white, black, brown, or a combination of colors. Llama fur is used to make clothes. The alpaca was also domesticated from the guanaco. The alpaca is slightly smaller than the llama. It is about 5 feet tall from its head to its toes. It looks like the llama. Unlike the llama, the alpaca is not used as a pack animal, but its soft, shaggy fur is used to make clothing.
The vicugna is found in the plains and grasslands of the Andes Mountains. It is the smallest member of the camelidae family. It is three feet tall from shoulder to feet. It has a slender body; a long neck; thin legs; and long, silky fur. It is a reddish-brown on its uppersides and white on its undersides. It has a mane of hair on its chest. The the vicugna is also known as the vicuña. World Status Key
Least Concern Near Threatened Vulnerable Endangered Critically Endangered
Extinct in the Wild Extinct
Status and range is taken from ICUN Redlist. If no status is listed, there is not enough data to establish status. US Status Key
Threatened in US Threatened in NH Endangered in US Endangered in NH
Breeds in NH Introduced
Status taken from US Fish and Wildlife and NH Fish and Game New Hampshire Species North/Central American Species None
None Species Around the World Africa Asia Australia/Oceania Europe North/Central America South America NH Species Dromedary - Camelus dromedarius
Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Llama - Lama glama
Guanaco - Lama guanicoe
Alpaca - Lama pacos
Vicuna - Vicugna vicugna Additional Information Key: Profile Photos Video Audio Camel
Did you know that camels were domesticated more than 3,000 years ago?
Source: San Diego Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: No Alpaca - Lama pacos
Alpacas spit when they are angry.
Source: Los Angeles Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Alpaca - Lama pacos
The native range of the alpaca is the central and southern Andes from Peru to Argentina.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
All domestic camels are descended from the Bactrian camel.
Source: Arkive Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
All domestic camels are descended from the Bactrian camel.
Source: BBC Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Wild Bactrian camels live in northwestern China and Mongolia. Wild Bactrian camels are critically endangered.
Source: National Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Bactrian camels can drink 30 gallons of water in just 13 minutes. Yikes!
Source: Los Angeles Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes
Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Bactrian camels have two humps.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Bactrian camels have pads on their knees that protect their skin when they kneel on the rocky ground.
Source: Minnesota Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Camels are called the'ship of the desert'. They have been domesticated as beasts of burden longer than any other mammal.
Source: Utah's Hogle Zoo Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes
Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Bactrian camels can reach seven feet in height and weigh up to 1,500 pounds.
Source: Lincoln Park Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Wild Bactrian camels are adapted to handle the extreme temperature changes found in the wild.
Source: Chicago Zoological Society Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
Long eyelashes and elongated nostrils protect Bactrian camels from blowing dust and sand.
Source: St. Louis Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Bactrian Camel - Camelus ferus
The Bactrian camel's two humps contain fat, not water.
Source: Enchanted Learning Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary School Teacher Section: No Dromedary - Camelus dromedarius
The dromedary's hump stores up to 80 pounds of fat that a camel can break down into water and energy when food and water is not available.
Source: National Geographic Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: No Dromedary - Camelus dromedarius
The Arabian camel eats plants. They have a leathery mouth that lets them eat thorns and dry vegetation. Yum!
Source: The Living Desert Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Dromedary- Camelus dromedarius
The dromedary eat practically anything that grows in the desert, including salty plants rejected by other grazers.
Source: Oakland Zoo Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: Yes
Dromedary- Camelus dromedarius
The dromedary has one hump.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Dromedary- Camelus dromedarius
The dromedary has padded feet that help it walk on the hot sand!
Source: Enchanted Learning Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary School Teacher Section: No Guanaco - Lama guanicoe
This South American animal is related to camels and, like camels, they were were domesticated.
Source: San Diego Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: No Guanaco - Lama guanicoe
The guanaco is the largest wild member of the camelid family in South America, and is believed to be the ancestor of the domestic llama.
Source: Arkive Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Guanaco - Lama guanicoe
The guanaco is found from southern Peru down the Andean zone of Chile and Argentina to Tierra del Fuego and Navarino Island.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Guanaco - Lama guanicoe
Guanacos are usually found in small herds or loosely structured family groups.
Source: Animal Planet Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Llama - Lama glama
The scientific name for llama is Llama glama! That's just fun to say!
Source: Brandywine Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Llama- Lama glama
The llama has a four-chambered stomach.
Source: Honolulu Zoo Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Llama- Lama glama
The llamas native range is the Andes mountains, but they are no longer not found in the wild.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Vicuña - Vicugna vicugna
The vicuña is the smallest member of the camelid family.
Source: Arkive Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Vicuña - Vicugna vicugna
The vicuña lies in the Andes of southern Peru, western Bolivia, northwestern Argentina, and northern Chile.
Source: Animal Diversity Web Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Vicuña - Vicugna vicugna
The vicuña's coat is very thick and traps warm air.
Source: Edinburgh Zoo Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary/Middle School Teacher Section: YesDayZ is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating and compelling gaming experiences I’ve had in a while.
Before I get into it, let me say this: I love zombies. Yes, yes, I know, there are zombies everywhere now, it’s boring, blah blah blah. Shut up. The problem isn’t that there are zombies everywhere, the problem is that there are bad zombies everywhere.
See, I think most people making zombie fiction don’t seem to understand what it is about zombies that’s awesome. They often feel the need to spice them up, not understanding that adding freakish mutations, or mad scientists, or big explosions, or special weapons just isn’t conducive to a great zombie experience. Nowhere is this more apparent than in video games. Most developers just aren’t willing to tackle that extremely Romeroish, Dawn of the Dead type of experience, where the focus is on survival and human interaction in the shadow of a horrible, apocalyptic event.
DayZ is. And that’s why DayZ is cool.
This is a PC game, an Arma II mod, and it’s currently in alpha — so things are by no means complete. I haven’t been playing it for long, but what I’ve seen this far is fascinating.
There are no missions, no objectives. There are no experience levels. Your character is persistent, meaning that your location, inventory and general status get saved when you log off. (The mod has been super popular lately, and that means just getting into the game can be a challenge — the central database server where they save this stuff is taking a constant beating.)
Oh, and if you get killed? Start over from scratch.
So survival is the name of the game. That’s all — just don’t get killed. Oh, and you’ll need something to eat and drink on a regular basis, or you’ll die. In the latest version, you can catch an infection and get sick, and the only way that’ll get fixed is by finding antibiotics. If you get hurt, you’ll need bandages, painkillers and blood transfusions. Weapons and ammunition are limited to what you can find, which typically isn’t too much. You scavenge for supplies, you try to avoid zombies, and you will die. It’s not a question of whether that’ll happen — in DayZ, everybody dies. It’s just a question how long you can make it before that happens.
It’s not just the zombies that’ll kill you. It’s also that whole “dog eat dog” mentality — there are always going to be people who want what you’ve got. They’ll shoot you in the head for a can of beans. So seeing other players is a mixed blessing at best. Some are very nice and helpful. Others are not. Good luck.
At the time of this writing, the average life expectancy for players is 28 minutes, which tells you a lot about how popular the mod has become — when I joined up a couple of weeks back, it was around four and a half hours, but with the constant influx of new players, that’s gone way down. They’ll learn.
The game is set in a 225 km² post-Soviet world. There are cities, forests, hills, industrial areas, docks, airfields — and all of it is infested by zombies. They mostly concentrate around built-up areas.
All of this is just a preface to the actual DayZ story I’m about to tell — how I mounted a rescue mission in this bleak, dangerous and unforgiving world, and how that turned out.
Northward Bound
It all started when a friend of mine told me that he got downed by zombies. He was still alive, but hurting pretty bad — when you lose enough blood, your character tends to drift in an out of consciousness and is generally pretty useless. He wasn’t making it out of there on his own. He needed somebody to give him a blood transfusion to get him back in the game.
I decided to go on a rescue mission, knowing very well that I might not actually be able to make it, but hell, it was an adventure, and I knew however it turned out, it’d be cool to try.
Of course, he didn’t know exactly where he was, and it’s a huge world. He didn’t have a map on his character, and neither did I. You can find one of the area on the internet, of course, but you can’t see your own location on it, and it’s not super detailed, so navigation based on that can be tricky. All he could tell me that he was somewhere near Stary Sobor (“or it could be Novy Sobor, I’m not sure”). It wasn’t a great fix, but it gave me something to go on.
I really wasn’t well-equipped for this kind of thing. I had one can of food. I was pretty well fixed for drink, though, what with two canteens of water and three cans of soda — so while I might very well die, it wouldn’t be of thirst. The biggest problem was that I had five bullets in my shitty little Makarov pistol, and that was all I had to defend myself with.
I set off.
Stary Sobor was almost straight to the north from where I was, so figuring out the correct general direction wasn’t that hard for me. I didn’t have a map (except the one on the internet), but I did have a compass, so at least maintaining a correct heading wasn’t a problem.
Which is not to say I had no problems. Here’s the very first one: when you log back into the game, you sometimes don’t come back at the very same spot where you logged off. Sometimes, you’re a little off from your previous position. Sometimes, you’re a LOT off. Apparently, this can happen if the database server is very busy — and as I said, it’s very busy, these days, all the time — it doesn’t always record your position, and new players are always spawned on the coast. Whatever the reason, I was off by a bunch of kilometers. I thought I was between the two major cities on the south coast — Chernogorsk and Elektrozavodsk — but it turned out I was actually one city over to the east.
I didn’t realize it right away. It’d been dark when I logged off earlier, so I didn’t pick up on the surroundings being different. What I thought was Chernogorsk on my west flank was actually Elektrozavodsk, but I didn’t realize that. Still, I had this constant nagging feeling that things were a little off. That was confirmed when I spotted a dam, and realized that it had to be the Topolka Dam. At least that gave me a solid landmark to base my journey on. On I went.
Following the road nearby would have been a deceptively simple way of getting where I wanted to go, but roads can be dangerous — there are buildings next to the roads, and buildings generally mean zombies, and anyway, you never know when someone’s set up on the road with a sniper rifle, eager to put a bullet in your head and go through your pockets. And besides, I had a friend down. Going as the crow flies, or as close to that as I could manage, would save me a lot of time in getting to him.
Don’t Go Into That Barn
Of course, as soon as I got a good pace going, I suddenly ran into a hopper — a zombie that stays kind of crouched and moves along in these little hops. The good news is, they’re slow. The bad news is, they’re harder to spot in tall grass and bushes. I literally bumped into the bastard, but I managed to back away and take him out with just a couple of bullets without being hurt. Dumb luck.
Looking around in growing panic, I saw there was a barn nearby, in the woods — I just hadn’t noticed it before. More dumb luck: there weren’t any other zombies coming at me. I calmed down, and decided to take a chance. I went inside.
It paid off: there was more food, more drink, and most importantly, bullets for my gun. The downside was, there were a lot of zombies on the other side of the barn — but they hadn’t spotted me. I could sneak back out with my loot.
Which was, of course, when I managed to fall off the loft. Which not only broke my leg, but also made enough noise to get one of the zombies to come after me, and I couldn’t run away, what with the leg and all. So I had to put him down. That wasn’t too much trouble, except the gunshots attracted the rest of the zombies.
This is a good moment for me to point out that the zombies, except for the hoppers, tend to be of the “fast” variety. Those fuckers were right on me before I was done blowing the first one’s brains out, and then it was on — which basically means that I was very slowly and clumsily trying to back away from them and firing in a panic, and they were eating me. I fed them lead instead, but they got me pretty good. So now I was bleeding like a stuck pig.
I bandaged myself and popped some painkillers, which in the world of DayZ will fix up broken bones… although not instantly. I took a tally: I still had a more ammo than when I started, I had more food, but on the other hand, I’d spend some bandages and painkillers. I guess I was slightly better off than before, although the way the colors of the world kept shifting on me and all I could hear was my heartbeat, I wasn’t 100% sure about that.
At any rate, I was still functional, still able to defend myself, and on my way. Frankly, in DayZ, that’s just about as good as it gets, more often than not.
I continued on my way, and after a while, the leg was all right and I was making decent time again. From that point on, I spent most of the trip avoiding the roads and buildings altogether. I didn’t run into another live human, and I was glad about that; neither did I encounter any immediate danger. Opportunities for scavenging presented themselves regularly, but I decided against it. I saw farm houses, barns, even a village that I think was Kumyrna, but I didn’t get close enough to find out; the abandoned church and the dozen or so walking corpses made sure that I stayed the fuck away from there. Anyway, I wasn’t out here for loot. I was on a mission.
That’s Not a Tent, That’s a House, You Fucking Moron
Eventually, I started seeing a lot of buildings, and I was pretty sure I was near Novy Sobor. A sign on the nearby road confirmed that. This whole trip, until this point, had taken me almost an hour, real time… and the evening was approaching fast. DayZ has a realistic 24-hour day/night cycle, which means that when it gets dark, it’ll stay dark for a good while… and if the moon isn’t up, it gets real dark. I mean, dark. I was getting anxious about that, too.
The image above should give you an idea of what I mean. (It’s not from our situation, I snapped it about a week earlier — during my very first DayZ session, actually.) The red glare you can barely make out is a flare someone threw in the distance. You can see that light for a looong way, so it’s a great way to attract unwanted attention, whether it’s from zombies or other players.
Anyway, it wasn’t quite that dark yet, but I knew it’d be that way soon. But I couldn’t move too fast, because there were a lot of zombies here. Shuffling around in back yards, hanging out on the roads, wandering aimlessly across the nearby fields, half-hidden by bushes and fences — pick a spot, see a zombie. Dozens and dozens of them. A fucking horde. I absolutely wasn’t equipped for taking them on.
So I kept my head low, resorting to crawling a few times when it seemed like they might spot me, and circled around from south until I found a good spot to cross the road that runs between Stary Sobor and Novy Sobor. (The two cities are right next to each other.) He’d told me that he was at some “army tents,” which meant pretty much nothing to me, given that I didn’t know where they were. He also said that he thought he was somewhere northeast of Stary Sobor, and that was a little more useful.
Finally, I spotted the tents. I made my way for them. They were right next to a huge box-like warehouse. The place was crawling with the undead, so I had to crawl, too — I went prone and hoped like hell I could make it in without any of them spotting me. I was doing more or less okay on ammo, but it would only go so far, and if I had to fire a gun in there, with the horde so close by, it’d bring every damn zombie in the area on my head. If that happened, I was as good as dead — or even if I made it out of there, that would put an end to the rescue right quick. Crawling means you’re hard to spot and make very little noise moving.
I made it in there. I was out of the bushes, lying on concrete and looking around, and that was when I realized that what I thought were tents were actually the gabled roofs of some nearby houses. See, it was really getting dark now. The darkness plays tricks on you — things like scale can be tricky to work out. I thought they were tents on the concrete. Turned out they were rooftops further away. I was surrounded by zombies, and I was in the wrong spot. I’d just seriously fucked up. No exaggeration: if I’d stood up, I’d probably have been dead in thirty seconds, or as good as.
With my heart in my throat, I crawled into the warehouse, which I was amazed to find empty — just this huge, cavernous space, with nothing in it — no loot, no zombies, no nothing. There were catwalks above, and when I climbed up there, I saw that there had to be easily twenty, thirty zombies nearby, and those were just the ones I could see. I knew there was more behind the buildings, eager to dash out if provoked by a gunshot or a scream.
I resolved to get the fuck out of there as soon as I could. I climbed back down, and crawled out — another hair-raising experience, but at least this time around things got a little easier the more distance I put between the building and myself…
…and that’s when I spotted the tents. Well, they were more like Quonset huts, but anyway, they were right there, no more than a hundred meters from the warehouse. Success! I was overjoyed. I crawled in there, and there weren’t even that many zombies around. I started looking for my friend.
And that was when I found that he’d crawled into the warehouse. I guess because it seemed safer, what with all the zombies walking around. At least in there he had some visual cover. We had literally crawled right past each other, just a couple of minutes ago. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry — I just didn’t want to crawl past those zombies again. What if I ran into a zombie that was crawling? That can happen. I wouldn’t spot that bastard until I came face to face with him. He’d literally be biting my face as soon as I became aware of his existence…
…but hell, I had come all this way to rescue the guy. So I had no choice, really. I’d have to go back.
And that was when I heard the scream. There was a zombie right there. I’m not sure where that fucking thing came from, but clearly, I’d taken my eyes off the ball.
So I put the fucking thing down, and with the gunshots, all hell broke loose. I’m not quite sure exactly how many of them came at me — four or five, at a guess. I ran out into the field, a group of the living dead after me, and then I turned around and started shooting. All I can say is that I’m glad I was no longer right at the warehouse, because this was a manageable number. I got hurt, but I made it. Of course, at that point I was down to three bullets.
Once I’d gathered my wits and patched myself up all over again, I went prone and crawled back to the warehouse. At that point, it was so dark that the entire warehouse interior was almost pitch black. It took me a while to even spot my friend in there — but I managed to give him a blood transfusion that picked him right up, and there was much rejoicing.
The Exciting Stary Sobor Nightlife
We knew we couldn’t stay there, so we crawled out. We made it out of Stary Sobor without incident, to what felt like a reasonably safe distance away. By then the night had really fallen, and as we have established, it was almost impossible to see anything. We took stock of our situation, and because he already had a rifle, he offered me his revolver and ammo for it. My Makarov was almost empty, so I gladly took him up on it.
Of course, this is an alpha version of the mod, and things can be… weird. Or maybe we just screwed something up. Either way, what happened is that he gave me the ammo for the revolver, which was nice. Then I got the revolver. So far, so good. Less fun was that the ammo had mystically disappeared from my inventory — so now I had a revolver, but it was completely empty. Oh, and the Makarov had disappeared, too. The exchange had essentially left me unarmed. I guess it was the equivalent of two dumbasses fumbling around in the dark and just dropping the bullets in the tall grass or something.
Well, whatever. Here’s the fun part: our timing was perfect for this kind of stupidity, because that was precisely when somebody started shooting at us. I didn’t even hit the dirt right away, because I heard the rifle, and I thought it was my friend shooting. I was looking frantically for the zombie he had to be taking shots at, only to realize that no, somebody’s shooting, and it’s not him. Somebody wanted what we had. We were about to get killed for a can of beans and an empty revolver.
But our luck held. We hit the dirt, and the guy was a rank amateur. He didn’t manage to hit either one of us even once. I saw the muzzle flash, so I had some idea where he was, but he wasn’t silhouetted against the sky, so all I saw was blackness… until he started shining a flashlight around in a vain attempt to spot us in the tall grass and bushes — a fucking dumb move, because that turned him into a big fat target.
“Should I cap him?” my friend asked. He had a rifle.
“Go for it,” I replied.
But he didn’t. I’m not sure why — I didn’t ask. Maybe he just didn’t want the bandit rep, or maybe it was just that once the initial scare was over, the shooter didn’t seem like much of a threat. Maybe he didn’t want to waste the ammo. Make no mistake: if the would-be killer had known what he was doing, he could’ve hunted us down, but he didn’t. After a while, the flashlight was turned off, and we didn’t hear anything about the guy. He’d left.
We took off towards north, in the dark. I followed my friend for much of the way, barely able to see him in the darkness, losing him among the trees every once in a while, then spotting the movement a little further ahead. We were still alive, and just about as safe as we ever would be.
Throughout the entire experience, I’d felt tense as hell; it was only at this point that I started to relax. After a while, we called it a night and logged off.
For me, this felt like a fairly epic undertaking; I was extremely skeptical that I would actually make it. This is not an easy game, or a forgiving one. There were at least three spots where death was very, very close, and a dozen others where bad judgment could easily have had disastrous results — for example, I thought about scavenging for supplies at various buildings at least a dozen times, but always decided against it because that wasn’t the task I’d set for myself. And I got lucky in that I didn’t run into anybody who wanted to take what I had and knew what they were doing.
Above is a rough approximation of the route I took. I won’t swear to its accuracy, but I think it’s pretty close. I was pleasantly surprised by how good my navigation was — I was taking a lot of shortcuts, and I had to occasionally change direction pretty drastically to avoid trouble, and I still managed to hit Novy Sobor at a pretty much perfect angle of approach.
In a lesser game, there would have been a glowing marker out there, telling me where to go. Here, |
marriage-wise. But gaining dragons is nice but not vital if Jon manages to not make enemies out of Dany or her dragons. (In which case, marriage would not be in the cards anyway.)
Not losing influence in the North, however, is vital. And every potential husband of Sansa’s would have the opportunity and motive to fuck over Jon politically. To kill whatever is left of Jon’s family. To make a second Lady Hornwood out of Sansa.
That’s why it’s so important that Sansa marries someone who isn’t a creep and who she can trust that he cares about her for a reason other than her potential inheritance. Anyone else could be deadly to her and her family. (And she’s been there, done that already.) But who can and would Sansa trust to be that person? Probably someone who she knows cared about her before she became an heiress to all that potential power.
So actually, Jon whether he is king or simply an landless, poor ex-Lord Commander, is her ideal political match.
Of course, if Jon survives and people know he’s Rhaegar’s son, it would give him a pretty good shot at the Iron Throne. And a more certain shot at gaining a “little” kingdom, so he (with his legitimate claim) would leave whoever actually sits on the Iron Throne alone.
But it’s not just the idea of R+L=J that makes people believe he will be king. Or that he “accidentally” gets called “king” repeatedly.
For example by Mormont’s raven:
“King,” croaked the raven. The bird flapped across the air to land on Mormont’s shoulder. “King,” it said again, strutting back and forth. “He likes that word,” Jon said, smiling. “An easy word to say. An easy word to like.” “King,” the bird said again. “I think he means for you to have a crown, my lord.” “The realm has three kings already, and that’s two too many for my liking.” Mormont stroked the raven under the beak with his finger, but all the while his eyes never left Jon Snow.
and also by Robert:
“Kings are a rare sight in the north.” Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!”
No, one major piece of evidence for everyone who believes R+L=J is the Kingsguard hanging around the Tower of Joy after learning of Aerys, Rhaegar and Aegon’s death. They should have gone to Viserys. But if Jon is Rhaegar’s legitimate son, they would have stayed to protect him - as he would be the legitimate king of Westeros.
So if you are like Dany or any other Targaryen loyalist (or Stannis, actually) and reject the idea of the “right of conquest/might makes right” claim to the throne (because that is a free-for-all) he already is king.
(But then if you reject the right of conquest, Robb’s disappeared will and the fact that Bran and Rickon aren’t dead, (so basically everything) Sansa is also already Queen in the North.)
But it’s not that Sansa is kind of Queen if you squint reality away. She gets repeatedly foreshadowed as queen and it is a lot less subtle considering that was the point of her engagement with Joffrey. Sansa even had plans to be the sort of queen that people would love. But even after that falls through, people don’t entirely stop thinking about her in those terms.
Like Tyrion:
Yet when Sansa praised his valor and said how good it was to see him getting strong again, both Lancel and Ser Kevan beamed. She would have made Joffrey a good queen and a better wife if he’d had the sense to love her.
And perhaps Littlefinger:
“….What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear.”
Cersei, however, despite fearing a prophesied younger, more beautiful queen never seems to suspect Sansa of being the one in her POVs. Fandom, as it does with everything else, disagrees with Cersei’s assessment.
So here’s the one million dollar question: If all that foreshadowing and claims pan out and Sansa is gonna be (someone’s) queen and Jon’s gonna be king for real… isn’t the most likely scenario that it’s gonna be the same throne?
Especially, if we are talking about the throne in the North? If Jon is Rhaegar’s son the chances of him becoming King of the North, replacing the Starks, are pretty dim. As long as one of Ned’s children is alive, Jon will not be widely seen as the better option… unless his children are also Ned Stark’s grandchildren, legitimizing him as a “Stark” through marriage. There is more than enough precedent for that. Like Mance’s favorite story of Bael the Bard. People seem to think that the story is a way to foreshadow the R+L=J reveal but what if it is foreshadowing for an actual future event?
It is also hardly the only potential foreshadowing for Jon/Sansa. People who believe in Jon/Dany put a lot of faith in Dany seeing a blue rose growing from a wall in the House of the Undying and hearing a howling wolf while being in the Dothraki Sea (her last chapter in ADWD.)
In Jon’s last chapter in ADWD, he gets stabbed. Jon calls out for Ghost in the same way Robb calls out for Grey Wind before he dies. But we never learn if Ghost howls when Jon gets stabbed the way Grey Wind howled when Robb was hit by multiple arrows. It stands to reason though because not only Dany hears a howling wolf in the distance around that time but also Sansa. In her last chapter in AFFC (which shares ADWD’s timeline (and is most definitely after Jon became Lord Commander) and therefore could fit the timeframe of Jon’s assassination extremely well) she hears something that sounds like a howling “ghost wolf, big as mountains” while coming down the Eyrie.
That far away-carrying sound of a person in need reeks of magic, of fate, and of a high-brow literary reference: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. The interesting thing here is that not only does Sansa’s location support the reference to Brontë’s romance, the sound she hears is described pretty precisely as Ghost and it’s so loud and all-encompassing that she thinks it’s the wind. The howling wolf Dany hears, on the other hand, is far off in the distance.
But Jon does more than just getting stabbed in his last ADWD chapter. His stream of consciousness about his siblings in the same chapter earlier also has him associating Sansa with Ygritte:
Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Which is spectacular (even if you disregard it as romantic foreshadowing), since the two rarely think about each other at all. Sansa’s POV shows her only consciously thinking of Jon when she prays at the Battle of Blackwater and when she is told he was made Lord Commander (again in her last AFFC chapter, which is with some degree of likelihood is around the same time Jon thinks about her):
She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still … with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.
Jon’s conscious thoughts of Sansa are nearly equally rare. He says that Winterfell is hers to Stannis and remembers that she told him to always compliment a girl’s name. But there is no conscious reflection of her being Tyrion’s wife, for example, which seems like the thing that should be at least worth a thought. Or that she is wanted for the murder of the guy who had their father executed, succeeding where Robb and half of Westeros failed. But nothing.
If one believes in dramatic irony, it is that thoughtlessness in regards to each other (and possibly Sansa’s anvilicious “that could never be” when thinking about seeing him again) that gives them the best chances of being the first (if not only) Starks to reunite.
Especially since they have never interacted on any of these nearly 6,000 pages. Which in combination with so little thought about each other, reeks of authorial intent rather than GRRM missing the opportunity to do so.
Because that way, any reunion between them will be fresh and new - the first time we see them interact and not merely passing each other by, like it briefly happens in AGOT. (Jon describes Sansa as “radiant” there, which is a weird nearly-Targaryen-like description for a sister.)
But even if Jon is that weird, he is still a step up from Sansa’s usual "suitors": a collection of old creepers, murderers and kin-slayers. Maybe one day someone like Willas Tyrell or Harry the Heir or the Great Other will turn up to be a good man to Sansa. But considering how important marriage has been to Sansa’s storyline, resolving it with a last minute white-knight-type character addition is so much of a narrative cop-out that it’s practically deus ex machina.
(I know some people like to imagine Sansa as the prize a male character gets after he stops being a creeper and becomes a “good guy” (although that’s rarely how they put it.) Personally, I find the idea of Sansa becoming a reward, even it is just a partial purpose of her character, creepy.)
Of course, other people find Jon/Sansa just as creepy because of their (pseudo-)incest. Ironically, it’s exactly this sort of repulsion which makes me believe in Jon/Sansa as a real possibility.
See, without the incest, Jon/Sansa is a tired, tired trope about a damsel in distress and a dragon-riding/slaying hero. Two puzzle pieces that fit in the way they are similar and yet complimentary opposites. Boring.
But with the pseudo-incest it becomes the most outrageous and surprising plot twist. No one in the fandom, not even the people who ship it have any money on it happening. I don’t have have any money on it and I am writing a 6,000 words essay about it.
It is ultimately one of the most surprising plot developments in terms of “love/marriage” that can possibly happen. ASOIAF lives from its plot twists. To discount this one solely because we won’t see a “positive” portrayal of pseudo-sibling incest is premature.
*
But the ultimate irony for the audience here though is not that Jon gets to be a “real” Targaryen with all that this entails or that of all “smart” political matches he can and should make, Sansa is the best one, but what I mentioned in the beginning - that the average reader wishes these two characters well and gets stabbed in the eyes for that.
We don’t want Jon and Sansa to die or suffer in the end. We want them to get what they want, we want them to be happy. But we also expect better from GRRM than a happy ending. Our perception of the world of ASOIAF is that it’s a crapsack world where happiness cannot exist without being tainted, that wishes and wants only come true at a high price.
And Jon wanted to be important, he wanted to be Stark, he wanted a loving family, he wanted Winterfell, he wanted legitimacy, he wanted to be a hero, he wanted to be Ned.
Sansa wanted to be queen, to be important, to be loved for herself, wanted revenge, wanted to survive, to have her family (or what’s left of it (which to her knowledge the last time we’ve seen her is just Jon)) back, wanted to marry a good man, a kind man, a hero, a prince.
And the readers, the majority of them, who don’t actively hate either of them, would like their wishes to come true after all what they went through.
Jon/Sansa, especially as king and queen will give everyone everything they wish or wished for. Every single thing. And half of that Jon and Sansa won’t want anymore (because they are so gonna be over fairy tales, heroism, and thrones by the end of the series) and the other half they won’t want because the idea of pairing up won’t come to them naturally either.
I know it’s super-speculative of me to say that they will marry without being in love with each other. But I don’t think that Jon/Sansa makes sense in a scenario in which they end up together because they fell in love first - which is the other way Jon/Sansa could happen.
I don’t see that happening because 1 - it’s anti-climactic as far as story-telling is concerned, 2 - it’s too happy, 3 - nothing good ever happens to people in ASOIAF who fall in love with each other without good reason, 4 - that Jon/Sansa is an ideal political match should matter and if they are majorly into each other it won’t matter very much at all.
*
So here we have two characters we wish well and in a way they both get everything they wanted in life at some point in their lives. They get what we wanted them to get.
And maybe some day that the timeline of the books certainly won’t cover, they might be able to arrange themselves with that. After all, they are similar people with similar dreams and their marriage will be the closest simulacrum to the childhood they both have began to idealize and idolize.
And Jon might just have inherited the Targaryen gene to find a sister attractive in that way and Sansa, having been portrayed as super-distant from Jon and at least sibling-like in everyone’s recollection and the audience’s perception of their relationship might get over the ex-sibling thing. One day, they might circle all the way to the beginning and become the family they’ve lost and be happy.
And maybe there will be some twisted poetry and romanticism in Jon/Sansa as Ned and Catelyn 2.0. The two had after all one of the healthiest, happiest, and because of that perhaps even most romantic relationships in ASIOAF (to be fair, the bar is low and the competition practically non-existent.) So even the romantics might get something they wished for and yet didn’t. But no one, not the characters, not the readers, would consider the far away possibility of happiness a happy ending. It might be everything they want or wanted in a way, it might make them happy one day, but if it is the rational decision that I presume it would be, it would be merely the least terrible of all choices. No one’s gonna be happy with that - not even people who would actually like the idea of Jon/Sansa.
GRRM, in his trolling glory, promised a bittersweet ending. Giving us something that we want but in a way we don’t, with happiness as something that might occur - but only after we won’t be able to read about it anymore, is most certainly bittersweet.
But then, unlike Jon/Sansa itself, that is my one certain prediction about the series - that no matter who lives and dies, who marries whom or who’s gonna be sad, and forever alone in the end - that all we get in the end is the hope for happiness, not happiness itself.
* original illlustrations by James JeanFlorida’s football season is over, but Will Muschamp is still a busy man.
He’s trying to replace two coaches and hitting the recruiting trail hard with his assistants.
I’ll have a recap Monday of who they went to see during the first week of the contact period, and Robbie Andreu posted a blog yesterday with some news and notes on offensive coordinator candidates.
I think Arizona State’s Mike Norvell is a name to keep an eye on moving forward.
As many of you saw in my recruit reaction story, Muschamp is telling prospects he wants to have more of an up-tempo, no-huddle offense.
On to the questions!
Any chance we actually lose some offensive recruits now that we are allegedly moving back to a spread offense? — ChocoGator, Joe
It should be noted that there’s some differences between a typical spread offense and the spread option offense, which is what Florida ran under Urban Meyer.
I don’t think Muschamp wants to move back to that. I see him going for more of an Air Raid attack to jump start the passing game, while also trying to maintain a power running game given the style of backs on the roster.
This will certainly help Florida’s recruiting efforts on the offensive side of the ball, and quarterback commit Will Grier should be able to thrive under this system with his dual-threat ability.
What’s your gut on Dalvin Cook? — Keith
Man, that’s a tough question.
First of all, I don’t view him as a member of the Gators’ class right now.
Cook has signed three financial aid agreements with Florida, Florida State and Miami. He took an official to FSU and will officially visit UM this weekend. Conversely, he isn’t using one for UF and hasn’t been to Gainesville since July.
He’ll make a final decision on Dec. 14 at the state championship, which doesn’t bode well for the school he’s supposedly committed to. Is he really going to gather his team and the media after the game just to say he’s sticking with Florida?
My gut tells me no. That wouldn’t be logical, but we’ll see. Sometimes recruiting doesn’t make sense. I really don’t know where he’s headed, but it doesn’t appear to be UF at this time.
That might change by next Saturday after an in-home visit from Will Muschamp, who knows. This is a very fluid recruitment, and every week offers new twists and turns.
I can give an argument and scenario for each school to land him, and any of them could happen. But one thing is for sure: Cook’s decision will not be final until he sets foot in a college classroom next month.
After his announcement, Cook will still have 22 days of three coaching staffs being able to contact him because of the papers he signed. He’ll also get bombarded by recruits committed to those schools for a week at the Under Armour practices and game.
I would say grab your popcorn, but it hasn’t even started popping in the microwave yet.
What is the deal with offensive linemen Damian Prince and Jordan Sims? Will not having an offensive line coach deter them from UF? — Devin
It will with Sims, who said Tim Davis’ firing would “definitely slow things down” between him and Florida. The coaches have tried to get him on campus several times to no avail.
Prince has UF in his Top 5 and plans to officially visit on Jan. 24, but the Gators are third on his list at best. Maryland and Florida State seem to have separated themselves from the pack, and I was told the Seminoles stopped recruiting David Sharpe because of how confident they feel about Prince.
Sharpe is the top overall target on Florida’s board as well as the most realistic shot at adding another offensive lineman for 2014. He’s making his commitment next Thursday, and my prediction for him remains UF.
How many more possible five-star recruits can we get? — Jonathan
By more, you must be referring to 247Sports or Scout. They are the only recruiting websites that have any of Florida’s commits rated five-stars (Ermon Lane for both, Cook for 247Sports).
Sharpe is rated a five-star recruit by just 247Sports, so the addition of him would give the Gators three on that site. The other five-stars on both 247Sports and Scout that UF is in the running for are defensive ends Lorenzo Carter and Gerald Willis III, linebacker Clifton Garrett and athlete Adoree’ Jackson. Safety Jamal Adams is also a five-star recruit on Scout.
ESPN rates Carter and Jackson as five-stars, while Rivals has Jackson and cornerback Jalen Tabor, who officially visits Florida this weekend.
Of the aforementioned recruits, the Gators have the best chance with Adams, Carter, Jackson and Sharpe.
I know that UF is currently graduating 17 seniors, but which juniors do you see declaring for the draft early to open up recruiting slots? — Jake
UF is actually graduating just 10 seniors excluding walk-ons, and any returning walk-ons who were on scholarship this season won’t count against the recruiting numbers for 2014. They get awarded on a yearly basis.
With that in mind and Loucheiz Purifoy already gone, the Gators currently have 69 scholarship players returning next season. That leaves room for 16 signees, which is the number of commits they have right now.
I expect them to lose Ronald Powell and/or Marcus Roberson, have about 3-4 transfers and finish with a class size of 20-22 signees.
That’s all for this week! Be sure to leave your questions for the next mailbag in the comment section below.3431 views this month; 3431 overall
Breathe, Neo. I’ve been running a marathon lately to cover all the major players that may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century. Even though I have not exhausted all possibilities, or covered each topic exhaustively, I am exhausted. So in this post, I will provide a recap of all the schemes discussed thus far, in matrix form. Then Do the Math will shift its focus to more of the “what next” part of the message.
The primary “mission” of late has been to sort possible future energy resources into boxes labeled “abundant,” “potent” (able to support something like a quarter of our present demand if fully developed), and “niche,” which is a polite way to say puny. In the process, I have clarified in my mind that a significant contributor to my concerns about future energy scarcity is not the simple quantitative scorecard. After all, if it were that easy, we’d be rocking along with a collective consensus about our path forward. Some comments have asked: “If we forget about trying to meet our total demand with one source, could we meet our demand if we add them all up?” Absolutely. In fact, the abundant sources technically need no other complement. So on the abundance score alone, we’re done at solar, for instance. But it’s not that simple, unfortunately. While the quantitative abundance of a resource is key, many other practical concerns enter the fray when trying to anticipate long-term prospects and challenges—usually making up the bulk of the words in prior posts.
For example, it does not much matter that Titan has enormous pools of methane unprotected by any army (that we know of!). The gigantic scale of this resource makes our Earthly fossil fuel allocation a mere speck. But so what? Practical considerations mean we will never grab this energy store. Likewise, some of our terrestrial sources of energy are super-abundant, but just a pain in the butt to access or put to practical use.
In this post, we will summarize the ins and outs of the various prospects. Interpretation will come later. For now, let’s just wrap it all up together.
The Matrix
Would you like to know what the matrix is? Okay. I’ll tell you—in a bit. For each of the major energy hopefuls I have discussed on Do the Math, I characterize their various attributes in a three-tier classification: adequate (green); marginal (yellow); or insufficient (red)—possibly a showstopper. The scheme is qualitative, and I am sure some will disagree with my assignments. Before I go any further, let me say that I will not entertain comments griping about why I made a certain square the color I did. I won’t have time to respond at that level, given that there are 200 colored boxes in the matrix. But the beauty is, you can change the matrix any way you see fit and make your own custom version. Go buy some crayons today!. The matrix I’ve created is not without its biases and subjectivity. Whose would be?
Okay, I’ll keep the suspense going a bit by describing the fields.
Abundance: This is essentially the “abundant,” “potent,” and “niche” classification scheme reflected in the preceding posts. Green means that the resource can in principle produce far more power than we currently use and keep it up for many centuries. Red means a bit-player at best. Yellow is the stuff that can be useful, but is incapable of carrying the full load—not that we require everything to do this. We can tolerate a mix of of items, but will not get far by mixing reds together.
Difficulty: This field tries to capture the degree to which a resource brings with it large technical challenges. How many PhDs does it take to run the plant? How painful is it to maintain or keep churning? This one might translate into economic terms: difficult is another term for expensive.
Intermittency: Green if rock-steady or there whenever we need it. If the availability is beyond our control, then it gets a yellow at least. The possibility of going without for a few days earns a red.
Demonstrated: I don’t mean on paper, and I don’t mean a prototype that exhibits some of the technology. To be green, this has to be commercially available today, and providing useful energy.
Electricity: Can the technology produce electricity? Most of the time, the answer is yes. Sometimes it would make no sense to try. Other times, it is seriously impractical.
Heat: Can the resource produce direct heat? Yellow if only through electric means.
Transport: Does the technology relieve the liquid fuels crunch? Anything that makes electricity can power an electric car, earning a yellow score. Liquid fuels are green. Some may get tired of the broken record in the descriptions that follow that a particular resource does not help transportation, wanting to shout “electric cars, fool” every time I say it. But our large-scale migration to electric cars is not in the bag. They may remain too expensive to be widely adopted. Meanwhile, this does not help air travel or heavy transport.
Acceptance: Is public opinion (I can really only judge U.S. attitudes) favorable to this method? Will there likely be resistance—whether justified or not?
Backyard?: Is this something that can be done domestically, in one’s backyard or small property, managed by the individual?
Efficiency: Over 50% gets the green. Below about 10% gets red. It’s not the most important of criteria, as the abundance score incorporates efficiency expectations. But we will always view low efficiency negatively.
Okay, enough holding out—here’s the matrix (click to expand; see here for colorblind-friendly version).
Yellow boxes tend to deserve explanation. It is usually clear why something would swing red or green, but yellow often has several things tugging at it. If green boxes are given a +1 score, yellow boxes zero, and red boxes −1, adding the boxes with equal weight yields the scores on the right, by which measure the table is sorted: best to worst. The only place I cheated was to give D-D fusion a −2 for difficulty. It’s the hardest thing on the list, given our decades of massive effort invested to date on D-T fusion, while D-D is too hard to even attempt.
Now, equal weighting on all ten criteria is boneheaded. But the assessment is imprecise enough not to warrant a more elaborate weighting scheme. I do not stand firm behind the order that results, and am half-tempted to monkey with weighting schemes until a more preferred order emerges. But I would be cooking the books to further match my preferences. Feel free to weight any way you see fit, and change anything else while you’re at it. Just remember. No griping.
Fossil Fuels, Compared
Note that conventional fossil fuels, matrixed-out above, score green in almost every category, except—unfortunately—abundance (see here for R/G colorblind version). The efficiency is high for direct heating (most often natural gas), and middling for electricity or transport. Coal gets no points for transportation, and natural gas is of limited use here (although the bus I’m riding as I type this is powered by natural gas, so I can’t entirely nix its transportation capability). All things considered, all of the fossil fuels get a score of 7 or 8. Note the striking gap we face between fossil fuels and their alternatives, topping out at a score of 5. One might ding the fossil fuels a point or two for their greenhouse gas contributions, closing the gap a bit. None of the options in the alternatives matrix are intrinsic carbon emitters.
Quick Lessons
Looking at some of the main trends, very few options are both abundant and easy. Solar PV and solar thermal qualify. A similar exclusion principle often holds for abundant and demonstrated/available. There is a reason why folks (myself included) like solar.
Intermittency mainly plagues solar and wind resources, with mild inconvenience appearing for many of the natural sources.
Electricity is easy to produce. We have loads of ways to do it, and are likely to pick the easiest/cheapest. We won’t necessarily get far down the list if we’re covered by things at the top end (assuming my rankings have any validity and some economic correlation).
Transport is hard. Concerns over peak oil played a huge role in making me sit up to pay attention to our energy challenges. Electric cars are the most obvious way out, but don’t do much for heavy shipping by land or sea, and leave airplanes on the ground.
Few things face serious barriers to acceptance: especially when energy scarcity is at stake.
A few options are available for the homestead. A passive solar home with PV panels, wind, and some method to produce liquid fuels on site would be a dream come true. Here’s hoping for artificial photosynthesis!
The missing category here is cost, although difficulty may be an imperfect proxy. As a result, some of the high-scoring options may more be costly than we’d like. Actually, some of the lowest-scoring options are the costliest! If you’re expecting that we’ll replace fossil fuels and do it on the cheap, you might as well learn to bawl on the floor kicking and pounding your fists, tears streaming. This is our predicament. We have to buck up and deal with it, somehow.
Individual Discussion
For each topic, the link at the beginning points to a more complete discussion on Do the Math. Here, I just briefly characterize each resource in relation to the matrix criteria.
Solar PV: Covering only 0.5% of land area with 15% efficient PV panels provides the annual energy needs of our society, qualifying solar PV as abundant. It’s not terribly difficult to produce; silicon is the most abundant element in Earth’s crust, and PV panels are being produced globally at 25 GW peak capacity per year (translating to 5 GW of average power added per year). Intermittency is the Achilles Heel of solar PV, requiring storage solutions if adopted at large scale. Solar PV produces electricity directly, which could be converted to heat or transport. Most people do not object to solar PV on rooftops or over parking areas, or even in open spaces (especially desert). I’ve got some on my garage roof as we speak (with storage), so they’re well-suited to individual operation/maintenance. Clocking in at an efficiency of 15%, don’t expect PV to vastly exceed this ballpark.
Solar Thermal: Achieving comparable efficiency to PV, but using more land area, generating electricity from concentrated solar thermal energy automatically fits in the abundant category—though somewhat more regionally constrained. It’s relatively low-tech: shiny curved mirrors tracking on (often) one axis, heating oil or other fluid to run a plain-old heat engine. Intermittency can be mitigated by storing thermal energy, perhaps even for a few days. Because a standard heat-engine follows, fossil fuels can supplement in lean times using the same back-end. A number of plants are already in operation, producing cost-competitive electricity—and heat if anyone cares. As with so many of the alternatives, transportation is not directly aided. Public acceptance is no worse than for PV, etc. But don’t expect your own personal solar thermal electricity plant.
Solar Heating: On a smaller scale, heat collected directly from the sun can provide domestic hot water and home heating. In the latter case, it can be as simple as a south-facing window. Capturing and using solar heat effectively is not particularly difficult, coming down to plumbing, insulation, and ventilation control. Technically, it might be abundant, but since it is usually restricted to building footprints (roof, windows), I take it down a notch. There will be lean days, but my friends in Maine do not complain about their solar heating comfort (with occasional propane backup). Solar heating is useless for electricity or transport, but has no difficulty being accepted and almost by definition is a backyard-ready technology.
Hydroelectric: We have seen that super-efficient hydroelectric is doomed to remain a small player (in the rubric that we maintain today’s energy consumption levels). It’s the low-hanging fruit of the renewable world, and has therefore already seen large-scale development. It has seasonal intermittency (typical capacity factor for a hydro plant is 40%), does not directly provide heat or transport, and can only rarely be implemented personally, at home. Acceptance is fairly high, although silting and associated dangers—together with habitat destruction—do cause some opposition to expanded hydroelectricity.
Biofuels from Algae: I was somewhat surprised to see this entry rank as highly as it did in my admittedly unsophisticated scoring scheme. Because it captures solar energy—even at < 5% efficiency—the potential scale is automatically enormous. But it’s not easy, at present. Dealing with slime will bring challenges of keeping the plumbing clean, possible infection in a genetic arms race with evolving viruses, contamination by other species, etc. At present, we don’t have that magic algal sample that secretes the fuels we want. Heady talk of genetic engineering pledges to solve these problems, but we’re simply not there yet and cannot say for sure that we will get there. Otherwise, the ability to provide transportation fuel is the big draw. Heat may also be efficiently produced, though electricity would represent a misallocation of liquid fuel. Can it be done in the backyard? I could imagine a slime pond in the yard, but care and feeding and refining the product may be prohibitively difficult.
Geothermal Electricity: This option makes sense primarily at geological hotspots, which are rare. It will not scale to be a significant part of our entire energy mix. Aside from this, it is relatively easy, steady, and well-demonstrated in many locations. It can provide electricity, and obviously direct heat—although far from heat demand, generally. It provides no direct help on transportation. Objections are slim to non-existent. I don’t think houses tend to be built on the hotspots, so don’t look for it in a backyard near you.
Wind: Wind is a sensible option that I imagined would float higher in the list than it did. It’s neither abundant nor scarce, being one of those options that can provide a considerable fraction of our present needs under large-scale development. It’s pretty straightforward, reasonably efficient, and demonstrated the world over in large farms. The biggest downside is its intermittency. It will not be unusual to have a few days in a row with little or no regional input. Like so many other things, electricity is naturally produced, while heat and transport is only available via electricity. I sense that objections to wind are more serious than for many other alternatives. Windmills are noisy and tend to be located in prominent places (ridge-tops) where they are extremely visible and scenery-altering. You can’t hide wind in a bowl, or you end up hiding from the wind at the same time. Another built-in conflict emerges on wind-rich coastlines, where many like to take in unspoiled scenery. Small-scale wind is viable in your own backyard.
Artificial Photosynthesis: A very appealing future prospect for me is artificial photosynthesis, combining the abundance of direct solar with the self-storing flexibility of liquid fuel. Intermittency is thus eliminated to the extent that annual production meets demand: storage of a liquid fuel for many months is possible. The dream result of a panel sitting on your roof that drips liquid fuel could provide both heating and transportation fuel. In a pinch, one could also produce electricity this way, but what a waste of precious liquid fuel, when we have so many other ways to make electricity! The catch is that it doesn’t exist yet, that it may never exist, and that feeding it the right ingredients and processing/refining the fuel may eliminate the backyard angle. Still, we all have to have something to gush over. For some, it’s thorium and for others it’s fusion, etc. This one excites me by its potential to satisfy so many purposes.
Tidal Power: Restricted to select coastal locations, tidal will never be a large contributor on the global scale. The resource is intermittent on daily and monthly scales, but in a wholly predictable manner. Extracting tidal energy is not terribly hard—sharing technology with similarly efficient hydroelectric installations—and has been demonstrated in a number of locations around the world. It’s another electricity technique, with no direct offering of heat or transportation. No unusual level of societal objection exists, to my knowledge, but it’s not something you will erect in your backyard and expect to get much out of it.
Conventional Fission: Using conventional uranium reactors and conventional mining practices, nuclear fission does not have the legs for a marathon. On the other hand, it is certainly well-demonstrated, and has no problems with intermittency—unless we count the fact that it has trouble being intermittent in the face of variable load. Compared to other options, nuclear runs a tad on the high-tech side. By this I mean that design, construction, operation, and emergency mitigation require more brains and sophistication than the average energy producer. Nuclear fission directly produces heat (seldom utilized), and is primarily used to generate electricity via the standard steam-driven heat engine, but offers no direct help on transportation. Acceptance is mixed. Germany plans to phase out its nuclear program even though they are serious about carbon reduction. No new plants have been built in the U.S. for over thirty years in part due to public discomfort. Some of this is irrational fear over mutant three-eyed fish and the like, but some is genuine political difficulty relating to the pesky waste problem that no country has yet solved to satisfaction. Nuclear power is not possible on a personal scale.
Uranium Breeder: Extending nuclear fission to be able to use the 140-times more abundant 238U (rather than 0.7% 235U) gives uranium fission the legs to |
and that’s the worst thing because you don’t even think about it. You can’t see the forest for the trees, some of you are so close to it. But I can tell you, I watched this during the last year, and I watched fear in the hearts of brave, incredible people. And we are going to get rid of that, because you should have the right to speak.
Here, Trump incorrectly says that Johnson passed the amendment while president. The amendment was passed by Congress in 1954, and Johnson, of course, didn’t serve as president until 1963. In 1954, Johnson was a senator, and he proposed this change to the tax code in part to keep certain tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates during the McCarthy era.
This issue resurfaced in Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, in which he talked about “an amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson many years ago, [that] threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views." (We fact-checked his speech here.)
Then in a five-minute video that played in a number of evangelical churches on November 6, Mike Pence made a pitch to congregants for their vote, citing two main reasons to vote for his ticket: the promise to appoint justices to the Supreme Court “who will uphold our Constitution and the rights of the unborn” — in other words, someone with conservative views on religious freedom and abortion — and a promise to repeal the Johnson Amendment.
Here is how Pence describes it:
The Johnson Amendment has literally been on the books since the 1950s and it essentially threatens tax-exempt organizations and churches with losing their tax status if they speak out against important issues facing the nation from the pulpit.
Pence goes on to enumerate three moments in American history in which pulpits stood against tyranny: against King George III’s oppressive rule prior to the American Revolution, against the practice of slavery, and in favor of civil rights. It’s worth noting that there are plenty of examples of pulpits standing for said tyrannies as well, a matter Pence does not address. It’s also worth pointing out that the Johnson Amendment was passed during the early days of the civil rights movement, which complicates Pence’s third example as a reason to get rid of it.
Pence’s video has been removed from Vimeo but can be viewed on YouTube, and as of this writing it has been watched nearly 220,000 times.
The Johnson Amendment doesn’t only target churches
About a million and a half organizations in the US are registered as tax-exempt, many of which are 501(c)(3). Per the Johnson Amendment, an organization in that category “may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.”
As of May 2016, only 312,373 of those organizations are congregations (this includes congregations of all religions). As the Internal Revenue Service interprets the Johnson Amendment, tax-exempt organizations — those that fall under the 501(c)(3) designation — include those which are “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, to foster national or international sports competition, or prevention of cruelty to children or animals organizations.” Both the Donald J. Trump Foundation and the Clinton Foundation are 501(c)(3) organizations too.
But the Johnson Amendment has become a particular target of the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a legal fund that litigates on behalf of conservative Christian causes. A blog post on the organization’s website mirrors Pence’s statement:
Historically, churches frequently spoke for and against candidates for government office. Such sermons date from the founding of the United States, including those against Thomas Jefferson for being a deist and sermons opposing William Howard Taft as a Unitarian. Churches have also been at the forefront of most of the significant societal and governmental changes in our history, including ending segregation and child labor, and advancing civil rights.
The ADF argues that the amendment unconstitutionally restricts the First Amendment rights of pastors and churches (an argument that is disputed by others) as well as the free exercise clause in the Constitution, which states that Congress cannot make laws that keep people from freely exercising their religion.
The ADF’s blog post concludes on a surprising note:
After the 1954 Johnson Amendment, churches faced a choice: speak freely on all issues addressed by Scripture and potentially risk their tax exemption, or remain silent and protect their tax-exempt status. Unfortunately, many churches have silenced their speech, even from the pulpit. Ironically, after 60-plus years of the IRS strictly interpreting the amendment, there is no reported situation where a church lost its tax-exempt status or was punished for sermons delivered from the pulpit. Nonetheless, the law remains unchanged and many churches remain silent due to the IRS’s interpretation of the amendment.
That is, the Johnson Amendment has never actually been used to strip a congregation of its 501(c)(3) status.
Action has been considered at times, though. For instance, in 2014, Houston Mayor Annise Parker subpoenaed five sermons from churches in her city. After widespread outcry, Parker dropped the subpoena. Interestingly, this story is referenced in the successful 2016 Christian film God’s Not Dead 2 and teased as the probable plot for the inevitable God’s Not Dead 3.
The case in Houston, which rattled congregations across the country, makes it clear why clergy would be understandably reticent to submit their sermons for approval every week. And it’s easy to reason that this narrative is in the background of Trump’s interest in the law too.
But the argument to repeal the amendment rests on the idea that churches and other congregations are restricting their speech for fear of something that has never actually happened.
And there are a few other misleading matters in arguments such as Pence’s, which rest on statements about the Revolution, slavery, and civil rights (even leaving aside Trump and the GOP’s handling of matters around race). As it’s practiced, the Johnson Amendment would never have kept clergy from preaching that slavery — the practice of one human owning another human — is a violation of God’s law. It would just keep them from endorsing Abraham Lincoln. And, again, using the civil rights as an example is strange, since the amendment was in place during the period when many influential church sermons on civil rights were delivered.
The letter of the law also contradicts Trump’s statement at the National Prayer Breakfast that dismantling the amendment would make people more free to “worship according to their own beliefs.”
The fact that some churches did show the Pence ad is an indicator of the state of the Johnson Amendment. Under the IRS’s interpretation, 501(c)(3) organizations are allowed to provide a forum for candidates, which “is not, in and of itself, prohibited political activity,” so this may technically fall under that provision. (But without an accompanying voice from the Clinton campaign, this seems a bit blurry — especially with Pence’s hard sell for a Trump vote.)
The proposed Johnson Amendment repeal has implications that stretch far beyond churches
There are two interesting implications of this ongoing promise to abolish the amendment.
The first is that it articulates what the Trump’s administration thinks is important to the evangelical voter. The campaign correctly identified that issues around abortion and religious liberty, and their status on the Supreme Court, were a driving force behind many voters’ choice. Indeed, the nomination of Neil Gorsuch two days ago was a huge win for conservative voters who gambled on Trump.
But while nearly 80 percent of Americans say they do not favor political endorsements in church, there remains a persistent belief among many Trump supporters, including his chief strategist Steve Bannon, that the influence of Christians on American culture is in decline, and that this must be counteracted. It seems Trump’s administration is attempting to propose concrete action on this, in at least one way, by suggesting that the Johnson Amendment is to blame for churches’ declining influence. At the meeting of evangelical leaders in June, Trump spoke further:
And I say to you folks, because you have such power, such influence. Unfortunately the government has weeded it away from you pretty strongly. But you’re going to get it back. Remember this: If you ever add up, the men and women here are the most important, powerful lobbyists. You’re more powerful. Because you have men and women, you probably have something like 75, 80 percent of the country believing. But you don’t use your power. You don’t use your power… You used to go to church, and you know, when I’d go there. … It’s much different today. I know, as an example, the young people aren’t going as much. But we have to bring that back. We have to bring those values back. We have to bring that spirit back. And in a way, it’s been taken away from you by the federal government and by these horrendous things that have been allowed in the past. But just remember this: You are the most powerful group in this country. But you have to realize that. You have to band together. You have to band together. If you don’t band together, you’re really not powerful. You have a powerful church. I see it. I see some of these incredible pastors and ministers and people that speak so brilliantly. And I see it. But they’re great within their audience, but then outside they don’t have it. You have to band together as a group. And if you do that, you will bring it back like nothing has ever been brought back.
Power, as the Trump campaign sees it, is the greatest good — and it’s what has been stolen from churches. The way to please churches is to bring power back.
The second implication is more difficult to parse: Because most 501(c)(3) organizations are not religious congregations, the abolishment of the Johnson Amendment would also lift restrictions on other nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) designations that wish to endorse a candidate. Universities and colleges, sports organizations, entities that promote scientific or literary causes, and (importantly) charitable foundations would be free to conduct activities that support a political campaign and endorse candidates.
And because the Johnson Amendment prohibits “contributions to political campaign funds” too, there’s a chance that the repeal of the Johnson Amendment could create a way for these nonprofits to funnel funds and support into political campaigns and campaign activities.
The Johnson Amendment repeal is likely to remain a target of the Trump administration. The problem is there are broader consequences to repealing the amendment than those Trump has discussed, which could have serious impacts on political campaigns going forward — and the Trump administration has demonstrated itself to be unconcerned with legislating haphazardly.CITY HALL -- Staten Island Ferry riders will be able to board on the lower level at both terminals this September for the first time in 13 years.
Lower-level boarding will start at Whitehall Terminal in September. Passengers entering St. George Terminal from the kiss-and-ride will also be able to board on the lower level during the morning rush hour between 7 and 9 a.m. starting that month.
Lower-level boarding is part of a larger plan Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday to reduce congestion at both terminals, particularly before ferry ridership surges amid the North Shore's redevelopment.
"It's not only going to be about people's comfort, it's going to help the boats stay on schedule, to make sure people can move along much more easily," de Blasio said from the lower level of St. George.
Right now only passengers who are disabled or have bicycles can board from the lower levels at both terminals. Ferry riders on both sides typically converge and crowd in front of a single door on the upper level that they're allowed to use for boarding.
'WALKING DEAD' BOARDING SHUFFLE
"I don't think you really have to move, you can kind of just get pushed along with the traffic," Capt. James DeSimone, the ferry's chief operations officer, said.
"It's the shuffle of like the walking dead when you all get sort of pushed into one opening," Borough President James Oddo said. "In the beginning of a long work day, at the end of a long work week, to endure sort of being treated almost like cattle all trying to go in the same direction is just an added burden, and this is a small victory but an important one for Staten Island Ferry riders."
Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) stressed the ferry isn't an "amenity."
"It is a necessity for the commuters of Staten Island," she said.
De Blasio rode the ferry from Whitehall Terminal to the announcement. He posed for selfies and spoke with Staten Islanders and other riders.
The mayor crowded with other riders in front of door three before boarding the 10:30 a.m. John J. Marchi boat from the upper level of Whitehall.
"More and more there's a crowding issue when folks get on the ferry," he said. "Some of you were with me this morning, you saw people waiting to get on, huge crowd develops."
De Blasio refused to take questions about lower-level boarding after making the announcement.
ST. GEORGE CROWDING
The Department of Transportation, or DOT, will collect data to measure the effectiveness of lower-level boarding on the Staten Island side, according to the mayor's office.
While a press release described this as a "lower-level boarding pilot" at St. George, city officials said there was no distinction between the two terminals except that the Staten Island side will be limited to the morning rush hour and there may be additional phases of implementation later on.
DOT is also conducting a study on improving passenger circulation in the main waiting room at St. George Terminal.
In May, the city will start opening multiple boarding doors on a trial basis to decrease the bottlenecks that routinely develop.
"We recognize that you have hundreds and hundreds of people trying to squeeze through just a few doors, particularly a challenge during rush hours," de Blasio said.
$2 MILLION EFFORT
DOT will also undertake a "longer-term capital study" on options to build out lower-level boarding permanently. The 18-month study is expected to begin this summer and will integrate resiliency work that's already planned for the terminals.
All these efforts are expected to cost $2 million the fiscal year beginning in July, according to the mayor's office.
Opening up lower-level boarding at Whitehall Terminal alone was expected to cost taxpayers $607,000 a year. Doing so was also said to save around $9.3 million DOT would would otherwise have to spend increasing ferry service.
UPDATED SAFETY PLAN
Vehicles haven't been allowed on the Staten Island Ferry since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
DOT ended lower-level boarding for passengers in July 2004 as part of a new safety plan approved by the U.S. Coast Guard following the passage of the federal Maritime Transportation Security Act in 2002.
Additional federal regulations required that all embarking passengers must be separate from those disembarking. The DOT said lower levels in both Staten Island Ferry terminals were also designated as "restricted areas" and weren't accessible to the public without a security regime in place.
The city will increase security on the lower levels so that embarking and disembarking passengers will remain separate as is required under federal law. This will include additional closed-circuit security cameras.
WHITEHALL EASIER TO IMPLEMENT
Lower level boarding will be cheaper and easier to implement at Whitehall because that terminal has a smaller footprint than St. George. Whitehall's footprint is 12,000 square feet, while St. George's is 60,000 square feet.
"This is a little bit more challenging," DeSimone said from the lower level of St. George.
The city said there are "several challenges" that DOT must address during implementation. While DeSimone said this roll-out should be "pretty seamless," curb modifications and fencing will be installed at some point.
The plan for Whitehall Terminal was among a series of measures proposed by the city to reduce congestion and accommodate a slew of upcoming redevelopment projects alongside old infrastructure on the North Shore. In the last few months, city officials decided to also try lower-level boarding at St. George to address congestion.
NEEDS FEDERAL OK
The U.S. Coast Guard must approve any changes to lower-level boarding.
DeSimone said DOT will submit a plan to the Coast Guard for review within the next month or so. The Coast Guard was already working with the city on the proposal in November.
"We've already discussed it preliminarily with them and as long as we put in the additional security and other aspects to the security plan we don't expect any problems," DeSimone said.
De Blasio also increased Staten Island Ferry service under a 2013 Council law from Oddo. The mayor said these measures were ultimately intended to improve Staten Island commutes, though not necessarily make them shorter.
"They've always had one of the longest commutes in the city, it's our job to make it better," de Blasio said. "Even if it's still a long commute, to make it a better commute and a more reliable commute, and easier on everyone involved."
Want to discuss this report? Visit the comment section to join in the conversation.Aug. 20 (UPI) — The USS John McCain, a destroyer warship equipped with guided missiles, collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore early Monday morning, the U.S. Navy confirmed.
“Search and rescue efforts are underway in coordination with local authorities,” the Navy said in a statement. “In addition to tug boats out of Singapore, the Republic of Singapore Navy ship RSS Gallant (97), RSN helicopters and Police Coast Guard vessel Basking Shark (55) are currently in the area to render assistance.”
The extent of damage and personal injuries is still being investigated, the Navy added. But 10 sailors have been reported missing and at least five are injured.
The ship the USS John McCain collided with is a 30,000-ton, 600-foot-long oil tanker flying a Liberian flag, reported the Guardian.
The USS John McCain is 505 feet long and displaces about 9,000 tons, according to CNN.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose the namesake of the warship, acknowledged the incident on Twitter.
“Cindy & I are keeping America’s sailors aboard the USS John S McCain in our prayers tonight – appreciate the work of search & rescue crews,” he wrote.
The collision marks the second time in two months a U.S. warship has collided with another ship in the Pacific Ocean near the Asian continent. In June, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship near Japan, killing seven sailors on the ship’s crew.He should do a podcast or something. I'd listen. Although I'd listen to anything he does. Reply
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He can do no wrong (except 'Bound 2'). This man is my Santa Claus. Reply
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smdh, even Bound 2 is great
hail yeezus Reply
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surprised it took this long Reply
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he should just open his own church and deliver a sermon every sunday Reply
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i'd attend Reply
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lmao Reply
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damn, you've got me wanting to go to church for the first time in my life Reply
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lmao I'd go, shit. Reply
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lol yesss Reply
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18 minutes of if will be just HAAAA! Reply
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I want a spoken word album of him critiquing George W. Bush's art Reply
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I'd buy it. Reply
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this is amazing Reply
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I don't know if I'm hoping the museum bit is real or not. It's so ridiculous. Reply
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i'm seeing kanye west this summer at a festival - let's hope he puts this off for a while Reply
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everything from his views on the environment to life with fiancee Kim Kardashian and their 10-month-old daughter North.
at this point it's like he wants his ventures to fail...
i'm guessing this isn't confirmed tho? Reply
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lol i don't even care, i love it Reply
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#ALLDISRESPECTTOJIMMYKIMMEL He should read his tweets. Reply
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Does he have some sort of personality disorder or something?
Why is he so ridic Reply
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maybe histrionic or something, idk Reply
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I honestly believe he does. Reply
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why do people say this?
I believe he may have dealt with some stuff from his mothers death, especially but he is creative+a man+new money+has an ego+only has approximate knowledge of many things. That's more than enough to cause his ridiculousness Reply
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i think he is bipolar, honestly. Reply
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No fucking thanks; suffering through just two verses of his is enough. Reply
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or even donating them to a museum
LMAO
I'm hft
LMAOI'm hft Reply
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LinkSubmitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Earlier this year, I published a post titled, Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People. Here are a few excerpts:
It all began in late September of 1950, when over a few days, a Navy vessel used giant hoses to spray a fog of two kinds of bacteria, Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii — both believed at the time to be harmless — out into the fog, where they disappeared and spread over the city. The unsuspecting residents of San Francisco certainly could not consent to the military’s germ warfare test, and there’s good evidence that it could have caused the death of at least one resident of the city, Edward Nevin, and hospitalized 10 others. Over the next 20 years, the military would conduct 239 “germ warfare” tests over populated areas, according to news reports from the 1970s. These tests included the large-scale releases of bacteria in the New York City subway system, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and in National Airport just outside Washington, D.C.
So how seriously was the U.S. military planning for offensive biological and chemical warfare? Very seriously, as this recently declassified 1952 video demonstrates (h/t to Motherboard for highlighting this):
Surely I’m not the only one who noticed that 90% of the video is dedicated to “offensive” use of biological and chemical agents, with only a couple of minutes at the end briefly describing “defensive” capabilities.
Imagine the labels your neighbors would have called you in the 50’s if you had warned them that this was happening.
For related articles, see:
Conspiracy Fact – How the Government Conducted 239 Secret Bioweapon Experiments on the American People
Documents Show the U.S. Military Sprayed Radioactive Zinc Cadmium Sulfide on Poor People in St. Louis
10 Chemical Weapons Attacks the U.S. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know AboutAlienware, a division of Dell, just announced three new gamer laptops that use the Intel code-named Ivy Bridge processors.
The M14x (pictured above), M17x, and M18x laptops also use stand-alone graphics chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.
The M14x has an 18-inch display, up to 16 gigabytes of main memory, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics chip. It also features GDDR5 graphics memory.
The M17x is capable of displaying stereoscopic 3D. It has a 17.3-inch 120 hertz WideFHD WLED 3D display and THX 3D surround sound. It has up to 32 gigabytes of main meory and options for AMD or Nvidia graphics chips.
And the M18x has an 18-inch display. The system has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M graphics chip with up to 4 gigabytes of GDDR5 graphics memory. A dual AMD graphics solution will be coming out soon.
All three laptops feature Intel Ivy Bridge chips — which combine a microprocessor and graphics on the same chip — and HDMI 1.4, USB 3.0 for fast data transfer, Bluetooth 4.0, optional 3D HD gaming capability, optional Blu-ray disc drive and exceptional surround-sound quality from Klipsch speakers. The machines also feature AlienAdrenaline, which lets players create shortcuts for certain games or apps.
“Our customers want the most immersive gaming experience possible, and we’ve taken the all-powerful M14x, M17x, and M18x laptops and made them even better, delivering the latest technologies for almost every need,” said Frank Azor, General Manager, Alienware. “We’ve always offered the latest technology for the best gaming experience possible, and our enhanced lineup will let you pwn any competitor and provide the sensory experience that we know you crave.”
Dell said it is collaboring with Electronic Arts to implement an AlienFx software and lighting control system and an exclusive Alienware Arena dog tag in Battlefield 3.
The machines are available now on Dell.com and Alienware.com with standard configurations starting at $1,099 for the M14x, $1,499 for the M17x, and $1,999 for the M18x.
GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.Download the new version now!
I've received a lot of great feedback on Hydras, so much so that after months of work and additional play testing I've released a new version of the game. Following is a summary of what's new or changed:
Sword and shield rules have been simplified. No replacement card from the swords. Shields can be used to block ANYTHING from being played on YOUR hydra. The play deck has been expanded from 45 cards to 60 cards. This will increase the game time slightly, and allow for an even card split for 2, 3 and 4 players. Labour cards have been added. These cards offer a whole new level of strategy to the game. These cards are still very new, and I can't guarantee that they're perfectly balanced at this time. I'm hoping you guys can help me with that, and offer feedback as to what seems, too simple, too hard, or too confusing.
Rather you're already a fan of the game, or have never played it before, I really hope you try the new version of Hydras. This is a fun little filler game that takes 15-30 minutes to play for 2-4 players. Download and try the new version now!
Cards & Rules 7.0 MB Everything you need to play. Patch File 5.7 MB Downloaded and printed the previous version? Use this patch file to print only the additional or updated cards and rules.
Let us know what you think on Facebook or shoot us an email!IN THE chilly wee hours of referendum night, George Square in Glasgow presented a dissolute scene. Slumped against its Victorian monuments were gaggles of puffy-faced separatists, looking crushed and exhausted, after a night of Bacchanalia and disappointment. Yet one displayed, on a placard attached to his bicycle, a new slogan: “Glasgow said aye”. In that lonely protest, your columnist saw encapsulated one of the two big lessons of the independence referendum, both of which, it appeared, in a wretchedly cynical constitutional debate on October 14th, British political leaders have ignored.
The lesson was that, given a stark choice, clear message and efforts to engage a broad sweep of society, which the separatist “Yes” side had shown, Britain’s jaded democracy can be reinvigorated. The high levels of engagement and civic pride evident in the campaigns and 85% turnout had shown this; so did that lonely slogan, raised amid the squalor of defeat. And because that enthusiasm was mainly for secession, which made for a close contest, this suggested the other important truth: a belated realisation of where the costs and benefits of the union lie.
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It was evident in a last-ditch pledge from David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister, and his unionist confrères, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg, to provide more powers to Scotland’s devolved government if the union endured. Though Scotland’s future was a matter for Scots to decide, the leaders implied, separation would be so damaging for the rest of the United Kingdom that it must make compromises to keep the separatists on side. The details of the bargain were contestable; it was a shame they promised to continue Scotland’s outsized share of public spending. Yet the principle that the majority must, for its own sake, go out of its way to accommodate a disgruntled minority was sound. These were the lessons of a vote which showed the union to be more precarious than anyone had realised. If the unionist parties heed them, it would be strengthened; yet it seems that is not their intention.
Within an hour of the referendum result, standing outside 10 Downing Street, Mr Cameron declared that Scotland’s promised new powers must be delivered “in tandem” with similar change for England. He referred to a longstanding anomaly, the so-called “West Lothian Question”, by which Scottish MPs vote in Westminster on policies which do not pertain to Scots, because the issues concerned, for example health and education, have been devolved to their own parliament. English voters are therefore at a disadvantage, especially, as happens occasionally, when the votes of Scottish MPs prove decisive. Further devolution to Scotland, as Mr Cameron said, will make this question more pressing. But he was playing a cynical game, which gave an impression, not lost on Scottish nationalists, that he might renege on his promise to Scotland if he did not get his way on England. It was obviously designed to embarrass his Labour rivals, who, having many Scottish MPs, unlike the Tories, are anxious to prevent their powers being downgraded.
Laying out the Tory case for change in Parliament this week, William Hague, a Tory grandee who is charged with devising the new constitutional settlement, rejected “from the outset the idea that fairness for England is disruptive or dangerous for the United Kingdom.” Yet if “fairness” means equivalence, as Mr Hague suggested, and many Tory MPs say, he is wrong. That logic leads inexorably to the creation of an English Parliament, which would render the Westminster Parliament almost redundant, thereby sideline Scottish voters, and make the break up of Britain merely a matter of time.
There are milder options, including the so-called “double majority” proposal favoured by this newspaper, which would give English MPs a right to rewrite or veto draft legislation on English issues. But even that is not nearly as straightforward as the Tories make out. It carries a risk of deadlock between English Tory MPs and a Labour government. And all this for the sake of an issue which, though in need of remedy, sooner or later, is much less bothersome to English voters than Mr Hague made out. In response, Labour MPs made these objections and more—yet without dispelling an impression that they would do anything to ignore the problem altogether. Despite the clear lessons of the referendum, in short, this was a display of party politics at its narrowest. It was a face-off between two rival sorts of elite self-interest largely removed from public opinion.
A fun way to wreck the union
There is a long tradition of such politicking. It is how Britain’s “living constitution”, in Walter Bagehot’s phrase, has emerged, through parliamentary grandstanding and contestation, and the process has provided good sport for those concerned. The trouble is how dramatically British voters now disapprove of such political games, which is why Mr Cameron’s latest effort to do a number on his opponents may not be quite as popular as he thinks. Indeed, the Scottish separatists’ ability to harness that anti-establishment sentiment was another reason for their success. It is therefore especially unwise that Mr Cameron’s gambit shows such little concern for the creaking state of a union which it appears a majority of Scottish voters aged under 55 voted to quit.
If Mr Cameron truly wants to address the righteous grievance of English voters without jeopardising the union, he must issue plans for a grander deliberation in the form of a constitutional convention. That would shed light on other anomalies—including an electoral system that gives the Tories only one of Scotland’s 59 seats for their 20% of its vote—whose unpicking could provide better representation, less problematically. It would also, after the example of the Scottish referendum campaign, involve wider participation. For sure, it could be cumbersome. Yet the issue is serious; and this is no time for games.CORRECTION: Due to an editing error an earlier version of this article stated the stranded passengers went on a tour of Iqaluit. A tour was planned, but not conducted. The article has been updated to reflect that change.
A Los Angeles-bound flight — the city was a balmy 21 degrees — suddenly found itself diverted instead Wednesday to Iqaluit — a frigid, and somewhat ironic, minus 21.
The Boeing 777, which can hold up to 295 passengers, landed smoothly, but then had difficulty turning around. There were no injuries.
The Swiss International Air Lines flight from Zurich should have flown over the southern tip of Greenland, Hudson’s Bay, Ontario and Manitoba on its way to the western United States. Instead, it was forced to make an emergency landing in Nunavut’s capital due to what the airline called a “technical irregularity.”
“The real issue was they only had one engine, but despite that it was a smooth landing,” said Iqaluit airport director John Hawkins.
“Would you believe me if I told you the plane I was in lost an engine and now I’m stuck in the middle of the North Pole?,” Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Leroy Sanchez said in a tweet.
Initially Sanchez and the other jet-setting passengers suddenly stranded in the high Arctic in February were going to get a tour of the city.
“Everyone’s fine and they are being detained. They will be given a tour of the community, fed, and a replacement airplane is being sent to pick them up so they will not be staying overnight,” Iqaluit Mayor Madeleine Redfern told the National Post.
Redfern wasn’t sure what would be included on the tour, but Hawkins said the museum and the swimming pool were two places he’d suggest.
“Iqaluit is a spectacular place, they only have a few hours so there’s no way they’ll see it all,” said Hawkins.
A replacement airplane was sent from New York to pick them up “so they will not be staying overnight,” said Redfern Wednesday evening. Although the exact number of passengers was not released, 295 people would increase Iqaluit’s population of 6,699 by more than four per cent.
In the end there was no tour of Iqaluit, the passengers stayed on the airplane until a replacement flight from New York picked them up.
“It’s really too bad there was a change of plan, it would have been nice for passengers to experience Iqaluit—outside the plane,” Redfern told Nunavut newspaper Nunatsiaq News.
It’s a good thing there was no plan to have them stay overnight because “there aren’t enough nearly enough hotel rooms. There’s a recreational hall we could put people in if we had to,” said Hawkins.
With a file from The Canadian PressCalifornia Senate Makes Shark Finning Illegal
I recently wrote about Chef Gordon Ramsay’s reaction to having Shark Fin Soup for the first time, on our sister site, Blue Living Ideas. Ramsay recorded a video, clearly verbalizing his feelings about this cruel fishing practice. Some scenes are a little gruesome but Ramsay’s “colorful” language will make you understand how inhumane shark finning is, if you can’t bear to watch the whole video, like I did, the first time.
What’s the big deal about Shark Fin Soup?
Shark finning is practice of cutting off the fins and tails of live sharks to be sold or distributed while the rest of the shark is thrown back into the ocean to bleed to death because the actual shark meat is not valuable at all. Shark finning is illegal in some countries but secretly, shark fishing boats still practice shark finning as it’s a profitable industry. Shark fins, exported to Asia for Shark Fin Soup, can fetch up to 500 euros ($676) per kilogram. A single Whale Shark pectoral fin can sell for up to US $15,000.
Ramsay’s disdain for Shark Fin Soup is shared by Richard Branson, the Virgin Group founder, and Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star. They are trying to urge restaurants in China to stop serving Shark Fin soup. Ming admits having tried Shark Fin Soup but had no idea how shark fins were harvested for this delicacy, as most shark fin soup lovers.
Branson states that with China’s economy growing exponentially every year, the wealthy Chinese will demand this exotic and “prestigious” delicacy resulting in more decline in shark’s population. China consumes 90% of all shark fins in the world for this soup and the demand doesn’t seem to be declining.
The thing is, according to Ramsay, it doesn’t even taste good. So what is the big deal? The big deal seems to be just that it’s considered to be food for the wealthy – and rightfully so since it can fetch from $80 to $100 for a bowl – it’s a mere status symbol even though it doesn’t even taste good or have any nutritional value. In fact, shark fins might even have high content of toxic mercury. It’s ironic then, that some people think that Shark Fin Soup is an aphrodisiac when mercury can cause infertility.
Why is saving sharks important for the environment?
According to SharkSavers.Org, sharks have existed on this planet for 450 million years, surviving 5 major extinctions. But currently, as many as 73 million are killed by the shark finning industry. It is estimated that 90 percent of all large sharks have been wiped out, and 93-99 percent of all large sharks off the east coast of North America are gone (tiger sharks, bull sharks, hammerhead sharks, etc.).
No sharks are protected internationally. Only a handful of countries manage shark fisheries. Enforcement is very difficult. And the sad part is |
Patricia Harding, a librarian in Burlingame, Calif., banned pit bulls from the Paws for Tales program in her facility. Neither Cohen nor Jonny had ever worked at Harding’s library, but another volunteer and her pit bull were suddenly no longer welcome. Cohen, an advocate for the breed, was offended by the ban.
He approached the Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA, which oversees 60 human-canine Paws for Tales teams in 20 cities. He wanted the Humane Society to pull the program from Burlingame in protest. “We asked [the library] to reconsider. They said they liked the program but didn’t want pit bulls,” says Scott Delucchi, of Peninsula Humane Society. “We were disappointed, but thought, ‘If we pull the program who loses? The kids.’ So we decided to continue.”
In January, Cohen and Jonny resigned from Paws for Tales in protest. He teamed with lawyers associated with BAD RAP and checked the state’s laws. According to California’s Food and Agricultural Code (Section 31681-31683), it is illegal to act against any animal based on breed except in the case of instituting mandatory spay and neuter programs. Cohen wrote a letter pointing this out to the librarian and Burlingame city leaders, including the mayor Terry Nagel, vice mayor Jerry Deal, and Jim Nantell, the city manager.
Two weeks ago, he finally heard back. City attorney Gus Guinan acknowledged that in accordance with the code, the ban would be lifted. Good news, right? Well, not quite. The letter also noted that the library decided to withdraw from the Paws for Tales program completely.
Although all dogs are tested extensively before joining the program, and they carry $2 million in liability insurance, Harding cited “safety and liability issues” for pulling the program. “For the amount of concerns we had we weren’t reaching enough kids,” she added.
She could not remember a specific reason for the initial ban, but noted, “Parents had concerns about dogs in the library, and since we need to allow all dogs we decided the program didn’t fit our needs.”
The library’s position seems justifiable on the surface. The Peninsula Humane Society sounds reasonable when it argues that even without pit bulls the program produces positive results. But what if the situation involved people instead of dogs? If one entire group—Native Americans, Mormons, lefthanders, etc.—were eliminated from a program because of a preconceived bias against it, would the local citizens stand for that?
“Some may see it as a loss to the children of the community. But I don’t,” says Cohen. “A library is a source of information and learning. If the person in charge is participating in discrimination, children should not be anywhere near that facility. There is too much hate in this world already, children do not need to learn it at the library.”
Jim Gorant’s book, The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick’s Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption, is available from Gotham.
Click here for more information.I just installed mine last night, and it does not fit my system. It has a very noticeable wobble, which worries me because just a slight tip and the unit would slam onto it's side. It seems that it is only made for a specific model, however SONY has done a poor job of labeling the packaging of the system because I didn't learn until now that my system is actually the "slim" series - yet nowhere does it say so anywhere on the box. Furthermore, the packaging for the stand itself does not specify that it only fits certain PS4 units, so there was no way for me to know when I picked this up in the store that it would not fit. Dumbly, I threw out the packaging before installing it, and last night was garbage night :/ so now I own a $25 piece of useless plastic - I just wanted to make this review to make others aware and don't make the same mistake. I'm giving it 4 stars since it appears to work great for the correct system and I don't want to drag down it's score because of my own ignorance. They should really specify the models more clearly on the packaging though! I had no idea the CUH-2015 was a "slim" until I tried to put this stand on. TL:DR; Make sure this fits your PS4 model before buying! THIS DOES NOT FIT THE UNIT THAT COMES IN THE UNCHARTED 4 BUNDLE!!!
Read moreKukla's Korner Hockey
Of all the comments made by players on Thursday, Mike Cammalleri's take on the state of CBA negotiations, as uttered to the Toronto Star'sKevin McGran are, in my opinion, the most astute given the NHLPA's circumstances:
“How do we win? We’ve already lost,” said Flames forward Mike Cammalleri. “We’ve already conceded ($800 million, all figures U.S.). It seems like for them, it’s become the bully in the playground. It’s like: ‘We think we can take your cookies, too.’” Cammalleri explained the players’ exasperation: “They came to us and said we have a systemic problem with the small-market teams losing money. We said: ‘Okay, we’ll concede up to $800 million-plus as long as the bigger teams help us in a revenue-sharing model. “Then we did that, and they said: ‘Oh, that’s not the problem. The problem is you guys just make too much money.’ “Your boss comes to you tomorrow and says: ‘My company does great, makes tonnes of money but I’m going to take 20 per cent of your salary just because where else are you going to work?”
Cammalleri continues, and points out that the players, like many fans, get the feeling that this cycle and this fourth lockout has only one conclusion--a fifth, five to eight years from now:
“Where does it end?” says Cammalleri. “If we take their proposal, the next time around, they’re still going to have the same excuses. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t address any of the problems they said we know would make the league healthier. They’re going to come to us with the same issues. Of course they don’t want to fix those problems, because they want to be able to do this to us again next time.”
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Captchas bug you? Join KK or log in and you won't have to bother.While hitchhiking is illegal in parts of America and frowned upon in most others, a Canadian seeks to travel from Massachusetts to San Francisco, California by thumbing it.
The Canadian is a humanoid robot called hitchBOT. It began it's journey on Thursday, July 16 in Salem and spent the weekend in eastern Massachusetts. So far, it has visited the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and hitched a boat ride in Gloucester.
The child-sized robot features a glowing smile, primary colors attire and a thumb permanently pointed out in hopes of catching a ride. The bot can provide limited conversation as a travel companion, share trivia with the driver and other passengers in a vehicle.
It was designed by professors at Ryerson University in Toronto. "We want to see what people do with this kind of technology when we leave it up to them," Frauke Zeller, a co-creator told Mashable. "It's an art project in the wild -- it invites people to participate."
The robot has GPS installed within it and snaps a photo of its surroundings every 20 minutes to document its travels.
During hitchBOT's travels across the nation, its creators hope it will pose for photos in front of many tourist sites including Times Square, the Lincoln Statue, and of course Walt Disney World.
The robot has made several similar voyages before, having traveled through Canada and Europe. During it's previous trips, the humanoid attended a comic convention and a wedding.
"We want to create something that has a bit of narrative to it, a sense of adventure," co-creator David Harris Smith told Mashable. "We don't really know what's going to happen."Another spring at Pirate City, and we’re still talking about The Streak.
Article continues below...
The Pirates have finished with a losing record 20 years in a row. It is the longest slog of ineptitude in major U.S. professional sports. Bill Clinton had not yet been elected president when the Pirates concluded their most recent winning season on Oct. 14, 1992. And that anniversary — a walk-off defeat in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series — isn’t exactly observed with parades across the Clemente Bridge.
The last two years have been especially cruel for the good people of Pittsburgh. Their Pirates were tied for first in the NL Central on July 25, 2011. They held the second wild-card spot as late as Aug. 21, 2012. Both times, they screwed it up.
How extraordinary is the Pirates’ ineptitude? Consider this from STATS LLC: During the wild-card era, only one other franchise held a playoff position on July 25 or later in consecutive seasons and finished with a losing record each time: the 2005-2006 Arizona Diamondbacks.
To my friends in Western Pennsylvania: I’m sorry. It hurt to type that.
Pirates fans lead the league in forbearance, and their reward should come this year. (Full disclosure: I’ve said this before.) But if The Streak reaches 21, well, Pittsburghers have every right to grimace like Bill Cowher after a missed block and demand changes to on- and off-field management.
Really, what other alternative would ownership have? Another plea for patience? Right. That would be about as popular locally as trading Sidney Crosby to the Flyers.
But maybe it won’t come to that. This could be The Year.
The Pirates’ core position players are in their primes: Andrew McCutchen, who finished third in last year’s NL MVP vote, is 26. So is third baseman Pedro Alvarez, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 amateur draft. Neil Walker, one of the game’s top second basemen, is 27.
A.J. Burnett is the closest thing the Pirates have had to a No. 1 starter in a very long time. (In 2012, he became the first Pirate in five years with over 200 innings and a winning record.) Now he’s entering the final year of his contract.
If this isn’t it, when exactly would the Pirates have a better chance?
“To state it bluntly,” Walker said, “this is an important year.”
Neal Huntington is entering his sixth full season as general manager, and it’s entirely fair to frame this year as a referendum on his tenure. Huntington has acquired virtually every significant player on the roster, with the notable exceptions of McCutchen, Walker, right-hander Jared Hughes and left-hander Tony Watson. This is his team.
The same is true for manager Clint Hurdle. The 79-win season in 2012 was the Pirates’ best in 15 years, a golf-clap achievement for this particular franchise. The good news: Hurdle’s 151 victories represent the most in a Pittsburgh manager’s first two seasons since Chuck Tanner in 1977 and 1978. The bad: Hurdle also has a.376 combined winning percentage after the All-Star break in ’11 and ’12.
In some markets, one second-half fade of that magnitude — let alone two — is enough to fire a manager. Instead, Hurdle’s contract has been extended through 2014 with a club option for 2015. (Huntington also is signed through 2014 with a 2015 option.)
To Hurdle, I offer my congratulations. To the team, I ask why.
While I agree that Hurdle deserves to keep his job for now, it’s another matter entirely to give him an extension. The move seems unnecessary, given the disappointing conclusion to last season. Hurdle should prove he’s capable of guiding the Pirates through the most trying months of the year before receiving a new contract. If Hurdle is truly the best long-team leader for this team — and he may be — then the team’s 2013 performance will make it obvious.
And spare me the supplications that no manager should be forced to endure a lame-duck season. At last check, the men who took their teams to last year’s American League Championship Series — Jim Leyland and Joe Girardi — are entering the final years of their contracts. Cincinnati’s Dusty Baker, with a much better career resume than Hurdle, managed the entire 2012 season without a contract extension; his team finished 18 games ahead of Pittsburgh and won the NL Central title.
(Speaking of the division: Pirates fans must hope their shot at a winning season didn’t leave when the Houston Astros departed for the AL. Pittsburgh dominated Houston over the past two years, going 23-12. But the teams will play only one three-game series this year. The Pirates were 16 games under.500 against the rest of the NL Central during the same two seasons.)
McCutchen said the players were at fault in last season’s collapse. “It was on us,” he insisted. “That’s the reason we lost. There was nothing else that had to do with it — team chemistry, trades, nothing like that. We didn’t finish the job. We take the blame.”
Yet, others on the team acknowledged Monday that the Pirates’ clubhouse dynamic did change around the trade deadline last season. Huntington and Hurdle are among those responsible for the subsequent results; Huntington made the moves in question, and Hurdle failed to mold the new unit into a cohesive group on and off the field.
Amid reports that the Pirates were pursuing bigger names, such as Chase Headley and Justin Upton, Huntington dealt for left-handed starter Wandy Rodriguez, right-handed reliever Chad Qualls, outfielder Travis Snider and first baseman Gaby Sanchez. Rodriguez lost four of his first five decisions as a Pirate, while the loss of reliever Brad Lincoln — sent to Toronto for Snider — compromised the bullpen’s depth.
“I’m not a GM, but any time you change the team chemistry, it always hurts,” Pirates closer Jason Grilli said. “You change the guys you’re comfortable with, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute. That was a piece we liked, we needed.’ Not that anybody’s asking us for our opinions.”
The Pirates made win-now moves at the 2011 non-waiver trade deadline, adding prospective free agents Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick. But Huntington took a different approach last year, acquiring three players he could control beyond 2012 — Rodriguez, Snider and Sanchez — in what some interpreted as an acknowledgment of the Pirates’ low-payroll reality.
“Maybe some of it’s the economics here,” Grilli said. “Players know the situation. To get a top-tier bat … maybe the expectations were a little higher on our end. That’s not a knock against who we got. It’s just when you’re winning, it’s like, ‘Dude, do you want to go for the gusto here? Do you want to go for the jugular?’ … Pull the trigger. Do you want to win? Do you want to change?
“As a player, it’s like, ‘Come on. Let’s see. Give us the pieces.’ Last year, the names being thrown around were (Hunter) Pence, (Shane) Victorino, Upton. … If anybody’s going to do it, you’d think a team that hasn’t won and is in first place would be the first to do it. Let’s not wait.”
The Pirates have an above-average farm system, aided in part by favorable drafting positions. That has infused the 25-man roster with talent while providing tradable prospects for Huntington. The amateur scouting operation — led by Greg Smith in the U.S. and Rene Gayo in Latin America — deserves credit for the Pirates’ improved minor league depth. But very soon, those successes must translate into wins. Eighty-two of them, to be exact.
When I asked Huntington what would be fair for a Pirates fan to expect this season, he told me, “That’s not for me to decide. Our goal is to be one of those teams playing playoff games in October. Anything short of that is not something we’re looking at right now. Our goal is to win the division. Our goal is to play deep into October and do what the other 29 teams are trying to do — win it all.”
Sounds good. But let’s make something clear: The Pirates aren’t like the other 29 teams. No other franchise in this sport — or basketball, or hockey, or football — is trying to halt two decades of losing.
Huntington and Hurdle didn’t start The Streak. But it is their job to end it. If they fail, it will be time to start anew in 2014.newswire article commentary oregon & cascadia government | media criticism Submarine Warfare in Puget Sound author: Townsend Hope It's an old story--this one from the late Cold War--The Government tells the lie that the Media calls the truth. He was found floating next to his boat, two hundred yards off southeast Whidbey Island. A fitness buff and excellent swimmer, ex-FBI agent Jerry Pennington was publisher, president, and CEO of the Seattle Times, the region's leading newspaper. It was March 15, 1985. His newspaper would quietly lay him to rest with an eulogy two days later. Pennington's death was the bookend to four months of peculiar Puget Sound events. Local media had faithfully followed the government's narrative, but one of his reporters had slipped in a detail that deviated from the script. That detail was the key to the other bookend--and would presage Mr. Pennington's demise.
Washington State's Whidbey Island bisects an inland sea, commonly referred to as the Puget Sound. Its northwestern coast is on the east entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the seaway to the Pacific Ocean. From central Whidbey south, the island's west coastline is the eastern shore of Admiralty Inlet. At the island's southern point Admiralty Inlet opens into Puget Sound proper, location of the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. Hood Canal, location of the Trident ballistic-missile submarine base at Bangor, enters Admiralty Inlet from the west. The north entrance of Admiralty Inlet, a choke point of shipping, was once known as the Triangle of Death, due to the three costal artillery fortifications that in the early 20th Century protected the entrance of this strategic waterway. It was said of these fortifications that "not a shot was fired in anger." That might not be true of the late 20th Century, when the Triangle of Death became the Cold War's last battlefield.
In the mid-1980's Soviet submarines 'went quiet all of a sudden.' As the result of espionage "the Soviet Union was not only able to quiet its own subs, but also was better able to detect and follow America's Trident missile subs."(1) The Soviets would need only to wait at Admiralty Inlet's north entrance for a Trident sub, fat with its twenty-four multiple-nuclear-warhead missiles, on its way to deployment in the open ocean.
In the early morning hours of December 7, 1984, the sea-lanes through and the airspace above Admiralty Inlet were closed to all traffic. The Coast Guard said that the shipping lanes were closed due to "extremely hazardous conditions."(2) Until allowed transit, the Seattle bound Alaska State ferry M/V Columbia circled for hours in the east entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. When the Columbia arrived in Seattle, a radio interview with crewmembers reported naval activity in northern Admiralty Inlet. No other vessels were allowed transit. A local resident, with a direct view across Admiralty Bay toward central Whidbey Island's Lagoon Point, witnessed at dawn dark gray ships arrayed with their bows pointed out from the Inlet's eastern shore. Four unmarked dark gray ships had been previously observed, across the Inlet, in the Olympic Peninsula's Discovery Bay, west of Port Townsend.
The closure of shipping lanes and the large presence of military hardware and personnel would be attributed to a police action. According to the FBI, Robert J. Mathews--who two weeks earlier had been shot in Portland, Oregon, and while bleeding heavily eluded an FBI dragnet--was now barricaded in a central Whidbey Island vacation cottage situated on a bluff northeast of Lagoon Point. Mathews was said to be the leader of an Aryan Nation splinter group known as the White American Bastion. Subsequently, this group would become the Bruders Schweigen, "the Silent Brotherhood", a domestic terrorist organization. "The Silent Brotherhood", an amalgam of the submariner's "Silent Service" and George Orwell's 1984 "the Brotherhood", would evolve yet again to become known as, simply, "the Order."
A Seattle Times reporter inadvertently witnessed and reported on the final moments of what was to become known as "The Siege on Whidbey Island." After nightfall, on December 8, a Navy helicopter hovered over the cottage dropping illumination flares.(3) After an intense fire that blinded onlookers to the night, a body would be found in a bathtub. According to the FBI, Mathews died in a "fiery shootout with the FBI." Shipping lanes were reopened without comment, no credible reason was ever given for the closure. A Whidbey Island newspaper opined: "The operation was huge in scope, using a small army of federal agents and a massive supply of military hardware."(4)
A huge propaganda offensive ensued in order to create a persona that was commensurate with the event. For over a decade and a half this legend was promoted in newspapers, magazines, books, and in 1999, a book based movie--The Brotherhood of Murder. Robert Mathews has lived on as a heroic martyr, most notably for Timothy McVeigh; the Oklahoma City bomber.
Other things happened while the tale of this band of neo-nazis and their fallen leader blotted newspaper headlines.
Large American-flagged ships were ordered out of Puget Sound ports. The distance between ship traffic and Protection Island at the mouth of Discovery Bay was maximized. A Coast Guard cutter had been stationed in the east entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the ships transiting from Admiralty Inlet into the Strait made the turn wide to the east and north. Then, on December 13, a Navy EA-6B electronic countermeasure jet aircraft exploded in mid-flight above Discovery Bay.
An eyewitness to the crash said "the plane appeared to be flying at cloud level when it made a 'poosh' sound and lit up, then began trailing fire and descending at a 45-degree angle."(5) The structure of events and the nature of the crash are indicative of a missile hit--that a submarine launched anti-aircraft missile, known by the acronym SLAM, brought this airplane down. That Navy pilots subsequently became concerned by the threat of a SLAM is evidenced by an incident in San Diego on January 11, 1985, when clouds of radar-jamming chaff dropped by the Navy drifted ashore and knocked out power for 65,000 utility customers and crippled civilian radar.
The military events of the 1984 superpower confrontation have not yet been placed in history, but a hot year had just gotten a whole lot hotter. To be brief--as this is the job of our laggard historians--the United States and its allies were now in a world wide search for elusive Soviet submarines. Strategic missile bases of the American mid-west had been placed on alert, and NATO and the Warsaw Pact were in active preparation for a central European war.
The penultimate event occurred when a task force of American aircraft carrier battle groups stormed toward the military bases of the Soviet Far East. According to the New York Times: "One civilian official quoted experienced military officers as describing it as 'the most vigorous Soviet reaction' to any military movement of its kind since World War II."(6) "Another official described the Soviet response as the kind of alert the Russians would launch if their defense controllers thought Soviet military installations were about to be attacked."(7)
A turning point had been reached.
The silence on these and the other numerous events of 1984 is a denial of the rightful place in history of the men and women of that era's military. It was they, whose steadfast resolve at the door of annihilation, saved the Earth from the folly of world leaders.
Back in Washington State things would continue to bubble to the surface.
On the afternoon of December 21,1984 an oil spill was noticed off south Whidbey Island. Ultimately, the size of this spill would be conservatively estimated at 5,000 gallons of a medium to heavy marine-grade distillate fuel oil. This fuel spill was unusual in that its source was in the middle of north Puget Sound and that the dispersal pattern was as if it was from a point-source that distributed the oil onto area beaches by tidal action. The apparent locus of the spill was in an area of the Sound that is up to 700 feet deep. Oil samples were taken from ships that had been in the area and no matches were found. Subsequent smaller related spills occurred and they were quickly mopped up. After several months the investigation was cancelled. No source for this oil has ever been identified.
Then, late in the afternoon of January 11, 1985, the fishing boat Nomsuch was pulling its net up from the mouth of Rich Passage; this waterway winds its way to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. In the Nomsuch's net was an unusual catch: a large gray cylinder. Authorities were called and the boat was quarantined off Seattle's Shilshole marina. For several hours Navy and Coast Guard officials, joined by the Seattle Police bomb squad, treated the object as an explosive device before making the determination that this was a Mark-36 concrete filled anti-submarine 'drill mine'. This "concrete filled" anti-submarine mine was then transported to the Indian Island Naval Weapons Station.(8)
It has taken two decades for the mist of time to clarify the fog of this war. It is now a known fact that in 1984 the United States was pitted against the Soviet Union in an intense anti-submarine campaign. Due to the Soviet's surprise deployment of a vastly quieter nuclear-powered attack submarine they were able to sneak into the Puget Sound home of the Trident. The events that occurred in Washington State in December 1984 and January 1985 are the classic markers of anti-submarine warfare. It can now be stated that on December 7, 1984 the U.S. Navy brought a submerged object, most likely a salvaged Soviet submarine, to the waters off Whidbey Island; and then possibly scuttled this object in the depths of north Puget Sound.
Any conspiracy theory worth its salt needs bodies, this one has two: a badly burned body in a bathtub and a drowned man floating next to his overturned boat. These are the bookends, between them lies the secret history--of December 1984.
Notes
1 "Other Spy Probes Run More Quietly Than Lee's; No Publicity, Charges When Soviets Obtained Sub Secrets in 1978", The Washington Post, by Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb, 11-06-2000.
2 "Federal agents surround house in island manhunt", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12-8-1984.
3 "Mathews believed dead in blazing house", Seattle Times, 12-10-84.
4 "FBI operation", Whidbey News-Times, 12-12-1984.
5 "Jet crew saw warning sign before blast", The Daily News (Port Angeles), 12-14-84.
6 "U.S. Ships Met by Soviet Alert Off Major Base", by Hedrick Smith, New York Times, 12-19-84.
7 "2 U.S. Carriers Meet Soviet Response in Far East", New York Times, 12-19-84.
8 "Fishing boat in Puget Sound hauls up 'drill mine' from waters off Bainbridge", Everett Herald, 1-12-85. contribute to this article
contribute to this article add comment to discussionOn the drug bridge: "I've got the shit that killed Michael Jackson."
Directions to someplace: "Go past Hepatitis Lake, cross Drug Bridge, and take a left toward the ICP seminar."
Overheard constantly: "Show me your butthole!!!"
"Ah, Ketamine for breakfast."
"Squirt party later tonight, you coming?"
"Whoop Whoop is the medicine. That shit cures breast cancer, man."
"Yo, someone shit in the showers. FUCK."
"This is gonna be some unforgettable shit none of us are going to remember."
"Charlie Sheen crack rocks for sale! Big discount!"
"I'd definitely put a corn dog in my vagina for $5." One minute later: "I'LL PUT A CORN DOG IN MY VAGINA FOR 5 BUCKS. ANY TAKERS?"
Juggalo pick-up line: "What's up babydoll, I'll eat yo' pussy like it's the last supper!"
"Don't throw shit at Charlie Sheen, motherfucker! This ninja is brilliant!"
"Anyone want a shot of my breastmilk?"
"It's not rape if it's dead."
Juggalo tripping on acid speaking to a can opener: "FUCK YOU MAN, FUCK YOU!!!"
Juggalo after yelling into the Juggalo bus microphone: "I like things you can yell into. Shit's my favorite."
"This is fucking awesome. We are in the middle of fucking nowhere watching Michael Jackson and Prince dance off. I don't even know if Juggalos like Michael Jackson and Prince. I don't think they do." - Violent J
"I'm a Juggalo. I don't wipe my ass, I smoke that grass."I think when people are ultra-positive and have this incomparably sunny disposition toward the world, I get turned off. There’s a lot of stuff out there which attempts to make you feel inspired, but ends up leaving you feeling ashamed for being human. It would be easy for me to say:
“Everything happens for a reason!”
“Life is an adventure!”
“Love solves everything!”
“Happiness is a choice!”
These are easy words to say. Easy things to think. Easy, easy, easy. But, their meanings dry up the moment life happens.
I have spent far too many nights feeling ashamed that I couldn’t be more positive, happier, better, stronger. I’d look at these shiny people plastered with positivity and I’d wonder where I went wrong. Why was I so affected by the world? Why didn’t every day feel like an adventure? Don’t these people have to pay bills and have uncomfortable conversations and wake up sometimes with a headache and an axe to grind? Why was I seemingly the only one so deeply affected by the human experience?
I don’t want to be inspired anymore. Inspiration is cheap. It’s easy. It’s flowery. It’s drenched in promises no one can fulfill.
I want to feel understood. I want to feel heard. I want to feel like my weird and twisty and dark thoughts and fears and feelings are not unique to me. I don’t need someone negating my experience in order to provide me with sweet words fluffy as clouds — and just as transparent. I want gritty and real and raw and I’d rather see people fucking up than trying to act as if they never do.
I’m tired of people trying to inspire me to have a better, bigger, happier life. Let me exist. Let me fumble. Let me find the patch of light in the long tunnel of darkness. Let me figure out some shit on my own. I say we need less fake inspiration in this world and more realness. Less doomsday. Less fake happiness. More real shit. Less preaching. More storytelling. Less advice. More community.
I wish people would stop trying to perfect my life. Everybody is selling the magic pill to happiness. Why do I have to be so happy all the time? CAN I LIVE?
I want you to know that you don’t need to fix yourself if you’re not smiling every moment of the day. Sometimes you have very little to be grateful for and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s hard to muster up the energy to be happy with what you have when you want so much more from the world and yourself. That’s okay. It’s okay to be angry and to be kind of dark and weird and not a ball of positivity every moment. Sometimes it’s okay to be bored and to think that happiness is a bit boring because it kind of is. Sometimes it’s fine to be moody and sad and contemplative and to solve problems with a glass of wine or a pizza or some good sex I don’t even know but it’s okay to just not have it all figured out, to have no answers, to just be like, what is the point of anything.
It’s okay to feel like the ground is shaking beneath your feet. It’s okay because everything is temporary. You can lose your footing one day and be on top of the world the next. Things can change in a blink. Happiness is as fleeting as anything else. These fake salespeople who act like they have the cure to being human really grind me up. All they serve to do is make you feel ashamed for not having it all figured out. They sell your aspirational experience and bake shame into it.
Just promise me that the last thing you’ll do is be ashamed of where you’re at in your experience of being a human. Nothing good comes from shame. It’s about the lowest vibrational place you could be operating from. Avoid shame and anything or anyone that causes you shame. Get it all the hell out of your energy field. Shame is not going to motivate you. It’s going to drain you.
If there’s one promise you can make for yourself, let it be this: I will not let myself be ashamed of my unique experience of being human. Forget the positive bullshit: that promise, that mantra, that state of mind is what can really change lives. A person incapable of cowering to shame is a hero — considering all the many reasons our world gives us reasons to be ashamed. To forgo the feeling of shame is an act of radical resistance. Let yourself be. To truly be. What freedom.Claim: Noah’s Ark has been discovered in eastern Turkey.
FALSE
Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2013]
I recently ran into an article saying that Noah’s Ark has been discovered. All the research seems to be there, but I take everything with a grain of salt from the internet. Can you please look into this for me?
Origins: One of the most familiar accounts found in the Old Testament is the Book of Genesis story of Noah, who upon God’s instruction built an ark to preserve himself, his family, and the animals of the world when God decided to destroy the world with a flood due to His regret over
“how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth.” In that Biblical account, Noah and the ark’s other inhabitants survived the cataclysmic deluge that flooded the surface of the Earth, and once the flood waters receded, “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” For many centuries, religious scholars, philosophers, explorers, and others have attempted to determine just where in the world the “mountains of Ararat” actually are, and to uncover evidence documenting that the ark described in Genesis did indeed exist. Over the years many different sites have been identified as the place where Noah’s ark came to rest, and a number of different expeditions have laid claim to discovering physical evidence of such a vessel.
One of those is the Durupinar site, an area in the Mount Tendürek area of eastern Turkey (just north of the Iranian border) which features a boat-like formation reportedly exposed by heavy rains and earthquakes in 1948 and named for Turkish Army Captain Ilhan Durupinar, who identified it in a Turkish Air Force aerial photo taken during a NATO mapping mission in October 1959. Photographs of the site were published in Life magazine in 1960, and a group from the Archeological Research Foundation surveyed the site in September of that year, and ever since then various claimants, most notably Ron Wyatt, have asserted that the “boat-shaped formation” found there contains the remains of Noah’s Ark:
The shape looked like hull of a ship. One end was pointed as you would expect from bow [below: D] and the opposite end was blunt like a stern. The distance from bow to stern was 515 feet, or exactly 300 Egyptian cubits. The average width was 50 cubits. These were the exact measurements mentioned in the Bible. The shape looked like hull of a ship. One end was pointed as you would expect from bowand the opposite end was blunt like a stern. The distance from bow to stern wasor exactlycubits. The average width wasThese were the exact measurements mentioned in the Bible. On the starboard side (right) near the stern there were four vertical bulges protruding from the mud [B], at regular intervals, that were determined to be the “ribs” of the hull. Opposite to these, on the port side, a single rib [A] protrudes from the mud. You can see its curved shape very clearly. Surrounding it are more ribs, still largely buried in the mud, but visible upon close examination.
The initial investigation of the site found no evidence of an ark and reported that the object of interest appeared to be nothing more than a natural formation, but a number of scientific-sounding articles nonetheless still tout findings supported by “visual evidence,” “ground-penetrating radar” and laboratory analysis of “artifacts retrieved from the ark” as documenting the presence of Noah’s ark at the Durupinar site. However,
geologists from Andrew A. Snelling of Answers in Genesis to Lorence G. Collins of California State University Northridge’s Department of Geological Sciences have debunked the notion of Durupinar site as containing anything more than a completely natural geologic rock formation. The former, particularly, has published a point-by-point refutation of numerous claims made about the site, summarized briefly as follows:
Claim: Metal detector surveys found a regular pattern of ‘hot spots’ which could be joined to reveal a regular pattern of ‘lines’ lengthwise and across the inside of the formation only. Claim: Metal detector surveys found a regular pattern of ‘hot spots’ which could be joined to reveal a regular pattern of ‘lines’ lengthwise and across the inside of the |
Book of Figures, mapping John’s redemption onto an idea of sacramental supersession within his book.
Part 1, “Foundation,” primarily draws its evidence from John’s Book of Visions, although it touches base with things further on in the work. Its main external referent is the ars notoria. This part seeks to answer the question of why, even while he sought to destroy the ars notoria, John would re-create some of its most characteristic features in his own book. In pursuing my inves- tigation, I am mainly engaged with John’s visionary autobiography, but I do, particularly in chapter 3, touch on some of John’s prayers as well. This is neces- sary because of the way parts of John’s autobiography are fed into the prayers, where we see his life experiences refracted in different ways. The Seven Prayers in particular are so linked to the visions that it is all but impossible to limit the autobiographical discussion exclusively to the prose narrative.
Part 2, “Restoration,” primarily draws its evidence from John’s Book of Figures (in both the Old and New versions), although it engages with episodes earlier in the work. Its main external referent is necromancy. This part of the book aims to answer the question of how John succeeds in continuing to understand his work as divinely delivered even after it gets broken by the accu- sation of the Barking Dogs—a question that cannot be entirely disentangled from other, harder questions about what necromancy actually meant to John, and how it, too, might partake in the sacramental and dispensational under- standing that he begins with.
Both parts have a similar interior structure. The first chapter of each section is narrative and descriptive, the second chapters are broadly contextualizing, and the third chapters involve close reading. Chapters 1 and 4 open with personal
introduction 11
12 rewriting magic
narratives of my first encounters with John’s Book of Visions and his original Book of Figures, respectively. Chapters 2 and 5 zoom out to elaborate broader contexts that are meant to domesticate the contingencies of the language games in which the ars notoria and necromancy acquire their significance and mani- fest their rules of play. Chapters 3 and 6 offer close readings of crucial moments in John’s narrative, showing how John’s expertise in theology is crucially com- pounded of vision and prayer. These chapters highlight both the game and the game-changing qualities of John’s work, where the reader is invited to observe whole clouds of philosophy condensed into a few drops of grammar.Having not found the answer elsewhere to this poser and willing to let you do all the research, we ask: How did peanuts, a South American domesticated crop, make their way to Southeast Asia to become an integral part of that area's cuisine?
How do they salt peanuts while they are still in the shell? This mystery has been plaguing me for years and I just have to know.
Una replies:
Cecil sent all your questions to me, gang–seems I’m now the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board member in charge of dealing with nuts.
The peanut is a South American groundnut with an ancient history. We can’t be certain exactly when it was first used for food, but peanut shells have been found preserved at archeological sites dating as early as 2500 BC. I’ve seen the claim that “peanuts also have been found in pre-Columbian sites in Zhejiang province in China dating from between 2100 and 1811 BC” (reference 6), suggesting an early introduction to the Old World, but I didn’t find enough to corroborate that claim for now. What we can be fairly sure of is that peanuts were used as food in Peruvian settlements as early as 700-800 BC (reference 1), due to the presence of pots with carved peanut shell motifs in burial sites of the Moche people of Peru.
The earliest European exposure to the peanut most likely occurred when the Spanish arrived at Hispaniola in 1502, where the Arawak peoples knew of the food and called it "mani" (reference 2). The first printed Spanish account, from 1535, says, “They sow and harvest it. It is a very common crop... about the size of a pine nut in the shell. They consider it a healthy food.” It was also encountered by the Portuguese in Brazil, with records dating from the mid-16th century giving it the name "mandubi." Seeing its value as a food, both the Spanish and the Portuguese took it back to Europe with them.
There are four main varieties of peanut (Peruvian, Spanish, Valencia, and Virginia), each of which left South America by a different route. The Spanish variety is a climate-tolerant hybrid that came to Europe by way of Africa after the original transplant failed to thrive. According to reference 3, the variety we most commonly encounter in the United States (the Virginia variety) was taken by the Spanish to West Africa, and then soon traveled back to North America on both trade ships and slave ships. Peanuts of the Peruvian variety traveled to the Philippines on Spanish trade ships, then spread from there to China sometime prior to 1600. It’s thought that the peanut spread through the rest of eastern Asia overland from China, not directly as a result of Spanish trade, although it’s possible both routes were used. The peanut was probably introduced to the Indian subcontinent from Africa–in fact peanuts were once called the “Mozambique bean" (reference 4). Reputedly, the Portuguese brought the peanut to East Africa, so by extension the Portuguese are responsible for bringing it to parts of south and east Asia.
How are peanuts are salted in the shell? If you were expecting some fancy high-tech process involving nanobots or teleportation, I hope you won’t be disappointed to learn that peanuts are salted in the shell simply by soaking them in brine (a mixture of salt and water), then drying them by roasting, leaving a salt residue behind on the nut in the shell. Sometimes a vacuum is used to remove air from the batch before the brine is introduced, but even so the process is fairly basic.
What if you want the peanuts out of the shell? In a typical peanut processing facility, you start by removing foreign material (such as leaves, twigs, dirt, bugs, squirrels, even pieces of metal) with a series of screens, blowers, and magnets. The peanuts are then divided into different batches based on their size by passing them over screens–peanuts that are smaller than the holes fall through, while larger ones are carried to the next set of screens. This sizing is important, because peanuts are shelled by rolling them between large metal drums having a certain gap between them. You want the peanut to be large enough that the shell cracks open when it passes between the drums but not so large that the nut is crushed. Depending on the size and complexity of the operation, several sets of drums with different-sized gaps between them may be used.
Another way to shell peanuts is to use a drum with the peanuts inside it. This type of drum has ridges on its inner surface plus a rotating "beater" that beats against the peanuts, pushing the shells and nuts through holes and out of the drum. In effect, the shells are cracked in the drum, and the act of forcing them through the holes in the drum breaks the cracked shells away. Air jets are used in both types of process to blast the relatively light fragments of shell away from the nuts. Sometimes the nuts are sent on through shakers, other screens, and still more air jets to eliminate any remaining bits of shell.
After this step more screens or even electric eye sorters may be used to pick out undersized or broken pieces. While this is a fairly automated process, some small scale operations use hand-sorting, which seems to me a thankless job that just screams “repetitive stress injury." Me, I think I’ll stick to writing Staff Reports.
References
McGee, Harold, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 1984. Sauer, J.D., Historical Geography of Crop Plants–A Select Roster, 1993. Kaprovickas, A., "The Origin, Variability, and Spread of the Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea)," in The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, P.J. Ucko and J.W. Dimbleby, eds., 1969. "World Geography of the Peanut" website, lanra.anthro.uga.edu/peanut/knowledgebase/ US EPA, Compilation of Air Pollutant Emission Factors, AP-42, Fifth Edition, Volume I: Stationary Point and Area Sources, Section 9.10.2.2., Peanut Processing Marx, Robert F., and Jenifer G. Marx, In Quest of the Great White Gods, 1992.
Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.
Related
STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED.Tonight, live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nate Diaz will take on UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor for the second time this year. The slow burn of anticipation caught flames for many this week after a typical verbal spat between Diaz and McGregor boiled over into a bizarre scene that left officials and media members dodging water bottles, energy can drinks, and at least one Starbucks cup.
Though many will be tuning in just to see Diaz vs. McGregor 2 in the main-event, the pay-per-view card is stacked with four other contests that, based on the men involved, promise high-action. The co-main sees Anthony 'Rumble' Johnson clash with Glover Teixeira with a shot at UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier likely on the line. Before that, Rick Story takes on Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone, crowd-pleaser Hyun Gyu Lim welcomes Mike Perry, and Tim Means returns to the cage to face Sabah Homasi.
The four-fight preliminary card on Fox Sports 1 begins at 8:00PM ET. The FS1 featured prelim will see Cody Garbrandt looking to take the step from elite prospect to bona fide title-contender, when he takes on Japanese veteran Takeya Mizugaki. The FS1 card also includes Raquel Pennington vs. Elizabeth Phillips, Artem Lobov vs. Chris Avila, and Randa Markos vs. Cortney Casey.
As per usual the event kicks off with a trio of UFC Fight Pass early prelims. Tonight's offerings begin at 6:30PM ET. The Fight Pass featured prelim is an intriguing welterweight bout between Neil Magny and Lorenz Larkin. Before those men square off, Colby Covington will face Max Griffin, and Alberto Uda will fight Marvin Vettori.
Online
Television
Mobile
Those with Android or Apple devices can watch UFC 202 on apps available at the Google Play and iTunes stores.
Bars
If you're feeling social, you might visit one of the many restaurants and bars confirmed to be showing UFC 202. If you do this, don't forget to bookmark BloodyElbow.com on your phone for up-to-the-minute analysis and breaking news.
Readers outside the United States can check here for viewing options.A plane in China has been delayed after an old lady was caught throwing coins in the engine, supposedly for good luck.
On Tuesday, Flight CZ380 from Shanghai Pudong International Airport Guangzhou with 150 passengers on board was delayed after airport employees, alerted by her fellow passengers, caught an elderly woman throwing coins into the engine of the aircraft.
China Southern Flight 380 was delayed at Shanghai Pudong Int'l Airport on Tues after an elderly woman threw coins into the engine for luck.. pic.twitter.com/wSSWJg9bcE — Flight (@flightorg) June 27, 2017
Qiu Mu, 80, had apparently been praying for a safe and uneventful flight, but had she not been discovered, the coins may have been sucked into the engine core, causing considerable damage to moving parts and possibly even a catastrophic engine failure.
READ MORE: Snake on a plane: Venomous green viper spotted on board AeroMexico flight (VIDEO)
Police were called to the scene and the flight was delayed by nearly five hours as staff searched the engines, finding eight coins on the ground and another one in the engine itself.
The elderly passenger, who has no history of mental illness or a criminal record, and her family have been detained by airport security. Even though she did not cause any damage, she could still be held criminally responsible for causing delays which could result in a fine and detention for over five days.Brother of Beersheba attacker indicted
The public prosecution indicts Omar Alukabi, whose brother Muhanad Alukabi was killed carrying out a deadly terror attack last week in the Beersheba central bus station.
Omar Alukabi, 20, is accused at the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court of failing to prevent the attack by his brother, 21, who according to the prosecution had declared his intention to “liberate” the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and made anti-Semitic remarks.
The prosecution says the younger Alkubi also knew his brother was in possession of a gun.
The prosecution is asking the court to send Alkubi to jail for the remainder of the proceedings against him.
The attack on the bus station killed an IDF soldier, Sgt. Omri Levy, and wounded 11.
An Eritrean man, Haftom Zarhum, 29, died in the hospital after he was shot by a security guard who mistakenly identified him as a terrorist, and also beaten by an enraged mob.I know I always said desserts were not my thing and there was a time I swore I couldn’t bake to save my life. But times change and I have challenged myself again and again to get in the kitchen and learn how to make delicious desserts. It’s especially challenging because I make mostly gluten-free recipes and gluten-free baking sometimes feels like it requires a doctorate in baking sciences. But I did it and now it’s time to share some of what I’ve learned with you.
The “V” Word Cookbook: Vegan Desserts is a 62-page e-book filled with full-color photos for EVERY SINGLE recipe!
There are 31 recipes: 29 are gluten-free and the other 2 can certainly be made gluten-free just by swapping the type of flour used.
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Over half a dozen of the recipes have never before been posted on this blog or shared anywhere.
If you are a fan of The “V” Word and The “V” Word Cookbook e-books, then you already know that my recipes are clearly written and easy to follow. If I can make these desserts, so can you!
What kinds of desserts you ask? How about muffins, cakes, doughnuts, tarts, galettes, puddings, mousse, pies, truffles and so much more!!!
Take a look at these:
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(Visited 1,299 times, 1 visits today)Rand Paul, helping the real racists see the light.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
File this one under “stories hiding in plain sight.” Since 2007, one of the Ron Paul supporters most popular with the candidate’s grass roots has been Jack Hunter. Since 2011, Hunter has been Rand Paul’s co-author (he helped crank out The Tea Party Goes to Washington in a hurry) and a Paul social media director, showing up to events like the senator’s speech to black students at Howard University. And long before any of this, Hunter was “the Southern Avenger,” a radio personality with a name “borrowed from popular 90’s conservative talk radio host Ken “The Black Avenger” Hamblin.” You can read all about it at Hunter’s website, SouthernAvenger.com.
Yet this is the lede from Alana Goodman’s new piece about Hunter and Paul.
A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book, spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.
Well, yes—he’s called “the Southern Avenger”! Hunter declined to talk about the piece, as did Paul’s office. But the vibe I got from Paulworld was that this piece was received as a hit job, and that Hunter’s role on the staff and as a booster of the candidate would be unchanged.
That’s the Paul way. Nearly six years ago, as his donations were taking off, observant reporters noticed that Ron Paul was getting support from white nationalists. I spotted people reading Stormfront.org at Paul’s Ames Straw Poll tent, and FEC-watchers noticed that Paul had taken $500 from Stormfront’s avowedly white supremacist Don Black. By December of 2007, reporters were asking Paul why he didn’t give back the money. He said this:
Why give it back to him and use it for bad purposes?
And I don’t even know his name. I never heard of it. You know, when you get 57,000 donations a day, are we supposed to screen them and find out their beliefs? He sent the money for my beliefs. And if he promoting my viewpoints and my attitudes, why give it back to him if he has bad viewpoints?
And I don’t endorse anything that he endorses or what anybody endorses. They come to me to endorse freedom and the Constitution and limited government. So, I see no purpose for me to start screening everybody that sends me money. I mean, it is impossible to do it. It is a ridiculous idea that I am supposed to screen these people.
Hunter, obviously, is much closer to Rand Paul than Black was to Ron Paul, and joking about killing Lincoln is not the same as founding a site where people predict the date the race war will begin. But this generally summed up Paulworld’s take on the “associations” game. When Paul entered the 2010 race for Senate in Kentucky, I asked him whether his father’s darker associations would be a problem. He didn’t just disagree—he seemed offended by such a preposterous question.
He considers these questions preposterous because Paul knows he’s not a racist. He’s aware of, or confronted by, the argument that to blame federal power for racism is actually an excuse for racism. But like many conservatives, he finds the charge of “racism” to be terribly watered down by overuse. Why do white supremacists or Southern avengers like him so much? Well, they’re misled—lucky enough, they’ve found Paul-style libertarianism, and they will discover that color-blind politics is a far better use of their time.
This probably sounds crazy to Paulite outsiders, but it doesn’t to them. They don’t think the left, or neoconservatives, are in any position to tell them about racism.
UPDATE: Hunter’s friends are pointing to an article he wrote just a few months ago, which begins with the admission that “the 20-something me would consider the 30-something me a bleeding-heart liberal.” In other words, though he’s never pretended not to be pro-Southern, he’s moderated his views and done so before the heat was on. I should have made that clear earlier, and it’s another reason Paul will ignore the fulminations about his aide.By The Associated Press | Posted - Apr 8th, 2015 @ 8:06am
ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — A California woman who pleaded guilty to charges connected with "Bombshell Bandit" bank robberies in three states has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison.
Sandeep Kaur of Riverside was sentenced to 66 months at a court hearing in southern Utah Tuesday and ordered to repay thousands of dollars.
Prosecutors say the 24-year-old earned the nickname by threatening to set off bombs during robberies, though she also wore glamorous disguises of a wig and large sunglasses.
Kaur pleaded guilty in January to four charges connected to robberies last summer in Valencia, California; San Diego; Lake Havasu City, Arizona; and St. George, Utah.
Defense attorney Jay Winward has said Kaur wants to move forward, according to The Spectrum.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Related StoriesThe Chicago Blackhawks learned how to walk seven years ago when they reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time with their current core: center Jonathan Toews, right wing Patrick Kane and defensemen Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.
At this time of the year, coaches and players often will talk about how teams need to learn how to win in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It's the walk-before-you-run point of view.
The same four players are going to help the Blackhawks win their fourth Stanley Cup championship since 2010 because nobody knows how to do it better in the spring.
Chicago will be the first team to repeat as champions since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997-98.
The key is the health of goalie Corey Crawford, and signs point to him being good to go for the start of the playoffs. Provided he is, all the problem areas the Blackhawks seemed to be trying to fix throughout the season are solved.
They were struggling to fill out their top-six forward group for the first three-quarters of the season. Now they have a defined top-two lines, and depth on the third and fourth lines.
Andrew Ladd is fitting in with Toews and Marian Hossa on the top line the way general manager Stan Bowman envisioned he would when he acquired the left wing from the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 25.
Video: ARI@CHI: Ladd extends the lead with great deflection
Although it hit a slump a few weeks ago, the best line in the NHL this season is back. Patrick Kane, Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin create matchup problems no coach wants to deal with because of the skill on the wings and the size in the middle.
The Blackhawks' bottom-six forward group provides the necessary grit while also featuring some skill with Teuvo Teravainen, Andrew Shaw, Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann. Weise and Fleischmann, like Ladd, were acquired just before the 2016 NHL Trade Deadline.
The return of fourth-line center Marcus Kruger, who missed 41 games because of a wrist injury, is significant to Chicago's center depth. Kruger's presence allows Shaw to play on the wing.
Chicago again might have to rely on two defense pairs and minor contributions from the third, but that hasn't been a problem in the past.
Keith, who was suspended for the final five games of the regular season and Game 1 of the playoffs, will be healthy and rested. That's good because he again might have to play 30-plus minutes per game in the playoffs. He did it last season and won the Conn Smythe Trophy.
Seabrook might have to play more than 25 minutes per game, as he did last year in the playoffs.
Niklas Hjalmarsson is one of the most underrated defenseman in the NHL but all he's done is have another strong season as an all-around threat.
Don't discount what Trevor van Riemsdyk can do for Chicago in a top-four defense role. He's been in that position for most of the season and has looked at home.
Speaking of home, the Stanley Cup has found one in Chicago three times in the past six seasons. It will stay a while longer.Kaula Inc. and Atrris Corporation have formed a joint development of a usage record management system utilizing Factom’s blockchain solution
The initiative will retain record authenticity and tamper resistance to data processing of the Japanese social security system.
TOKYO, JAPAN (June 13, 2017) – Kaula Incorporated (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director, Katsuji Okamoto), a blockchain platformer, is pleased to announce that Kaula and Atrris Co., Ltd. (Head office: Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director, Masanori Yasumitsu), who has been developing personnel, payment, accounting and medical logistics systems, have agreed to jointly develop a “usage record management system” against data involved in the above applications using Factom blockchain. Using this system, you can retain authenticity and tamper resistance of log records generated when the Japanese social security system’s data is processed – when information is added, updated, deleted or retrieved in mission-critical applications. Kaula and Atrris will also jointly promote business around the usage record management system.
Background of Collaboration
Recently, blockchain technology has received attention because of its great potential to drastically change the way we do business and the impact it will have on society. Blockchain has become the solution requested to achieve record authenticity or tamper resistance against processed results in mission-critical applications that Atrris develops. Kaula and Atrris have been investigating ways to conquer this requirement, where they use their knowledge combined with Factom’s blockchain technology, a data layer blockchain product, for use cases that office staff of local government access data of the Japanese social security number system. Now that Kaula and Atrris have completed a PoC (Proof of Concept) and confirmed that their jointly developed usage record management system can retain log record authenticity or tamper resistance, both companies will proceed to a next step of experimental proof with their customers, and then will apply the system to business applications.
In addition, by using Factom you can more securely and surely manage, track and audit various kinds of documents or records such as log records in general, loan records, securities or insurance contracts and medical data and others in a decentralized way than legacy centralized systems. Kaula and Atrris will widely and jointly promote the usage record management system to these business areas.
Note: Factom is a blockchain framework developed and provided by Factom, Inc. whose head office is located in Austin, TX, USA. Factom is on a mission to give the world’s systems authenticity. People and institutions today can solve hard problems and change the world for the better when they have a reliable framework to build upon. Factom frees up dead capital, which allows companies to grow and helps people to better utilization of social capital.
About Atrris Corporation
Through many experiences of directly meeting customer needs along with customers’ business analysis and development of their applications for 20 years, Atrris developed and accumulated its proprietary business analysis know-how, provides business analysis consulting, develops mission-critical applications for various kinds of business sectors and supplies supporting services to build an enterprise system that includes infrastructure design around the system as well as business system design.
About Kaula, Inc.
Now that disruptive innovation is required, management team with extensive experiences in wide-ranging business and talented young people gathered and founded a company in January 2017 to support corporate reform with new solutions. Based on blockchain technology, Kaula develops services in the field of record management, IoT and other applications as a breakthrough platformer that reforms life and industrial structure as well as companies’. Kaula also adds AI technology to its solutions in order to improve effectiveness of blockchain-based applications.
●For more information, please contact
Hiroyasu NOHATA
Email : info @ kaula.jp
●Press Release PDF
→ English
→ Japanese(CNN) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the United States, says the church has strong measures in place to prevent the sexual abuse of scouts, as claims have been made it hasn't done enough.
In the first interview about allegations of abuse in Mormon church-sponsored scouting troops, Church Elder L. Whitney Clayton told CNN that the church is at the forefront for prevention of child abuse.
"We feel like there is really no other organization that we know of -- a church or something like a church -- that does as much as we do," Clayton said. "We have a zero tolerance policy or position with respect to child abuse, and we train our people, we teach our people, we work with leaders, we provide materials online and in hard copy."
Over several months, CNN examined allegations of abuse that were detailed in at least five lawsuits filed against the church and the scouts.
But Clayton said the church today is proactive, even constructing its buildings "in such a way as to try to avoid any situation where child abuse could occur."
"For instance, if you walk down the hallway in an LDS chapel, a Mormon church, and look at the Sunday school classes, you're going to see windows in the doorways into those Sunday school classes so people can look inside and walk by," he said.
The interview with Clayton followed a CNN investigation into the case of Melvin Novak, who was sexually abused by his scoutmaster, a member of the Mormon Church, beginning when he was 14 years old in 1998, according to the lawsuit Novak filed against the church and the Boy Scouts of America.
The scoutmaster, Vance Hein, had been forced in resign from scouting in the early 1990s after reports surfaced that he failed to report a fellow scoutmaster who was engaged in homosexual activities. That scoutmaster ended up going to prison for sexual assaults on minors.
Hein's name was added to the Boy Scouts of America's ineligible volunteer files, which are widely known as the "perversion files." The documents, which were made public in 2012, are lists of scout leaders suspected of sexual abuse or homosexual activity.
However, three years after being kicked out of scouting, Hein was allowed to rejoin the scouts after getting letters of recommendation attesting to his character. One of those letters was from Hein's influential Mormon Bishop Jack Moyer, who wrote that Hein was "highly respected and liked."
Moyer, who is now retired, declined to speak to CNN. But in a deposition taken as part of the lawsuit last year, he acknowledged that he would not have written the letter knowing what he later found out about Hein.
Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers Boy Scouts of America is an organization that says it is focused on mentoring young men and helping them develop life skills. Here's a look at BSA by the numbers. (Source: Boy Scouts of America) Hide Caption 1 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 105: The number of years since Boy Scouts of America was incorporated. Membership topped 20 million by 1952. Hide Caption 2 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 2.6 million: The number of youth members as of May 2014. BSA also boasts more than 1 million adult volunteers. Hide Caption 3 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 437,160: The number of youth members in units chartered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the most of any faith-based organization. As of 2013, the United Methodist Church had the second-strongest membership, followed by the Catholic Church. Hide Caption 4 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 181: The number of NASA astronauts that participated in Scouting. Neil Armstrong was an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the program. Hide Caption 5 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 191: Number of lawmakers in the 113th Congress that participated in Boy Scouts. Eighteen governors were Scouts or Scout volunteers as of April 2013. Hide Caption 6 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 19: The number of presidents that have served as honorary president of Boy Scouts of America. (That's every president since BSA was founded.) Hide Caption 7 of 8 Photos: Boy Scouts by the numbers 161: The number of countries with Boy Scout organizations, as of 2010. Hide Caption 8 of 8
The lawsuit charged that Hein "actively groomed young boys under his charge for later sexual molestation." Hein eventually was convicted of molesting Novak. He is now in prison for violating probation in the Novak case.
Ken Rothweiler, who is Novak's lawyer, said what happened in the case is outrageous.
"This case is probably the most egregious of all of the cases against the LDS church, and the reason I say that is because the LDS church knew that Vance Hein, this pedophile, was already kicked out of scouting by the Boy Scouts of America," Rothweiler said.
However, church attorney David Pittinsky said it was the Boy Scouts organization that should have done something.
"If the Boy Scouts had disclosed to Bishop Moyer the information they had in their files, there is no way that Vance Hein would have ever become a scoutmaster, and he would have been subject to excommunication by the church," Pittinsky said.
In a statement to CNN, the Boy Scouts of America said Hein was removed from scouting "for reasons unrelated to child abuse." The group added, "Our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate or wrong. We extend our deepest apologies to victims and their families."
The case ended last year with a confidential settlement paid to Novak, who is now 31. All but one of the five lawsuits filed against the church and Boy Scouts of America have been settled.
No child, no youth should ever have to go through that. Church Elder L. Whitney Clayton
Hein was sentenced to probation in 2000 after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting Novak. While on probation, he was arrested for possession of child pornography and was sentenced in 2012 to 15 to 30 years in prison.
"Any case is alarming to me. It's a tragedy," Clayton said. "I'm a father. I have seven children, four boys and three girls. I have 19 grandchildren. The thought of one of them as a child or youth being abused is absolutely horrific to me."
Asked what he would say to Novak, Clayton said, "I say to him and anyone else who has been abused in the church or other churches -- I'm sorry that you've gone through what you've gone through. It's a horrible thing for anyone to be abused. No child, no youth should ever have to go through that."Daily Challenge
Do 100 200 Push-Ups. Acquaint yourself with your finances. Record where your time goes.
My Finances
I’ve been fortunate with my finances. I eliminated nearly all my debt about 10 years ago and have managed to keep it off. The only loan I have on my books right now is our home mortgage. We both make good money and I’m able to stuff a substantial amount into savings. I also get a retirement check and cheap health care from the Army. It is not a lot, but it is enough to survive at the poverty level should it ever come to that. My savings isn’t quite where I want it yet, but with both kids now out of college, I have a lot more extra cash to play catch up with.
I refied the mortgage about three years ago shortly after the remodel. It was a good decision. It’s now on a 15 year loan and with the extra equity from the remodel, I was able to eliminate the mortgage insurance and get a much better interest rate, resulting in my monthly payment actually going down a few bucks.
I run 99% of all my purchases through my credit card. This way I can track exactly what I’m spending and I also get the 1 1/2% cash back. You just have to have the discipline to pay it off each month. Even with an 800+ credit score, the interest rate on my card is 8.5% and it can add up quick.
I don’t hold myself to a hard fast budget. I do check my accounts every weekday and download my expenditures into Quicken. If the card is starting to look high, I reign things in and curtail the spending.
As far as savings, my goal is to have a 6 month CD ladder with $9K in each CD to act as an emergency fund. I’m currently at 65% of that. I want to have at least $1,000,000 saved up between my 401K, the wife’s IRA, and other investment accounts by age 60. I’m currently at 15% of that goal. At my current rate of savings and expected ROI, I am going to fall short of that goal by about $100K so I need to take some time to do some math and tweak my plan.
According to Quicken, this is what my spending year to date looks like:
30% Savings / Investments / Retirement 21% Mortgage 12% Travel 8% Eating Out 6% Utilities 4% Groceries 4% Personal Care, Health, & Fitness 3% Shopping 3% Home Goods / Improvements 2% Entertainment 2% Pet Care / Grooming 5% Misc and categories totaling < 1%
There was a time we would go shopping and buy stuff we really didn’t need just to satisfy some primal urge to hunt and gather. I have largely eliminated that waste and instead refocused spending money on experiences, hence the sizable travel |
One of the fascinating indicators is a report of a commission on inclusive prosperity organized and released in January by the Center for American Progress (CAP). The report, co-authored by Larry Summers (!), sounds more like something Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute or Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz might have written.
Among other things, the report calls for much more public investment, more help for trade union organizing, full employment, disdain for fiscal austerity, taxation of the rich, and lots of other good stuff usually associated with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
It's possible that Summers has had some kind of conversion experience, after a rendezvous with economic realities—and God bless him. It's also possible, and likely, that the CAP-sponsored manifesto is part of the remaking of Hillary as a more populist candidate.
The founder and longtime leader of CAP is John Podesta, who has had senior positions in both the Clinton and Obama White House, and who is expected to be a top campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton. The current head of CAP is Neera Tanden, a longtime intimate of Hillary Clinton.
In short, CAP is the think-tank of the Hillary Clinton presidency-in-waiting. Podesta is also the bridge between the Clinton campaign and the somewhat bolder policies that President Obama is starting to tee up right now, as in his State of the Union Address.
Last year, CAP created a spinoff called the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, headed by Heather Boushey, a quite progressive economist and alumna of EPI. CAP also put out an excellent report last fall whose lead author was economist Robert Pollin, on the connection between the green transition, public investment, and wage-led recovery. Pollin, who heads the Popular Economics Research Institute at UMass Amherst, is also well to the left of the Clinton Wall Street crowd.
It's heartening that these products are bolder than one might have expected. But they may not be enough to engage the voters that the recovery has so far failed to reach—voters Clinton will likely need in 2016.
These are voters that support Democrats when they turn out—but who often stay home. They include the young, the poor, racial minorities, and single women. All of these groups had dramatic falloff in their turnout in the 2014 midterms, relative to the presidential elections of 2008 (hope and change!) and 2012 (anybody but Romney).
So while it's good that Clinton is positioning herself as more of a progressive, I think she needs to be even more radical, both to generate real enthusiasm and to address America's real problems.
Here are five ideas:
1. A Student Debt Jubilee
The millennial generation is the economically stymied generation.
There are lots of modest proposals out there, including some enacted by the Obama administration that cut interest rates on many loans.
But this is the generation that has substantially given up on politics as something that could change their lives for the better. A very substantial write-off of all outstanding debts could surely get their attention. It would put money in the pockets of young adults, and would be a hell of an economic stimulus.
Here's the most radical part—shift part of the outstanding student debt to the overall national debt. That's what we'd do in a war—and America seems to have declared war on its young.
All the jabbering about the debt being too high already is malarkey. What better use of the public debt than to give the next generation a chance at the American Dream?
This proposal would have the added benefit of distancing Clinton from the Bowles-Simpson-Peterson crowd of fiscal scolds, who briefly invaded the brain of Barack Obama and helped depress both the economy and his presidency. (Product Label Warning: Robert Rubin, a big backer of budget austerity, is both very close to Clinton and a sponsor of CAP. This gives you an idea of the obstacles to Clinton doing more than a cosmetic repositioning.)
2. An Alaska-Style Citizen Dividend
Alaska, a state of rugged individualists not famous for left-wingers, has pioneered a model of extractive socialism that should be taken national.
Thanks to a renegade Republican governor back in the 1970s named Jay Hammond, when they struck oil on Alaska's north slope they didn't just give it to the oil companies, but treated it as a resource owned by all Alaskans (imagine that). So under the deal Hammond and the legislature cut with the oil giants, each year every Alaskan man, woman and child gets a share of the oil revenue.
Last year, the check was $1,884 for every man, woman, and child. In some native Alaskan communities, it was the largest source of cash income. Even Saran Palin supports it—she can see the checks from her window. Efforts by the oil companies to roll it back keep being defeated.
My friend Peter Barnes suggests a similar citizen dividend not just for minerals but for any privatization of something taken from the commons—whether publicly subsidized knowledge such as the Internet or energy company profits. You should read his book—better yet, Hillary should.
3. Mandatory Vacations, Paid Sick Leave and Family Leave
America is one of the few countries with no national policy on vacation days or paid leave. If your boss doesn't provide vacation, or has no compassion for a sick child, tough luck.
In an interview last year Clinton said she supported paid family leave in principle, but added that she didn't think the time was ripe politically.
Last week, Clinton said she supports Philadelphia's new paid leave law. And in the budget jousting, 16 Republican senators broke ranks to back Sen. Patty Murray's amendment mandating paid sick leave (every Republican presidential candidate opposed it).
Clinton should stop sniffing around this movement and become its national leader. And the laws should cover not just payroll employees, but temps, part-timers, contract workers and those in a worker-employer never-never land such as Uber drivers.
4. True Universal Pre-K and Child Care
Ever since Richard Nixon vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971, pandering to the cultural right with dark mutterings about a "communal approach to child-rearing," with "family-weakening implications," progress towards pre-kindergarten and childcare for older children has been sporadic and patchwork.
A few states and cities have broadly available pre-K and there is Head Start for some children living in poverty, but hardly any offer universal tax-supported early childhood and childcare programs on the model of public kindergarten. It's time.
How to fund this stuff? Tax the rich. They can afford it, and nothing would so well establish Clinton as friend of working people.
5. A $15 Minimum Wage
In 2014, popular referenda mandating a higher minimum wage passed in four red states. They were so popular with voters that Republican governors didn't even bother opposing the idea.
All of these approaches benefit regular people in more than token ways, break with Wall Street, and embarrass Republicans. It would be good if Clinton also supported a big expansion of Social Security, as Elizabeth Warren has proposed, and if she broke with Wall Street Democrats on pending trade deals that do nothing for working people.
Is Clinton likely to embrace any such ideas? She's dipped her toe into the water on paid leave and pre-K. The others may be too radical.
It would be smart for Clinton to define herself as a true progressive early on, before her enemies define her. Let the opposition take shots at her for bold, expansive policies that help regular citizens and demand progressive taxation to pay for them—and not for her emails.Her Choice, Her Problem: How Legalized Abortion Empowers Men Over Women
by Richard Stith
September 18, 2009
LifeNews.com Note: Richard Stith is a professor of law at Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana.
This summer, President Obama proclaimed again that we need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn’t end at conception. In a sense, of course, he is absolutely right. But the problem is that, in another sense, he is completely wrong: Male responsibility really does end at conception.
Men these days can choose only sex, not fatherhood; mothers alone determine whether children shall be allowed to exist. Legalized abortion was supposed to grant enormous freedom to women, but it has had the perverse result of freeing men and trapping women.
The likelihood of this cultural development was foreseen by the radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon, one of the critical voices responding to Roe v. Wades extension of the right of privacy to cover abortion. In an essay called Privacy vs. Equality, MacKinnon argued that abortions proponents and opponents share a tacit assumption that women do significantly control sex. Feminist investigations suggest otherwise. Sexual intercourse... cannot simply be presumed coequally determined. Indeed, she added, men control sexuality, and Roe does not contradict this.
Abortion facilitates womens heterosexual availability, MacKinnon pointed out: In other words, under conditions of gender inequality [abortion] does not liberate women; it frees male sexual aggression. The availability of abortion removes the one remaining legitimized reason that women have had for refusing sex besides the headache. Perhaps that is why, she observed, the Playboy Foundation has supported abortion rights from day one. In the end, MacKinnon pronounced, Roes right to privacy looks like an injury got up as a gift, for virtually every ounce of control that women won from legalized abortion has gone directly into the hands of men.
At the time, MacKinnon’s work may have seemed little more than a curiosity on the left, but, as the years have passed, some of the essays claims have proved prescient. I recall a law student who would admit when pressed, I’m in favor of keeping abortion legal because I don’t like using condoms. Since abortion could now come between conception and birth, he saw no benefit to missing any portion of sexual pleasure, even though it imposed a risk of surgery on his partner. He may have assumed a rational partner would choose abortion either freely or under pressure. With less deliberate callousness, under the influence of passion almost any male may think quite simply: At least theres a way out if the unlikely happens and pregnancy occurs.
I’ve also met a clever female undergraduate student living with her boyfriend, who thought she had solved this problem. When I asked whether she was for or against abortion, she answered: I’m pro-choice, but you can bet I tell him I’m pro-life! She reasoned that, in light of her warning, he would be careful not to fool around in ways that could lead to pregnancy.
Such a lie may not provide protection for every young woman in her situation, however. If she says she is pro-life so that he thinks abortion is not an option for her, he might decide to keep her from getting pregnant by leaving her for someone more open to abortion, a woman who doesn’t insist on his using a condom. That is, the presence in the sexual marketplace of women willing to have an abortion reduces an individual womans bargaining power. As a result, in order not to lose her guy, she may be pressured into doing precisely what she doesn’t want to do: have unprotected sex, then an unwanted pregnancy, then the abortion she had all along been trying to avoid. Even though her abortion in this case is not literally forced, it would be, in an important sense, imposed on her. And, far from alleviating her overall situation, it would merely return her to the same sexual pressures, made worse by a new assurance to her boyfriend that she is willing to take care of a pregnancy.
Perhaps it was difficult to foresee such cultural trends back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court. But they simply track the inner logic of choice and the market. Economists have shown that such scenarios have in fact become common since abortion was legalized in the United States. Easy access to abortion has increased the expectation and frequency of sexual intercourse (including unprotected intercourse) among young people, making it more difficult for a woman to deny herself to a man without losing him, thus increasing pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. (See, for instance, Jonathan Klick and Thomas Stratmanns 2003 study, The Effect of Abortion Legalization on Sexual Behavior, in the Journal of Legal Studies.)
Furthermore, if a woman attempts to choose birth instead of abortion, she may well find the childs father pushing the other way. Her boyfriends fear of fatherhood would once have been focused on intercourse itself and could have led him either to be careful to avoid conception or else (overcoming that fear) to commit himself beforehand to equal responsibility for the child. His fear now will turn to getting her to choose abortion. One investigator, Vincent M. Rue, reported in the Medical Science Monitor, that 64 percent of American women who abort feel pressed to do so by others. Another, Frederica Mathewes-Green in her book Real Choices, discovered that American women almost always abort to satisfy the desires of people who do not want to care for their children.
Catherine MacKinnon seemed to suggest that abortion leads to greater male sexual aggression only under conditions of gender inequality, which implies more equality for women could reduce the male exploitation caused by Roe v. Wade. That makes sense in theory. To the degree that individual women are economically, educationally, and in other ways empowered, they should be more able to stand up to male pressures to have unwanted sex (and to have unwanted abortions in order to give the guys still more unwanted sex).
But counteracting the negative forces of sexual competition is difficult. Even if women were universally to agree to refuse sex without condoms, for example, enforcement of this agreement in such an intimate sphere would be nearly impossible. Women would always be tempted to increase their individual sexual competitiveness by consenting to sex without a condom, while relying on abortion as a backup, thus causing female solidarity and power to collapse. Only women strong enough to forgo boyfriends altogether might be likely in the end to resist.
Furthermore, if MacKinnon is right, wherever women have not yet overcome gender inequality, involuntary sex and involuntary abortion will tend to be more frequent, precisely as a result of abortions availability. To the degree that a culture is built on machismo, for example, the legalization of abortion will make women relatively worse off by giving men another tool to manipulate women as sex objects. Again, to the degree that an economy employs mainly men, leaving women dependent on economic handouts, women will be much less likely to resist male pressures to make use of abortion. Wherever men make womens decisions for them, the option of abortion will be a mans choice, regardless of how the law may label it.
Human-rights activists in developing nations must learn to consider this fact. In those countries, only a thin, elite layer of truly independent and powerful women may be relatively unharmed by the availability of abortion, because only for them is the abortion option more nearly their own. Proclaiming a right to abortion in developing countries may mean just adopting the viewpoint of these well-to-do professionalswhich ought to be no surprise. Those elites are often the only voices for women heard in the transnational political arenas where abortion is debated.
Moreover, the availability of abortion may make all societies less open to empowering women in other ways. MacKinnon may well be right that stronger women would more often resist male pressures to risk pregnancies and have abortions. But, perhaps paradoxically, the option of abortion actually makes sympathy and solidarityand thus womens empowermentless likely.
When birth was the result of passion and bad luck, some people could sympathize with a young woman who was going to need help with her baby, though the stigma of bastardry was genuine. If money or a larger place to live were going to be necessary for her to stay in school, a sense of solidarity would likely lead friends and family to offer assistance. The father would feel strong pressure as well, for he was as responsible as she for the child. He might offer to get a second job or otherwise shoulder some of the burdens of parenting.
But once continuing a pregnancy to birth is the result neither of passion nor of luck but only of her deliberate choice, sympathy weakens. After all, the pregnant woman can avoid all her problems by choosing abortion. So if she decides to take those difficulties on, she must think she can handle them.
Birth itself may be followed by blame rather than support. Since only the mother has the right to decide whether to let the child be born, the father may easily conclude that she bears sole responsibility for caring for the child. The baby is her fault.
It may also seem unfair to him that she could escape motherhood (by being legally allowed to prevent birth), while he is denied any way to escape fatherhood (by still being legally required to pay child support). If consenting to sex does not entail consenting to act as a mother, why should it entail consenting to act as a father? Paternity support in this context appears unjust, and he may resist compliance with his legal duties.
Prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States, it was commonly understood that a man should offer a woman marriage in case of pregnancy, and many did so. But with the legalization of abortion, men started to feel that they were not responsible for the birth of children and consequently not under any obligation to marry. In gaining the option of abortion, many women have lost the option of marriage. Liberal abortion laws have thus considerably increased the number of families headed by a single mother, resulting in what some economists call the feminization of poverty.
The mother is even worse off if, during pregnancy, tests show that the child will have a disability: Doctors often press for abortion, in order to be sure that she does not later blame and sue them for the costs of raising her child. Some have suggested that health-care plans should provide no postbirth coverage for a handicapped child whose mother refuses a paid abortion. If she does not abort, after all, she will be causally responsible for the costs and the alleged burdens that the child brings. Even her friends and neighbors may make her feel ashamed for not choosing to abort her child.
Employers may likewise react negatively to maternal needs where abortion has been available. If they (or the state) pay for abortions, they may feel less obligated to shape labor practices to the needs of mothers. If maternity causes problems with work routines or job schedules, the employer may well consider these to be private or personal problems that female employees brought on themselves. The availability of abortion makes womens claims for better working conditions lose a measure of legitimacy.
Throughout human history, children have been the consequence of natural sexual relations between men and women. Both sexes knew they were equally responsible for their children, and society had somehow to facilitate their upbringing. Even the advent of birth control did not fundamentally change this dynamic, for all forms of contraception are fallible.
Elective abortion changes everything. Abortion absolutely prevents the birth of a child. A womans choice for or against abortion breaks the causal link between conception and birth. It matters little what or who caused conception or whether the male insisted on having unprotected intercourse. It is she alone who finally decides whether the child comes into the world. She is the responsible one. For the first time in history, the father and the doctor and the health-insurance actuary can point a finger at her as the person who allowed an inconvenient human being to come into the world.
The deepest tragedy may be that there is no way out. By granting to the pregnant woman an unrestrained choice over who will be born, we make her alone to blame for how she exercises her power. Nothing can alter the solidarity-shattering impact of the abortion option.
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Trident, the chewing gum company, sponsored the survey, which asked people in large cities to share information about having fun in their home towns.
Questions included how many days a week responders have fun and how expensive it is to have fun in their city.
Atlanta came out on top as the No. 1 fun city, beating out even New York City.
View Photo Gallery: A new day in Washington often means another absurd, painfully accurate and always entertaining superlative for us pops up in the news. Ugliest? Check. Highly caffeinated? You know it. The latest: D.C. is really fun. Read on for more examples of what the rest of the country thinks we are.
According to Trident, “fun” can be defined by something as simple as listening to a good song or receiving a message from a friend.
Despite the simplicity of the company’s suggestions, a whopping 19 percent of respondents said they can’t remember the last time they had a good time.
In an effort to change that, Trident is launching a Facebook campaign that analyzes people’s friends and photos to determine how much fun they’re having. Take the “Fun Audit” here.
America’s top 10 fun cities:
1. Atlanta
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. San Francisco
5. Dallas
6. Los Angeles
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Boston
9. Houston
10. Philadelphia
More D.C. superlatives:
Second-fittest city
No. 1 nationwide for traffic congestion
Sixth least-attractive city
Third-rudest city
Sixth most-caffeinated city
42nd manliest city
Sixth most hipster region
Most literate city
Happiest single ladies
Singles are nation’s biggest boozers
One of nation’s least stressed-out citiesThe Bruins looked slightly better today, but still could not put together a sixty minute effort. To be fair, it was very close, but Daniel Brière scored with.4 seconds left in the game to propel the Avalanche to victory. The Bruins fell apart defensively with Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton not on the ice, something that has become a theme in this young season.
I’m going to break down why the personnel was on the ice, and then a line by line breakdown of the play.
Heres the shift chart for the defenseman in the last ten minutes of the game.
Within the last 5 minutes, the pairing of Bartkowski and Seidenberg played a combined total of 21 seconds leading up to that goal (from 4:57 to 4:36 left in the game). They were rested. Refreshed.
Chara and Hamilton had just come off of a 48 second shift, and needed rest. As much as we would like to have that pairing play the full 60 minutes – They cant.
The forward line out there: Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, Reilly Smith – Basically the best thing Bruins fans could have hoped for on that front. One of the best defensive lines in hockey out to try to run out the clock.
Heres the play in question:
The Breakdown:
:08 – :10 – Matt Bartkowski sees Brad Marchand alone along the hashmarks that Brière and Seidenberg just vacated, and rims the puck around to Marchand.
:10 – :13 – Marchand stands still looking for a pass, being shadow guarded by Nathan MacKinnon
:13 – :15 – Marchand passes the puck a good five to ten feet in front of a streaking Bergeron, and the pass is broken up by Brad Stuart
:15 – :19 – Reilly Smith lazily swipes at the puck, and all of the Bruins are going the wrong way. Alex Tanguay takes the pass from MacKinnon and enters the zone. 30 seconds left in the game.
:19 – :21 – Tanguay threads the needle between the stick and feet of Seidenberg, right before the back checking Marchand can get a stick on the puck.
:21 – 22 – MacKinnon moves in and gets a nice chance on Niklas Svedberg.
:22 – :27 – Scrum in front, puck ends up in the corner on MacKinnon’s stick. 22 seconds left in the game.
I’m going to skip forward to :38 into the video, with 10 seconds left in the game. The twelve seconds in between are relatively inconsequential to the end result – the Bruins lose some board battles and cant seem to clear the puck.
:38 – :43 – Nathan MacKinnon shields the puck from Seidenberg, and then beats both Bergeron and Seidenberg in a battle for the puck. 5 seconds left in the game.
:43 – :45 – Dennis Seidenberg turns to find his man, looks at the one right next to the net uncovered, and then proceeds to split the difference between MacKinnon and Brière, effectively covering none of them.
:45 – :46 – All three Bruins forwards form in a line within ten feet of each other, and Bergeron and Marchand could have hugged each other. All three are above the top of the face off circles. Two seconds left.
:46 – :48 – Jan Hejda’s shot gets through the mess of bodies, Svedberg makes the initial save but throws the rebound out in front where neither Seidenberg nor Bartkowski can get to it..4 seconds left.
:49 – Brière scores. Game over.
Who’s to blame?
You can assign some blame to everyone on this play, though some warrant it more than others.
Svedberg: Deserves blame the least on this play, but he could have tried to steer the puck to the corner instead of back out in front, but I don’t know if he saw the puck all the way or it was a positional save. He had to have known a shot was coming with less than five seconds to go in the period.
Seidenberg: Got caught in no mans land after looking directly at the goal scorer standing to the side of Svedberg. The fact that he was nowhere in sight towards the end of the video. If he moved to the front and covered Brière, he would have been in good position if MacKinnon got the puck in the corner and had to come at him.
Bartkowski: At least you had a man. Granted, it was the wrong one, and you too got caught puck watching, and drifted out with Alex Tanguay towards the high slot, leaving Brière alone in front.
Marchand: You failed to get the puck deep, and missed on a pass that you had two to three seconds to make. Then you got sucked over to the side where the puck was, leading to having all three Bruins forwards on one side of the ice, above the faceoff circle.
Bergeron: You’re coming off of two Selkes in three years. You know you shouldn’t have all three forwards above the face off dots.
Smith: Weak swipe of the puck and a nice wide curl in the neutral zone instead of stopping and starting, and then being in that jumble of bodies near where Hejda shot from, you can’t be as grouped up as that.
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In this Article:Article SummarySlicing an OnionChopping, Dicing, or Mincing an OnionCutting Onion RingsCutting an Onion into QuartersCommunity Q&A25 References
Whether you want to slice, dice, or cut your onion into rings, cutting an onion is easy! Once you know the basics, you’ll find yourself feeling more confident about trying all sorts of recipes!Codi Wilson, CP24.com
A Toronto parents’ group has launched a petition demanding that the province’s Catholic teachers’ union back out of the World Pride Parade in Toronto this summer.
On the website for Parents As First Educators (PAFE), the group says the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) has announced plans to march in the World Pride Parade to “show its support for Gay-Straight Alliances and its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirited and queer (LGBTTQ) members.”
In a news release sent out on Easter Monday, PAFE’s president Teresa Pierre claims the June 29 event is “inconsistent with what the Church teaches about homosexuality,” and is urging Catholic voters to sign the petition, which will be sent to Catholic school board trustees.
Pierre said the school board must “step up” to stop the union’s participation because the parade “breaks nudity laws and participants promote homosexual activity, instead of sex in marriage, and simulates extreme behaviour like sado-masochism, which demeans the roles of men and women in loving relationships.”
Pierre also referenced the recent complaints of Toronto District School Board trustees about nudity in the parade.
Representatives from the OECTA could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday night.There’s this guy who grew up a middle-class Average Joe and wound up owning a pro sports team. He has more money than Oprah — and better people skills, too.
The team was a loser for years, so the guy came in knowing he’d have to open his wallet for flashy players and a new arena. Plus, he’s in a football-mad town, so he has to persuade folks to tune out the NFL for a minute and give his team a look.
Is this mystery man Jim Balsillie⢠Kevin McClatchy?
Not quite.
The hero of this riches-to-even bigger riches story is Mark Cuban, the Pittsburgh-born owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
On Wednesday night, the Mavs will play a preseason game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Mellon Arena.
In January 2000, Cuban bought the Mavericks for $285 million from Ross Perot Jr. Until the sale went down, the Mavs had about as much chance of snatching the NBA title as Perot’s dad did of winning the White House.
Since then, the team has won 70 percent of its regular-season games, moved into a glitzy, high-tech arena, and made it to the NBA Finals for the first time.
Forbes magazine estimates the franchise’s value at $403 million, fifth-highest in the NBA.
“I didn’t have specific goals,” Cuban said. “I went in hoping I could apply what had worked for me in other businesses to the Mavs. I guess my only preconceived notion was that I wouldn’t care if I got criticized for my approach.”
Talk of the town
Cuban pampers his players, outfitting every locker with a PlayStation 2, DVD player and big, fluffy towels. He energizes fans by sitting among them, pumping his fists and cheering wildly.
Sometimes, Cuban’s cheers go a bit over the top. He has fattened the NBA’s coffers by ripping referees and paying nearly $1.5 million in fines — an amount he has matched with charitable donations.
“Mark Cuban supports the team like no other owner you see in the NBA — and in professional sports, for that matter,” Mavericks forward Doug Christie said.
The Cowboys still rule the sports market in Dallas, and they always will, but Cuban has made the Mavericks a strong second.
“When Mark came in, his enthusiasm became infectious,” said Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery. “You could feel a palpable change in the attitude of the team, the coaches and the city. All of the sudden, people were talking about us.”
The mop-topped billionaire and his surging team are a hot topic at the office water cooler, on call-in radio shows and, especially, on the Internet.
Cuban’s online blog (blogmaverick.com) is a free-flowing mix of tech news and pro-Mavs bravado, and it gets about 2 million hits a month. He is the first, and only, pro sports owner with such an interactive Web site.
“I don’t hear much about it from other owners, but the league reads it,” Cuban said. “I know because they have fined me over it. My little blog threatens them, I guess.”
Through his blog, Cuban gets more than a thousand e-mails a day (not including spam), everything from media queries to fans complaining about cold hot dogs at American Airlines Center.
He replies personally to as much e-mail as he can. And if the angry fan has a legit gripe, Cuban will forward the e-mail to another front-office employee with a “fix this” memo.
“The passion you see from him (at the games) is the same passion he applies to business,” Ussery said. “He pushes us hard. It’s a 24/7 mission.”
Cuban sweats the small stuff, right down to the in-game entertainment. He often comes up with ideas for skits flashed on the video scoreboard, such as one last season that used Mavs guard Avery Johnson in a spoof of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
“I look for anything that makes the game more fun and a better value for fans,” Cuban said. “Not every game will be great, but every game can be a blast to go to.”
When the NBA switched to a new, synthetic basketball this year and players began complaining, Cuban took notice. He fired a late-night e-mail to Ussery, telling him to ask two University of Texas physicists to examine the differences between the composite and old-style leather balls.
Road to riches
“Mark was always the type of guy who was never afraid to take risks or do something different,” said Todd Reidbord, president of Shadyside-based Walnut Capital and one of Cuban’s friends from Mt. Lebanon High School.
“It was never ‘conventional wisdom’ with Mark. He never worried about what other people thought about what he was doing. We always said he would either be very, very successful or, well, you know.”
Before he even reached his teenage years, Cuban was cooking up ways to make money. He hawked powdered milk and garbage bags. He sliced cold cuts in a deli. During a newspaper strike in Pittsburgh, he brought in papers from Cleveland to sell.
Cuban once set up a chain letter, which paid for one semester’s tuition at Indiana University. He gave disco lessons to sorority girls for $25 an hour.
In 1981, while wrapping up his bachelor’s degree in business, Cuban opened a pub in Bloomington, Ind., called Motley’s. It quickly became a popular hangout for both students and professors.
“It was definitely the best bar in town,” said Wayne Winston, who taught Cuban a statistics course at Indiana. “I don’t think I’ve had a student since who’s started a business while they were in school.”
After college, Cuban moved to Dallas and started a computer consulting firm — even though he never had any formal computer training. In 1991, Cuban sold the company to CompuServe and became a millionaire. He was 31 years old.
Five years later, upset that he could not listen to Hoosiers basketball games on the radio in Texas, Cuban founded Broadcast.com. He later sold the venture to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion and made nearly all of Broadcast.com’s employees instant millionaires.
Today, Cuban is worth $1.8 billion, making him the 428th richest person in the world.
During his early days in Dallas, Cuban sat in the top row of Reunion Arena — the only seats he could afford — to watch the Mavs. Eventually, he was able buy his way closer to the court until he finally got the best seat in the house.
‘Save us!’
At Wednesday night’s NBA preseason game, it’s a tossup who will be the bigger attraction — Cavs whiz kid LeBron James or Cuban.
“I love the response I get when I’m back home,” Cuban said.
Usually, that reaction is part admiration, part desperation.
Cuban has seen homemade banners at Mellon Arena and PNC Park, pleas of “Save us, Mark Cuban!” from fans of the financially strapped Pirates and Penguins.
“They crack me up, but I love ’em,” Cuban said. “Hopefully, someday, I can come through.”
Cuban was involved in the bidding for the Penguins, but his group ultimately lost out to Balsillie. Cuban has offered to be a minority investor with Balsillie, but so far has not gotten an answer.
A year ago, Cuban let it be known he’d like to join the Pirates ownership group. However, during an interview in late April, McClatchy, the Pirates’ CEO and managing general partner, said the economics of Major League Baseball are much different from those of the NBA.
“If Mark came in here, I don’t think he do too much different at this time,” McClatchy said. “Maybe he’d spend an extra $5 million or $10 million, (but) I know that isn’t the answer.”
It’s not the first time someone has doubted Cuban’s business approach. Some experts said Cuban was crazy when he started reshaping the Mavericks. Others know a winner when they see one.
“I’m sure he could fix the Pirates if he owned them,” Winston said. “He’d make people want to come to the park, which I know in Pittsburgh has been a problem.”
Last week, Cuban replied with a succinct “No” when asked if he thought he’d ever be accepted by the Pirates’ current ownership group.
McClatchy was unavailable for comment.
Cuban says he wants a piece of the Pirates or Penguins because he is a die-hard Pittsburgh sports fan. He comes home a couple of times a year, usually timing his visit to coincide with a Pirates homestand or Pitt men’s basketball game at the Petersen Events Center.
Some nights, Cuban and his high school pals play pickup hoops games at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. His post-game beverage of choice is a cold Iron City.
“We’ll hang out at a bar or restaurant, just screwing around and having a lot of fun,” Reidbord said. “Just to walk three blocks with him takes a long time because people are stopping him to get autographs and that kind of stuff.”
Does any owner in sports have more fun?
“None that I know,” Cuban said.
Additional Information:
Mark Cuban
Age: 48
Hometown: Mt. Lebanon
Now lives: Dallas, with wife (Tiffany) and daughter (Alexis)
Original family name: Chopininski, changed when his grandparents emigrated from Russia
First job: |
’s office said the senator was not in the hospital but was recovering after being treated for a “urological issue.”
Republican Senators John McCain, Susan Collins and Rand Paul opposed the bill.
ACROSS STATE LINES
Paul has encouraged Trump to legalize nationwide health associations, which he says would allow people to get group health insurance across state lines. Trump said he was working on a measure to do that.
“I am considering an executive order on associations and that will take care of a tremendous number of people with regard to healthcare and I’ll probably be signing a very major executive order where people can go out, cross state lines, do lots of things and buy their own healthcare,” Trump said.
He said the order was in the process of being finished. The effort appeared to be a move to woo Paul. Trump said later he thought the senator from Kentucky would come around on the broader push for legislation.
“I think Rand will be there for us,” Trump told reporters.
UCLA Professor Mark Peterson expressed doubt that insurance prices would be reduced by selling across state lines because insurers would still be subject to ACA regulations requiring coverage of hospital care, prescription drugs, pregnancy and childbirth needs and mental health services.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, accompanied by (L-R) Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), speaks with reporters following the party luncheons on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
“What drives cost of care is the cost of medical care. If I’m in California, which is an expensive medical care state and I buy my insurance from Delaware, which is not, I’m still going to doctors and hospitals that are very expensive and the insurance plan is either going to cover that or not,” he said.
Congressional leaders said on Tuesday they were moving on to tax reform legislation. But the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn, said on Wednesday that lawmakers would continue to work on healthcare. He said the authors of the most recent Obamacare repeal bill, Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy, hoped to increase support for their proposal.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray resumed their bipartisan talks on Wednesday seeking a deal to help stabilize health insurance markets, a Murray spokeswoman said. She had no details. Alexander chairs the Senate health committee and Murray is the panel’s top Democrat.Family members who believe a loved one poses a danger to themselves or others will be able to ask police to seek a temporary “gun violence” restraining order from a judge beginning Jan. 1. The order would allow police to seize the person’s guns for 21 days.
State lawmakers approved the legislation (AB1014) and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law after a 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in which six people were killed and 14 injured. Before the shootings, sheriff’s deputies had visited the shooter, Elliot Rodger, after his parents raised concerns about his mental health and online rants against women.
But deputies concluded Rodger, 22, was not a risk. They decided they had no basis to search his apartment, where he had amassed guns, ammunition and knives.
Under the new law, a restraining order could be issued without prior knowledge of the person. In other words, a judge could issue the order without ever hearing from the person in question, if there are reasonable grounds to believe the person is a threat based on accounts from the family and police.
“The law gives us a vehicle to cause the person to surrender their weapons, to have a time out, if you will,” said Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michael Moore. “It allows further examination of the person’s mental state.”
After three weeks, the person can challenge the judge’s decision.
“It’s a short duration and it allows for due process,” Moore said.
California law already bans people from possessing guns if they’ve committed a violent crime or were involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. Police may also seize guns if a licensed therapist notifies them an individual is a risk to their own safety or the safety of others.
Moore said the new law is similar to seeking a domestic violence restraining order — no conviction is necessary.
“It's an opportunity for mental health professionals to provide an analysis of a person’s mental state,” Moore said. He did not anticipate “tremendous” use of the new law by police.
Gun-owner-rights groups opposed the law, arguing it could infringe on a person’s Second Amendment right to possess a gun.
“We don’t need another law to solve this problem,” Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, told the Associated Press.
“We think this just misses the mark and may create a situation where law-abiding gun owners are put in jeopardy.”As climate change rips away the icy armor of the Arctic, nations surrounding the North Pole and companies eager to exploit the area’s mineral wealth–particularly oil and natural gas–are growing giddy with anticipation.
So reports the Associated Press, though the AP is by no means the first to report this story. The slow-motion battle over the increasingly accessible resources of the Arctic is certainly a story. But the prevailing version of that story lacks the proper context, one that is hard to provide since the implications of global climate change are vast and difficult to grasp.
First and foremost, burning additional oil and natural gas made available by receding Arctic ice is nothing short of insane. But in a world that believes that adapting to climate change is merely an engineering problem, this type of talk persists.
Readers of the AP piece are told that those wishing to exploit the Arctic will have to build the necessary infrastructure to service the mining, fishing and tourism interests that want a piece of these boreal riches. (Yes, you read that right: tourism!)
But if development of the Arctic proceeds, it will be a sign that we are doing far too little to abate the very causes of warming that make such development thinkable. That would imply increasingly rapid climate change, something that will almost surely destabilize a world which wants to exploit the Arctic.
In a world plagued with agricultural areas devastated by flood and drought, coastal cities drenched by rising seas, mass migrations from newly uninhabitable areas, spreading tropical diseases, water shortages, and unimaginably long periods of intense summer heat, it is hard to imagine that nations and private companies will be able to provide the systematic focus on Arctic development needed to extract its wealth.
In short, the exploitation of the Arctic implies stability elsewhere; but a continuous rise in Arctic temperatures which will make such exploitation increasingly feasible implies the opposite.
We as a global society cannot seem to see the world in any other frame than that of imperial expansion with the Arctic as the next land to conquer–no matter what. (Outer space also continues to occupy our fantasies as a “next land to conquer.”)
The unfreezing of the Arctic may itself be one of the most dangerous drivers of climate change. The ice–which has prevented those currently salivating over Arctic riches from getting at them–not only keeps the Earth cool by reflecting light back into space; it also keeps untold gigatons of methane sequestered in the tundra and deep ocean. Once in the atmosphere methane traps far more heat than carbon dioxide.
Geologic history suggests that it is possible that a methane release from a melting Arctic would be non-linear (read: sudden and big). Such an event is often referred to as a methane burp. In the geologic past methane burps have been broadly fatal to all things living and may have led to one of the world’s six great extinction events. (The sixth extinction is currently in progresswithout so far the benefit of a methane burp.)
It turns out that what development of the Arctic implies is so catastrophic that it is hard to understand why we are even discussing it. I am reminded of an old New Yorker magazine cartoon depicting a speaker at a business conference concluding his talk as follows: “And so, while the end-of-the-world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, we believe that the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.”
Most people don’t really understand that a melted Arctic will almost certainly accompany the end of the world as we know it, both in nature and in society. Any profits gained as a result will be as monstrous as those mentioned in the New Yorker cartoon.
This article was first published in Resilience. republished with thanks.
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Go here to write for usThe outgoing premier was a big fan of Icac – he once said he worried politicians didn't fear the commission enough
Barry O’Farrell is not a bad man. But the politics of New South Wales are squalid. Not for the first time, a capable Liberal leader has been brought undone by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The last was Nick Greiner a decade ago. What distinguishes the O’Farrell disaster from any other before Icac is the oddly upmarket cause of his doom: a bottle of Grange.
O’Farrell waited a long time before making his bid for the leadership of the party. He was accused of being too timid to claw his way to the top. But he came with no taint of the dishonesty that’s the cologne of choice for so many politicians working in Macquarie Street.
The Liberal party is his life. Apart from a few unhappy months with the old Department of Business and Consumer Affairs, O’Farrell has worked around politicians ever since he graduated from university. Bruce Baird brought him to work in NSW. Baird’s son Mike may be his successor.
O’Farrell was a natural backroom boy. He didn’t exude ambition. His beat was transport. But he won one of the safest seats in NSW on the north shore and sat through the slaughter of Liberal leaders that followed for a decade.
He never put up his hand. He became leader only in 2007 after one last Liberal debacle at the polls. He proved to be tougher than his supporters thought. He broke the premier Morris Iemma. He defeated Kristina Keneally.
He came to office in 2011 after a huge victory with a well-developed reputation for despising the filth of NSW politics.
He was a big fan of Icac. He told me during the 2011 campaign that he worried politicians didn’t fear the commission enough: “We should be worried as we sign something or make a phone call – even when we are being ethical – that if I don’t do this right I can be pinged.”
As premier he moved slowly and was mocked for it. He did nothing fast and nothing particularly radical. He didn’t revenge himself on his opponents. He didn’t have to: Labor could be left to tear itself apart.
But under O’Farrell Icac showed the deeply ingrained corruption of NSW didn’t begin and end with Labor. His own side was punished. Now the Liberals have taken the biggest hit of all.
A lobbyist on the make, a bottle of wine and very north shore thank you note have brought a premier undone. He might have tried to hang on, blaming memory loss, that politician’s affliction that has been explored year in and year out by Icac.
But he didn’t. O’Farrell had always made a virtue of being thoroughly dull – decent but dull. His departure isn’t dull. But it is decent.Pin Reddit Share 17K Shares
It’s been far too long since I last posted a recipe that facilitated eating massive quantities of spinach in one sitting*. I feel a little guilty about it! Powering through leafy greens is kind of my thing, and I shouldn’t keep it from you any longer. This lentil spinach curry is a weeknight dinner that I’ve been enjoying recently. It’s got a pretty short and easy ingredients list for a curry, and a lot of the work is hands-off which makes it easy to clean as I go. Plus, you NEED to try coconut rice if you haven’t. I will persuade you further in just a moment.
My spinach pesto pasta is famous around these parts, not only for its ease of preparation and delicious flavor, but also for packing in a whopping 6 ounces of spinach. But there comes a point in every recipe developer’s life when she has to figure out how to one-up herself, and so I present to you my lentil spinach curry with fully 8 ounces of spinach crammed in. I don’t mean to make it sound like a chore, though – I’m in love with the fresh, buttery spinach flavor infused into every bite of this dish. I really do think the curry would taste worse if you used less of it :).
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I keep the lentil spinach curry fairly light, tangy and low in fat because I wanted to serve it with a side of coconut rice. Which is pretty much what it sounds like – rice that’s been cooked in coconut milk instead of water. I used jasmine rice here, and grated some fresh ginger and chili pepper into the mixture before cooking, for an extra fragrant final result. The coconut milk makes the rice rich, decadent, and a little sweet tasting, making it the perfect pairing for my tangy spiced spinach and lentil curry.
I highly, highly recommend that everyone who makes rice with regularity get a rice cooker. In addition to making this particular recipe a complete breeze, it’s just a fantastic device to have around for bulking up any meal by adding a cooked grain with very little effort – and easy cleanup. I use mine for not just rice, but also quinoa, barley, and more… and even some more elaborate complete dishes. If you have questions about how to cook any specific thing in the rice cooker, just drop me a line and I will try to help! The rice cooker I am linking to here is the exact same one that I own and love.
Go forth, and fill your life with delicious spinach by making this lentil spinach curry! And if you do, let me know in the comments how you like it! Or tag your recipes on Instagram with @yupitsvegan and #yupitsvegan. Cheers!
4.67 from 12 votes Print Lentil Spinach Curry with Coconut Rice Nutrition-packed and delicious lentil spinach curry, served alongside the best rice ever AKA coconut rice. Prep Time 15 minutes Cook Time 30 minutes Total Time 45 minutes Total Yield 4 servings Calories Per Serving 575 kcal Author Yup, it's Vegan Ingredients For the coconut rice (might make a little extra): 2 and 1/4 cups uncooked white jasmine rice
1 and 1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk
water (see instructions)
pinch salt
(optional) 1 teaspoon grated ginger
(optional) 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes For the lentil spinach curry: 1 and 1/2 cups uncooked green lentils
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 large red onion thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 cloves garlic minced
1 jalapeno seeded and finely chopped
1 inch ginger peeled and grated or minced
4 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp salt plus more to taste
1/2 lime juiced
1 cup diced tomatoes (I used canned)
1 and 1/2 tbsp coconut sugar or brown sugar
8 ounces fresh baby spinach (about 8 cups, loosely packed)
1/2 cup plain, unsweetened non-dairy milk (see notes) Instructions For the coconut rice: Rinse the rice well. Add it to your rice cooker along with the rest of the rice ingredients, and enough water to reach level 3 in the rice cooker. Cook until done. If not using a rice cooker, or using a rice cooker without level markings, cook the rice with your usual method and amount of liquid, substituting the coconut milk for 1 and 1/4 cups of the water. Most rice packages will also include instructions. Do NOT make this with only the rice and coconut milk - you need to add water. For the lentil spinach curry: Add the lentils to a saucepan along with enough water to cover them by several inches. Bring to a boil, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until tender and done to your liking. Drain the cooked lentils and set aside. Meanwhile, warm the olive oil over medium heat in a deep skillet, saucepan, or dutch oven. Add the red onion and cook until softened and slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the cumin seeds and cook for about 1 minute. Add the garlic, jalapeno, and ginger, stir, and cook for about 1 minute, or until the garlic and ginger are fragrant and slightly softened. Add the garam masala and cook for thirty seconds until fragrant. Stir in the 1/2 teaspoon salt, lime juice, diced tomatoes, and coconut sugar, and reduce the heat a little bit. Cook for about 10 more minutes, until the tomatoes are starting to break down. Meanwhile, add the spinach to a food processor and pulse to chop it, scraping down the sides as needed. Add the non-dairy milk and pulse to combine, until the spinach is finely chopped but not pureed. Once the lentils and tomato mixture are both finished cooking, stir the lentils into the tomato mixture. Add the spinach mixture and stir well. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 7-10 minutes or until the spinach is softened and bright green. Add more salt, pepper and lime juice to taste. Serve hot with a side of coconut rice. Recipe Notes NON-DAIRY MILK: If you are using canned coconut milk then you will have 1/4 cup leftover from making the rice. Dilute this with another 1/4 cup water to use in the lentil spinach curry where it calls for 1/2 cup non-dairy milk. If you do not have non-dairy milk, you can substitute 1/2 cup vegetable broth plus 2 extra teaspoons of olive oil. PREP AND CLEANUP: This recipe uses a few different dishes but it's still pretty simple and easy to make. To ensure that cleanup doesn't become a pain, start out with an empty sink, and rinse all dishes as soon as you're done with them. Then, clean a dish or two while waiting for various components of the recipe to finish. By the time dinner is served your kitchen will be almost clean. 🙂 NUTRITION NOTE: Nutrition facts were calculated using only 1/2 of the rice recipe, since it makes extra. Nutrition Facts Lentil Spinach Curry with Coconut Rice Amount Per Serving (1 g) Calories 575 Calories from Fat 117 % Daily Value* Total Fat 13g 20% Saturated Fat 8g 40% Monounsaturated Fat 2g Sodium 53mg 2% Potassium 449mg 13% Total Carbohydrates 99g 33% Dietary Fiber 13g 52% Sugars 11g Protein 18g 36% Vitamin A 12% Vitamin C 50% Calcium 11% Iron 34% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
*Without having to eat a salad :). Adapted from here. (This dish almost resembles what I imagine might be called vegan palak dal or dal saag.)Former North Carolina legislator Fletcher Hartsell rose before a judge the second time this week and acknowledged guilt related to several years of improperly spending and reporting campaign finances.
“It’s a sad day,” Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens said before handing down a sentence of up to 18 months of unsupervised probation.”In cases like this, from time to time, I have had a few things to say. You know, unfortunately, there’s not a lot to say.”
Hartsell, 70, admitted that he filed campaign finance reports on three occasions knowing they included false information.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman laid out the details for Stephens after Hartsell entered a guilty plea as part of an arrangement with prosecutors.
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The state investigation found that Hartsell spent more than $200,000 from his campaign account to pay personal expenses from 2009 to 2012.
The criminal investigation followed a probe by the state elections board that revealed Hartsell spent campaign donations on dinners with his family, haircuts, shoe repairs, speeding tickets, part of his driver’s license renewal fee, and more. The state elections probe came after a series of stories published by The News & Observer.
Freeman said the state investigation showed the former state senator, while representing Cabarrus and Union counties, spent thousands of dollars on a church property that he and his wife, Tana, owned in Concord. Hartsell had reported the expenditure as one that went to charity.
Fletcher Hartsell, a former NC senator and member of the state house of representatives, leaves court after he appeared before Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens in the Wake County courthouse to resolve state charges filed against him after he was accused of misusing state campaign finance money. He was sentenced in federal court on Tuesday to eight months in prison, a sentence that is set to begin in July. He pled guilty to the charges in this state court on Friday morning, May 19, 2017. Chris Seward cseward@newsobserver.com
Before October 2006, candidates could use their campaign funds on virtually anything. They bought cars, laptops and tickets to sporting events, and they paid for trips and monthly expenses.
The state legislature adopted more restrictive laws as part of campaign and lobbying reforms after high-profile criminal cases involving lawmakers.
Candidates are now prohibited from using campaign money for personal items unless the expense is connected to the lawmaker’s legislative duties.
The elections board’s investigation found Hartsell’s campaign had more expenditures the day before the law changed than on any other day reviewed.
Federal prison sentence
The action in the Wake County courtroom came three days after a federal judge handed down an eight-month prison sentence for two tax-law violations and a count of mail fraud related to the misuse of campaign finances. He also was ordered to pay $63,000 in restitution.
At the sentencing hearing in Winston-Salem, U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder told Hartsell that at a time when he should be “putting a capstone on his career,” the ex-lawmaker from Concord had instead added a “permanent stain” to it, according to The Associated Press.
In federal court, Hartsell had originally faced five counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and six counts of money laundering. He pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and two counts of filing false tax returns.
An indictment alleged he spent campaign money on car expenses and repairs, lawn care, club memberships, haircuts, a trip to Charleston, S.C., with his wife’s handbell choir, tickets to the musical “Jersey Boys,” a vacation with his wife in Edenton, his granddaughter’s birthday party and getting his driver’s license renewed. The indictment said Hartsell concealed his actions by filing campaign finance reports that he knew were false.
Hartsell, an elected official for a quarter of a century in the North Carolina General Assembly — as a state senator and member of the state House of Representatives, was a Republican who at one point was ranked as a powerful legislator.
With expertise in complex finance and tax law, he also was known for being unpredictably independent when it came to the GOP agenda.
In 2009, when Democrats were still in power, Hartsell was ranked by a public policy group at No. 7 in effectiveness, the highest-placing Republican in the General Assembly.
‘One of the darkest moments’
Hartsell was asked by the judge on Friday if he wanted to address the court.
As a lawyer, whose license to practice law has been suspended by the N.C. State Bar, Hartsell said he would rely on the words of his attorney.
Wade Smith, the Raleigh-based lawyer who represented Hartsell on the charges in state court, gave a brief overview of Hartsell’s life, starting with his graduation from Davidson College in 1969 to where they were on Friday, standing in criminal court.
Hartsell and his wife, who sat behind him in the courtroom, celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary this past weekend, Smith said.
Both Hartsell and his wife have done mission work — in Haiti, Lebanon, Armenia, Ukraine and elsewhere.
Smith said that after Hartsell was charged and people found out that Smith and his nephew Roger Smith Jr. would be representing the former legislator, the law firm heard from many people.
“We probably heard from more Democrats than Republicans who loved this man,” Smith said, pointing to Hartsell beside him.
Smith said Hartsell does not “live in a mansion on the hill. His cars are old cars. He’s had a very, very busy life, but a simple life.”
Though Stephens was limited in the sentence he could hand down because of the federal prison sentence that Hartsell already faced in the case, Smith urged the judge to impose something that would let Hartsell walk out of the courtroom on Friday and go home.
“While this prosecution was absolutely necessary,” Wade Smith said, “it did silence one of the great voices of moderation....This is one of the darkest moments of his life....He’s on his way to prison soon.”
Hartsell, who is to report to federal prison in July, left the Wake County courtroom holding his wife’s hand. He declined to talk with the media gathered in the hallway.
Freeman described the plea arrangement as one she hoped would help restore “the public’s confidence in our elections.”
“We are satisfied at the end of the day that people here in North Carolina have been served in this matter through this joint prosecution,” Freeman said.Mycorrhiza fungi (yellow) help the roots of this soybean plant absorb nutrients and water; to return the favor, the plant excretes nutrients for the fungi. PHOTO: MERTON BROWN/VISUALS UNLIMITED INC.
“Look. Nothing flourishes here. Not even weeds.” Pius Floris picks up one of the dozens of stones scattered around him on the degraded, barren-looking soil. Decades of drought, monoculture, overuse of fertilizer, and excessive plowing have taken their toll on this field in the Spanish region of Castilla y León. As a result, wind and rain have washed away all but 25 centimeters of the fertile topsoil that used to nourish the grain here. For centuries, this area was a bread basket; today, yields are so low that farmers work the area only because of subsidies from the European Union.
Floris, a Dutch entrepreneur in plant health, wants to turn that situation around. With researchers at the University of Valladolid and a team of local farmers, he participates in an E.U.-funded pilot project that aims to make profitable agriculture possible again on such damaged soil, without irrigation. His key collaborators: microbes.
One reason the soil here has gone to waste, Floris says, is that farming has destroyed its microbial ecosystem, which can help plants survive and thrive. His team has recently applied beneficial microbes—in particular fungi that live around plant roots—to this degraded area, in addition to organic fertilizer. “Farmers have ignored these symbionts for decades,” Floris says. “We are bringing them back into the game.”
He's not the only one trying to do that. Scientists have recently discovered a dizzying diversity of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in, on, and around plant roots in the soil. Many of these microbes, together called the rhizobiome, help plants one way or another, from providing nutrients to warding off crop pests and diseases. Small biotechnology and major plant science companies think they have huge potential benefits in agriculture and have recently begun a spate of new field trials. A 2013 report published by the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), with the optimistic title How Microbes Can Help Feed the World, concluded that microbes have the potential to increase harvests while allowing farmers to use less fertilizer and pesticides; certain microbes can even enable plants to grow in very dry or salty places, which could help the world adapt to climate change.
A few denizens of the soil have been on the market for decades, such as Trichoderma fungi that suppress pathogenic fungi, and the now well-known caterpillar killer Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. (The gene for the bacterium's toxin has also been introduced into some crops' genomes.) Recently, major agrochemical companies such as Bayer have jumped on the biologicals bandwagon. “It's a revolution of microbiology,” says Thomas Schäfer, vice president of microbial R&D at Novozymes, a company developing microbial fertilizers and pesticides that recently struck up an alliance with agriculture giant Monsanto. Schäfer believes farmers are headed for “precision agriculture,” in which they would add beneficial microbes, or support existing ones, after an in-depth analysis of a field's microbiological makeup.
Whether these high expectations can be met by the budding research field is anyone's guess. The diversity in the soil microbiome is so staggering that finding out which organisms benefit plants most, how they do it, or what combinations work best is a gargantuan task. Also unclear is whether microbes can dramatically curb the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and whether conventional farmers will trust these new options. The central question, some scientists say, is: How much can microbiology replace chemistry in agriculture?
SCIENTISTS AND FARMERS have long seen microbes primarily as problems. A funguslike unicellular organism named Phytophthora infestans, responsible for potato blight and other crop diseases, has caused famines throughout history and is still a major problem. A variety of other fungi and bacteria cause the decay of roots and leaves.
To be sure, farmers know that some microbes are helpful: The group of bacteria called rhizobia, which live inside the roots of legumes and fix nitrogen from the air into a biologically useful form for the plants, are a textbook example. But recently, new methods of DNA sequencing and analysis have brought a vast, complex web of mutually beneficial interactions into view, comparable to the symbiotic roles researchers now believe are played by the thousands of bacterial and viral species that inhabit the human gut, skin, and other tissues.
GRAPHIC: ADAPTED FROM R. MENDES ET AL., FEMS MICORBIOLOGY REVIEWS 37 (22 JULY 2013) © 2013 FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN MICROBIOLOGICAL SOCIETIES BY A. CUADRA/SCIENCE
Studies have shown that there are up to 10 billion bacterial cells per gram of soil in and around plant roots, a region known as the rhizosphere. This domain is tremendously diverse; in 2011, a team led by soil microbiologist Jos Raaijmakers of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Wageningen detected more than 33,000 bacterial and archaeal species on sugar beet roots. Dozens of species appear to suppress plant disease by excreting substances that ward off pathogenic microbes or occupying niches otherwise taken up by the pathogens. A study of vineyards in New York, published in March, showed that the composition of the rhizobiome depends heavily on the soil type.
Lab and greenhouse experiments have also shown that microbes make a variety of nutrients and minerals in the soil available to plants, produce hormones that spur growth, stimulate the plant immune system, and trigger or dampen its stress responses. “In general, we can say that a more diverse soil microbiome results in fewer plant diseases and higher yield,” Raaijmakers says.
Among the most helpful microbes are so-called mycorrhizae or root fungi, which form a dense network of thin filaments reaching far into the soil, acting as extensions of the plant roots they live on or in. These fungi facilitate the uptake of water and a wide range of nutrients—Floris calls them “the plant's shopping carts.”
Microbes can also help plants survive extreme conditions. A 2007 study showed that a complex symbiosis with fungi and viruses makes it possible for a grass called Dichanthelium lanuginosum to thrive in geothermal soils in Yellowstone National Park, where temperatures reach 60°C. The fungus, now thoroughly studied and introduced in the U.S. market in 2014 for application on corn and rice, triggers a stress response that the plants can't switch on themselves.
Similarly, a bacterium called Stenotrophomonas rhizophila has been shown to strongly increase drought tolerance in crops like sugar beets and maize. A 2013 study offered an explanation: The microbe excretes a variety of molecules that help plants withstand stress, including so-called osmoprotectants, which prevent the catastrophic outflux of water from plants in very salty environments. Microbes can even affect the flavor of food plants: A bacterium called Methylobacterium extorquens increases the production of furanones, a group of molecules that gives strawberries their characteristic flavor.
The services provided by microbes are apparently hugely important to plants, as they put in a lot of energy to return favors. Studies have shown that up to 30% of the carbon fixed by plants is excreted from the roots as so-called exudates—including sugars, amino acids, flavonoids, aliphatic acids, and fatty acids—that attract and feed beneficial microbial species while repelling and killing harmful ones.
THE GROWING ACADEMIC understanding of the rhizobiome has increasingly made its way into the corporate world and onto farmers' fields. One early example was Serenade, a biopesticide containing a Bacillus subtilis strain that has antifungal and antibacterial properties and promotes plant growth. It was discovered by AgraQuest, a biotech in Davis, California. “So many pharmaceutical products were extracted from the soil, but for agriculture, this potential was hardly exploited,” recalls Denise Manker, who co-founded the company in 1995. Serenade, registered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2001, can be applied in a liquid form on the plants and in the soil to fight a range of pathogens. “Initially, most of our customers were organic farmers,” Manker says. Soon, she says, innovative conventional farmers started experimenting with the product as well, and some became converts.
CREDITS: (ILLUSTRATION) RICHARD JOHNSON; (ICONS) C. SMITH/SCIENCE
So far, the market for such products has been modest. Almost all of the registered ones are biopesticides; the AAM report estimated that they bring in about $1 billion annually, which pales compared with the global markets for chemical pesticides and fertilizer, estimated at $50 billion and $60 billion annually, respectively. But big agrochemical companies see the potential of microbial alternatives. “It took us 17 years to get the big companies interested, but we made it,” Manker says: In 2012, German agro giant Bayer bought AgraQuest for $425 million. Manker became Bayer's director of global agronomic development of biologicals, a job that comes with a €10 million annual research budget. She's using it to field-test dozens of new fungi and bacteria to replace chemical pesticides or serve as biostimulants, which promote the health and growth of crops.
One explanation for Bayer's interest: Growing public resistance against chemical pesticides and a 2009 European directive aiming to reduce their use caused the market for chemical crop protection to stagnate, whereas the demand for biologicals was growing close to 10% per year. Given that, it's not surprising that Bayer's competitors have made similar moves. Syngenta and BASF acquired smaller companies developing microbial products last year; so did Dupont in April of this year. Monsanto's new partner, Novozymes, has invested heavily in a biofertilizer containing the soil fungus Penicillium bilaii, and a bioinsecticide that contains the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae.
The list of potentially suitable microbes is endless, says Matteo Lorito, a plant pathologist at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, and that poses a daunting task for companies. “The challenge they are facing is selection of the ones that are commercially viable and effective,” Lorito says, especially because many microbes are plant-specific and the composition of the rhizobiome can change rapidly.
Traditionally, selected microbes were first tested and investigated extensively in labs and greenhouses. But promising strains often failed to prove effective in the field, because of soil, climate, and ecosystem effects. Today, most companies use a “field-first approach,” in which hundreds or even thousands of microbial strains are tested on field plots. If one proves successful, the mechanism of action is unraveled in the lab later. But even a promising field study doesn't guarantee success on the farm. “People are using microbial products on a variety of crops, with different application methods and in different soils and climates,” says Matthew Wallenstein, an ecosystem scientist at Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins. “That will make the results a lot more variable. It's very hard to make a miracle product that works everywhere.”
That biologicals are living things is part of the problem; to work best, they need to become established and thrive on their own. One way to give them an edge is to apply them on plant seeds instead of into the soil; that way, they can enter the plant's rhizosphere early on as the first roots form and have a better shot at dominating the space.
Populations of beneficial microbes also dwindle over time. Spraying Serenade, for instance, results in a high B. subtilis density in the soil initially, but levels rapidly decrease during a farming season as the bacterium fails to obtain a permanent niche. That may be because it's outcompeted by the existing community of microbes. “Applying just that one strain is often not enough,” Raaijmakers says. “You need a consortium of two, three, or even five or more collaborating strains that can withstand the ecological forces.” To find successful combos, scientists have recently begun selecting these combinations in a systematic way, by identifying naturally occurring microbial networks in the field and studying their interactions down to the molecular level in the lab. “Scientifically, |
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The Academic VR Bundle is now available through VR First as part of its Regional Growth Services program. VR First is inviting all academic institutions, science parks and innovation centers to join and learn about special bundle rates and opportunities available through VR First’s industry network.
“Starting early 2018, we will add further hardware devices and software solutions to the academic bundle. By that, VR First also expands the addressable market for partners through global academic and developer reach,” said Ferhan Özkan, CEO of VR First.
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Growing interest in VR First’s Regional Growth Services is a result of its Lab Seed Support program started two years ago. Through the program, VR First has sponsored many hackathons and meetups through equipment support, and has established to date more than 50 labs worldwide. New labs currently being added include University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), HOWEST University (Belgium), European College of Kosovo (Kosovo), Hacettepe University (Turkey), Eastern University (Bangladesh), DuyTan University (Vietnam), Tsinghua University (China), Nueva Granada Military University (Colombia), and University of São Paulo (Brazil). To view the latest VR/AR projects by VR First Labs, please watch the showcase video: https://youtu.be/rwTt5re367I
For more information, please visit https://www.vrfirst.com/programs/growth.Don’t look now, but Taste of Chicago has yet another strong main stage music lineup for its 36th annual edition. The gustatory blowout, which runs July 6–10 in Grant Park, has been upping its sonic game of late. This year continues the trend, even as there is a little bit of “Um, OK... “ mixed in with the cool.
Tickets for the seating area at the Petrillo Music Shell will go on sale Friday, April 29, at 10 a.m. at the Taste website, www.TasteofChicago.us.
July 6 features The Roots, with Donnie Trumpet
July 7: Kongos, with Elle King, Transviolet
July 8: The Decemberists, with Shakey Graves
July 9: Billy Idol, with Sons of the Silent Age in a David Bowie tribute
July 10: The Isley Brothers featuring Ronald and Ernie Isley, with Sheila E.
Admission to the Taste of Chicago is free, and festival hours are 11 a.m.–9 p.m., Wednesday through Friday, and 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. For complete details, visit TasetofChicago.us.
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Check out the latest movie reviews from Michael Phillips and the Chicago Tribune.NEW YORK – Winnipeg Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec, Ottawa Senators center Kyle Turris and Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop have been named the NHL's "Three Stars" for the week ending March 22.
FIRST STAR – ONDREJ PAVELEC, G, WINNIPEG JETS
Pavelec went 3-0-0 with a 0.97 goals-against average,.970 save percentage and one shutout to help the Jets (37-23-12, 86 points) pick up three straight wins and maintain the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. He made 38 saves in a 5-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks March 17. Pavelec then denied 32 shots – and two attempts in the shootout – in a 2-1 triumph over the St. Louis Blues March 19. He capped the week by stopping all 28 shots he faced, including 11 in the third period, to earn his 13th career shutout (second this season) in a 3-0 win over the Washington Capitals March 21. The 27-year-old Kladno, Czech Republic, native has compiled a 17-14-7 record with a 2.40 goals-against average and.916 save percentage in 42 appearances this season. That includes four consecutive victories, his first such streak since Jan. 13-21, 2014 (4-0-0).
SECOND STAR – KYLE TURRIS, C, OTTAWA SENATORS
Turris led all players with four goals and shared first in the NHL with six points to power the Senators (36-24-11, 83 points) to three consecutive wins, moving the team within one point of the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. He opened the week with the primary assist on Mark Stone’s overtime goal in a 2-1 triumph over the Carolina Hurricanes March 17. Turris followed that performance with 2-1—3, his second multi-goal and three-point games of the season, in a 6-4 win over the Boston Bruins March 19. He then recorded his second straight multi-goal game (2-0—2), including the winning tally, in a 5-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs March 21 – the first time he has put together consecutive multi-goal performances. The 25-year-old New Westminster, B.C., native has registered 21-31—52 in 71 contests this season, five goals and six points shy of his career highs established in 82 games in 2013-14.
THIRD STAR – BEN BISHOP, G, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
Bishop posted a 3-0-0 record with a 2.00 goals-against average and.935 save percentage to lead the Lightning (45-21-7, 97 points) to three straight victories, all against divisional opponents. He made 32 saves in a 4-2 triumph over the Montreal Canadiens March 16, his fourth such win in as many meetings this season. Bishop then stopped 30 shots in a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings March 20. He closed the week with 25 saves in a 5-3 win over the Boston Bruins March 22, helping the Lightning snap a 10-game skid in the head-to-head series dating to March 27, 2012. The 28-year-old Denver, Colo., native has appeared in 55 games this season, going 36-11-4 with a 2.31 goals-against average,.916 save percentage and three shutouts. His 36 wins rank third in the NHL and are one shy of his career high set in 63 games in 2013-14.When scientists sequenced the human genome in 2001, they noticed many segments that bore a striking resemblance to genes in retroviruses, a class of viruses that includes H.I.V.
Retroviruses carry their genetic material in a single-stranded version of DNA, called RNA. To make new viruses, they make DNA versions of their genes, which are inserted into a host cell’s genome. The cell then reads the retrovirus’s genes as if they were its own, and manufactures new retroviruses.
Scientists speculated that every now and then a retrovirus inserted itself into a host cell and then failed to turn it into a virus factory. If the trapped retrovirus happened to be in sperm or egg cells, its DNA might be passed down to the host’s descendants. From generation to generation, the virus’s DNA would mutate. It would lose its ability to produce normal viruses. For a while it might be able to make new viruses that could re-infect the same cell, but over enough time, the viruses would become disabled.
In recent years, scientists have found several lines of evidence to support this idea.. Koala retroviruses, for example, appear to be in the middle of the journey. The viruses can move from one koala to another. But in some populations of koalas, the virus’s DNA is permanently lodged in their genomes.
Thierry Heidmann of the Gustave Roussy Institute in France and his colleagues put the fossil virus hypothesis to a spectacular test: they tried to resurrect a dead retrovirus. They first identified a number of copies of the same virus-like stretch of DNA in the human genome. Each version had its own set of mutations that it acquired after the virus had invaded our ancestors.
By comparing the copies, Dr. Heidmann and his colleagues were able to figure out what the original sequence of the virus’s genes had been. When they synthesized the genes from scratch and injected the genetic material into cells, the cells produced new viruses.
“It was a tour-de-force of an experiment,” said John Coffin, an expert on fossil viruses at Tufts University.
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Now fossil virus hunters are moving beyond the human genome. They’re taking advantage of the growing number of mammal genomes piling up in online databases and helping to flesh out the evolutionary history of viruses, reaching back tens of millions of years. Aris Katzourakis, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues recently went on a hunt for fossils of foamy viruses in mammals. Foamy viruses infect some mammals, including monkeys and apes. Primate foamy viruses can infect humans harmlessly, but researchers fear they may evolve to become dangerous. Dr. Katzourakis and his colleagues discovered hundreds of foamy virus copies in the DNA of the two-toed sloth. They then found the same virus lurking in the genome of the three-toed sloth. Before Dr. Katzourakis’s fossil hunt, scientists had never found a foamy virus infecting any sloths, or any of their relatives like armadillos and anteaters.
Sloths and their relatives branched off from all other placental mammals about 100 million years ago. Dr. Katzourakis’s discovery thus reveals the great antiquity of foamy viruses. They were already infecting the common ancestor of all placental mammals back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
These fossils are also offering clues to how viruses evolved. Dr. Katzourakis and his colleagues have found fossil viruses that are helping shed light on the deep history of H.I.V., for example.
H.I.V. evolved about a century ago from a chimpanzee virus known as simian immunodeficiency virus, or S.I.V. Many apes and monkeys carry their own strain of S.I.V, but it’s not clear how long the viruses have been infecting primates.
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In 2008, Dr. Katzourakis and his colleagues discovered fossil S.I.V. in the genome of the gray lemur, a primate that lives in Madagascar. Last May, Dr. Feschotte and his colleagues reported that they had found the same fossil virus in the fat-tailed lemur.
Scientists had never before found S.I.V. in lemurs, which branched off from all other living primates some 50 million years ago. The fossil virus is also missing one of the genes found in all other forms of S.I.V. and H.I.V. It may be a transitional form of the virus, akin to the fossils paleontologists have found of feathered dinosaurs that couldn’t fly.
Fossil viruses are also illuminating human evolution. Scientists estimate that 8.3 percent of the human genome can be traced back to retrovirus infections. To put that in perspective, that’s seven times more DNA than is found in all the 20,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome.
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But that figure may be too low, according to Dr. Katzourakis. “The measurable diversity of viruses may go up, and the true diversity may be much higher,” he said.
For one thing, some viruses may be too well hidden for scientists to see. The discovery of borna viruses in the human genome is another reason to wonder if we’re actually more viral than we know. All fossil viruses discovered until now have been retroviruses, but borna viruses are not.
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Unlike retroviruses, borna viruses do not insert themselves into host genomes. Instead, they take up residence inside the nucleus, the chamber that holds our DNA. There, they manipulate the cell’s proteins to make new copies of themselves.
Keizo Tomonaga, a virologist at Osaka University, discovered the borna virus DNA by accident. He had been comparing the virus genes with human genes to see if the virus might have evolved to mimic our own proteins. Instead, he discovered four segments of human DNA that clearly had descended from a borna virus gene. “I was surprised when I found them,” Dr. Tomonaga said.
He and his colleagues found the same borna virus DNA in apes and monkeys. In other words, borna virus first invaded the common ancestor of humans, apes and monkeys about 40 million years ago. But primates were not the only targets for borna viruses. Dr. Tomonaga and his colleagues have found independent invasions in other mammals, including ground squirrels, guinea pigs and elephants.
Dr. Tomonaga and his colleagues suspect that borna viruses didn’t actually invade mammal genomes. Instead, the genomes kidnapped them.
Mammal genomes contain thousands of stretches of DNA called LINEs. LINEs sometimes make copies of themselves that get reinserted back into the genome. Dr. Tomonaga’s research indicates that LINEs grabbed the genes of borna viruses and pulled them into their genome.
The discovery raises the possibility that LINEs have kidnapped other viruses floating near their host’s DNA, like flu viruses.
Two of the four copies of the borna virus gene carry crippling mutations. It’s impossible for our cells to make proteins from them. But the other two genes look remarkably intact, perhaps suggesting that our bodies use them for our own benefit. Exactly what they do isn’t clear though.
Studies on other captive viruses have revealed that some help ward off viral invasions. One virus protein, syncytin, is essential for our being born at all.
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“The only place it’s expressed is in the placenta,” Dr. Heidmann said. To understand its function, he and his colleagues disabled the gene in mice. Without syncytin, mice developed deformed placentas, and their embryos died.
Syncytin started as a surface protein on retroviruses that fused them to cells. When mammals captured the gene, they used it in the placenta to create a layer of fused cells through which mothers can send nutrients to their embryos.
Dr. Heidmann and his colleagues have discovered that over the past 100 million years, mammals have repeatedly harnessed viruses to make syncytin. “Wherever we search for them, we find them,” Dr. Heidmann said.
But the syncytin genes we use today may have actually replaced an ancestral one that a virus bequeathed to the very first placental mammals. In fact, that infection may have made the placenta possible in the first place. “It was a major event for animal evolution,” Dr. Heidmann said.On the surface, a movement for gender equality sounds like just the sort of thing we would praise, but the Go Topless Day leaves a lot to be desired. And not just because the founder is known nutjob Claude Vorilhon.
The LA Times reports that more than 200 people showed up yesterday to protest on the Venice Beach boardwalk. The crowd a rally as part of National Go Topless Day. Similar protests were planned for about a dozen cities across the country, from Chicago to Seattle. The event asked men to don bikini tops—and women to take them off—all in the name of fighting inequality.
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Which is all well and good. Really, we do believe making bare breasts legal is an important step toward stopping the unnecessary and seemingly inescapable sexualization of the public female form. There is nothing obscene about boobs, and there is nothing that makes our nipples any more offensive than men's. However, there are a few problems with the Go Topless movement, starting with the founder and host of the GoTopless website.
A little clicking around at GoTopless.org reveals that there is something slightly strange about the entire "movement." When describing the event, organizers quote "spiritual leaders" and "Priestesses:"
For Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org) and founder of Gotopless.org, the equation is simple: "As long as men can go topless, women should have the same constitutional right or men should also be forced to wear something that hides their chests." "We will force men to legally cover up if women can't go bare," agreed Nadine Gary, Raelian Priestess and President of Gotopless.org.
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Anyone curious enough to type in rael.org will be directed here, to the official internet home of Raelism, a "religion" founded by Claude Vorilhon, who now goes by the name of Rael. In 1973, Vorilhon says he saw a UFO, which inspired him to start his church—the "largest UFO religion in the world"—in Paris. Raelists believe that all earthly life was created by aliens, who now contact the human race through Vorilhon (his chosen name, Rael, means "messenger of Elohim," the Raelist name for our extraterrestrial overlords). Vorilhon has come under criticism for his liberal views of childhood sexuality, especially his belief that children should be free to do what they wish, which garnered him a reputation for encouraging pedophilia. His website denies these claims, explaining:
Some articles even refer to the Raelian order of angels, a congregation of women who want to develop their femininity and who can make the vow, if they wish so, to devote their sexuality only to our Creators and their Prophets. They would then wear a pink feather around their neck to openly show their desire to have no sex. These women decide freely to do so, just as catholic nuns would do; this is part of the free sexuality that we profess, the right to say no to sex as well. In this organization angel minors also have to signal the fact that they are under the legal age for sex, by wearing a black feather around their neck to make sure that no adult Raelian approach them at any time with sex in mind. Some of these minor angels also choose to have no sex at all, thus refusing sex with potential minor partners which most young girls experience during their teens. They would then wear a pink feather as well. Some newspapers have seen the minors' beautiful decision of reserving their sexuality for our Creators as an indication of pedophilia, which is completely ridiculous.
The "Order of Angels" mentioned above is actually a group of women who reportedly service Rael and his buddies. Another "women's group" for Raelist ladies to join is "Rael's Girls," which is composed entirely of sex workers. Their role is unclear, but apparently it has something to do with promoting sexual freedom among the members.
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Vorilhon's personal history makes his involvement in the topless movement a little suspicious, as Prescott Carlson at The Chicagoist notes. Carlson suggests that this is all part of Vorilhon's PR strategy, which seems somewhat akin to PETA's. The main ingredient seems to be shock value (Vorilhon also once stirred up controversy by claiming to have produced a human clone). In this light, their interest in gender equality seems like little more than a stunt, ironically relying on the same double standards that they claim to protest.
This hypocrisy is made all the more clear by the images on the GoTopless website. The main picture, shown above, asks why allow overweight men to go topless, yet punish thin young women? Another set of images shows an older man sunbathing without his shirt, next to several young girls. It also has the "Allowed?" caption, so apparently older men are too gross to go topless as well. In fact, almost all of the women featured on the GoTopless website are young, slender and white. They're clearly trying to make the whole thing sexy, but by doing so, they completely lose sight of why toplessness for women is illegal in the first place. Breasts are considered obscene because they have been sexualized to the point where even breastfeeding is often viewed as a threatening or disgusting act. GoTopless isn't concerned with making boobs more acceptable—they just want to make them more visible.
Topless Protesters Turn Heads At Venice Beach [LA Times]
Go Topless For Equality [Chicagoist]
Go Topless [Official Website]Social liberals equal conservatives for first time in Gallup poll
For the first time in the decade and a half that Gallup has been tracking Americans’ ideologies, the percentage of those identifying their views on social issues as liberal has equaled the percentage of those who call themselves socially conservative.
Among 1,024 adults surveyed earlier this month, 31 percent said they were socially liberal — and 31 percent said they were socially conservative.
The findings mark the lowest percentage of self-identified social conservatives and the highest percentage of self-identified social liberals since Gallup began asking the question in 1999.
In 2009, 42 percent of those surveyed called themselves very conservative or conservative on social issues, the highest percentage in the data set. The low point for social liberals came in 1999, when 21 percent identified themselves as such.
Among Democrats and Democratic ideological leaners, 53 percent say they are socially liberal, compared to just 14 percent who say they are conservative and 31 percent who say they are moderate. The 53 percent is the highest percentage since Gallup began tracking that number in 2001.
Among Republicans and Republican ideological leaners, 53 percent said they were socially conservative, the lowest percentage since the Gallup began asking that question. In 2009, 67 percent identified themselves as such.
Americans are still more likely to describe their views on economic issues as conservative, however, though the gap has been slowly shrinking and is at its smallest since 1999. The latest survey found that 39 percent call themselves conservatives on the economy, while only 19 percent staked out a liberal position.
The poll was conducted via telephone interviews from May 6 to 10, featuring a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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VotersOmaha activist says she received death threats after speaking about BLM at seminar An Omaha activist said she's getting threats after presenting to teachers at a seminar in which she was invited to speak about the Black Lives Matter movement. Share Shares Copy Link Copy
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WEBVTT CHINH DOAN IS LIVE WITH THIS STORY. CHINH DOAN: OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS CONFIRM THE LOCAL CONSULTANT PRESENTED TO 40 HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS LAST WEEK. THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES WITH WHY THE SEMINAR TURNED CONTROVERSIAL AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF. IT IS ON THE NEWS, IN THE STREETS, AND NOW THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT COULD MOVE INTO SCHOOLS. >> TEACHING YOU ABOUT THINGS ALREADY HAPPENING IN THE COMMUNITY. CHINH DOAN: SHE IS A LOCAL ACTIVIST AND CONSULTANT. SHE VOLUNTEERED TO SPEAK TO 40 OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS LAST YEAR DURING AN OPTIONAL SEMINAR THAT SUDDENLY GOT HEATED. >> THERE WERE TWO TEACHERS THAT WERE VOCALLY AGAINST EVERYTHING I SAID. CHINH DOAN: THE 25-YEAR-OLD SAYS THE PRESENTATION WAS FOCUSED ON THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT AND HOW TEACHERS COULD DISCUSS IT IN CLASS. OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS SAYS THIS IS NOT PART OF A CURRICULUM CHANGE AND IF SO, IT WOULD NEED TO BE APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. O.P.S. SAID -- THE INTENT WAS TO ADEQUATELY REPAIRED TEACHERS WITH A WELL-ROUNDED UNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE MOVEMENT AND ITS ORIGIN. THIS TOPIC IS BEING COVERED LOCALLY, REGIONALLY, AND NATIONWIDE. BOTH FREEMAN AND THE TEACHERS UNION SAY THERE NEEDS TO BE UPDATES TO THE CURRICULUM. >> WE DO HAVE DIFFICULTIES IN OUR CITY THAT INCLUDES RACE. TO ADDRESS THEM, WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION. PEOPLE WILL FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE. CHINH DOAN: THE OMAHA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION SAYS TEACHERS WOULD NEED TRAINING REGARDING ANY RACIAL DISCUSSIONS. THE UNION PRESIDENT SAYS THE SPECIFIC TOPIC WOULD DEPEND ON THE CONTEXT AND THE AGE OF THE STUDENTS.Warner Bros. is still saying sorry for messing up Batman: Arkham Knight this summer.
The publisher has today started gifting four free Batman titles to PC gamers who bought the technically disappointing (and unplayable for some) Batman: Arkham Knight. The offer is open to anyone who bought Arkham Knight from the Steam digital store before Nov. 16, and many people have discovered the free games — Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate — appearing in their Steam libraries in the past few hours.
Warner Bros. took the unusual step of pulling the PC version of Batman: Arkham City from digital and retail stores earlier this year as it was unplayable on most gaming rigs. It was a big deal, especially considering the importance of the big-name release in Warner Bros.’ publishing schedule.
Batman: Arkham Knight reappeared on Steam at the end of October, but it still posed problems for many players, and Warner Bros. promised full refunds until the end of the year. The publisher is hoping to further salvage its reputation in the PC community with this new giveaway, but not everyone’s happy — some Steam users are saying they haven’t received the free games yet despite being eligible.A vigil near the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai
It’s in human nature to mention any personal connection when offering solidarity, so I shall just briefly say that on my first visit to India, in 1980, I stayed at the Taj Mahal in Bombay, visited the “Gateway of India” and took a boat to Elephanta Island, toured the magnificent railway station, had my first diwali festival at Juhu beach, and paced the amazing corniche that was still known by some—after its dazzling string of lights—as “Queen Victoria’s necklace.” Wonderful though some of the 19th-century British architecture can be, Bombay is quintessentially an Indian achievement, and an achievement of all its peoples from the Portuguese-speaking Catholic Goans to the Zoroastrian Parsis. (The Jewish disciples of Rabbi Schneerson may be relatively recent arrivals, but there have been Baghdad Jews in Bombay since records were kept, and Jews in India since before Christ, and not until this week has a Jewish place in India been attacked for its own sake, so to speak.)
When Salman Rushdie wrote, in The Moor’s Last Sigh in 1995, that “those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay,” he was alluding to the Hindu chauvinists who had tried to exert their own monopoly in the city and who had forcibly renamed it—after a Hindu goddess—Mumbai. We all now collude with this, in the same way that most newspapers and TV stations do the Burmese junta’s work for it by using the fake name Myanmar. (Bombay’s hospital and stock exchange, both targets of terrorists, are still called by their right name by most people, just as Bollywood retains its “B.”)
This may seem like a detail, but it isn’t, because what’s at stake is the whole concept of a cosmopolitan city open to its own citizens and to the world—a city on the model of Sarajevo or London or Beirut or Manhattan. There is, of course, a reason they attract the ire and loathing of the religious fanatics. To the pure and godly, the very existence of such places is a profanity. In a smaller way, the same is true of the Islamabad Marriott hotel, where I also used to stay. It was a meeting point and crossroads for foreigners. It had a bar where the Pakistani prohibition rules did not apply. Its dining rooms and public spaces featured stylish Asian women who showed their faces. And so it had to be immolated, like any other Sodom or Gomorrah.
I hope I am not alone in finding the statements about Bombay from our politicians to be anemic and insipid, and the media coverage of the disastrous and criminal attack too parochially focused on the fate of visiting or resident Americans. India is emerging in many ways as our most important ally. It is a strong regional counterweight to Russia and China. Not to romanticize it overmuch, it is a huge and officially secular federal democracy that is based, like the United States, on ethnic and confessional pluralism. Its political and economic and literary echelons speak English better than most of us do. Its parliament in New Delhi—the unbelievably diverse and dignified Lok Sabha—was viciously attacked by Islamist gangsters and nearly destroyed in December 2001, a date which ought to have made more Americans pay more attention rather than less. Since then, Bombay has been assaulted multiple times and the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan blown up with the fairly obvious cross-border collusion of the same Pakistani forces who are helping in the rebirth of the Taliban.
It would be good to hear from the president and the president-elect that we regard attacks on the fabric and society of India with very particular seriousness, as assaults on a close friend that was battling al-Qaida long before we were. In response, it should be emphasized, our military and financial and nuclear and counterinsurgency cooperation with New Delhi will not be given a lower profile but a very much higher one. The people of India need to hear this from us, as do the enemies of India, who are our sworn enemies, too.
The inevitable question arises: Did our nominal ally Pakistan have a hand in this atrocity? In one sense, to ask the question is to answer it. Whether we refer to al-Qaida “proper,” or to any of the armed Kashmiri formations that have lately been mentioned, we find some pre-existing connection to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. Another conceivable suspect, the former Bombay crime lord Dawood Ibrahim, wanted by the Indian authorities on suspicion of blowing up the Bombay stock exchange and killing 300 civilians in 1993, has long been a fugitive from justice living safely in Pakistan’s main port of Karachi. Not a bad place from which to organize an amphibious assault team that acted as if it had been trained by serious military professionals.
Contrasted with the gruesome efficiency and premeditation of the murder tactics is the pathetic amateurism and cynicism of the propaganda side. In my boyhood geography lessons I learned that the Deccan is a plateau and plain, not a region or an identity. It is part of India’s deep interior; its very diverse inhabitants would not in any case arrive in Bombay by high-speed boat! It’s rather encouraging in a way that this is the best the jihadists can do by way of a fake cover story, but perhaps there will again be enough Western saps—as with the attacks on the United States and Britain and Turkey and Tunisia—to claim that none of this would have happened if not for the foreign policy of Bush and Blair. (I do not hold my breath, but as of the time of writing, this moronic faction has—amazingly—not yet been heard from.) An impressive thing about India is the way in which it has almost as many Muslim citizens, who live with greater prospects of peace and prosperity, as does Pakistan. This comity and integration is one of the many targets of the suicide killers, and it is another reason why firm, warm solidarity with India is the most pressing need of the present hour.Nieuwkoop, Netherlands (CNN) Minister Hank-Jan Prosman's Church in the village of Nieuwkoop sits on a tiny spit of land surrounded by water. Its tiled roof rises above the surrounding flat, canal-riven fields.
There has been a church here for close to 500 years. For the last five years, it's been Prosman's home.
On an average Sunday, he says, about a third of the 800 villagers will come to attend his service.
He has got to know many of them well over the past few years and in that time has witnessed the growing popularity of Holland's Donald Trump: the peroxide-blonde populist Geert Wilders.
Prosman tells me that he doesn't consider himself a prototypical nationalist, but he increasingly finds himself echoing the concerns of his rural parishioners.
The village looks and feels typically Dutch. Ducks splash around in the water; a few feet away, villagers amble between shops and stop to chat with friends.
It's a stone's throw from Amsterdam, but Nieuwkoop feels a world away from the bustle and tourists.
Prosman grew up around here. His father was a church minister before him. His grandfather was a local reed salesman in this region, famed for its peat and bull rushes.
Minister Henk-Jan Prosman says people voting for Wilders want to make sure they are heard.
At one time, both were staples of local commerce, but over the past few decades, Nieuwkoop, Prosman says, has become typical of many similar villages: they've become Holland's rural rust belt.
Peat and rushes are no longer in the same demand and employment patterns have changed, leaving many of Prosman's congregation uncertain about the future.
They are worried about the economy, he says, about the welfare system and about healthcare, but most of all about rising crime -- something many of them blame on Muslim immigrants.
Prosman's plain but welcoming 19th-century church replaced an even older one built in the 1500s. In an era of uncertainty, it has become a reassuring beacon of continuity and identity.
In Holland today, Prosman explains, the major political parties are hemorrhaging followers.
There is a crisis of confidence in the European Union's old elites. The integration and open borders that they sold supporters are past their expiry date.
"I think people get it. And they don't want it," Prosman says of the EU.
Prosman, who is not only a minister but also writes books on political science, says that his religious calling puts him far closer to the people than regular politicians.
His congregation confide in him, he says, in a way they wouldn't with others.
Mainstream political parties are out of touch, leaving many of his congregation turning to populist Geert Wilders for guidance and answers.
He tells me that Wilders' appeal mirrors the rise of Donald Trump: "I think it's the same in Holland with Geert Wilders: his voters take him seriously not literally," he says, whereas politicians "tend to take him literally."
Like Trump, Wilders' popularity is rising
One of Wilders' hot button issues is Muslim immigration: even in tiny rural Nieuwkoop, Prosman says it resonates.
He claims that public housing is being given to immigrants and that it is "very hard for young [Dutch] people to find a house."
In the 2006 general elections, Wilders' PVV (Party For Freedom) won 5.9% of the vote. In 2012, it won a little over 10.1%. Ahead of national elections here March 2017, polls predict that the party may get about 20% of the vote, making it the largest party in Parliament.
Where Trump has said many Mexicans are criminals, Wilders blames Muslim migrants -- in particular Moroccans -- who make up barely 2.2% of Holland's population.
He's been to court more than once on hate speech charges.
But the |
they believe Circle is now taking steps to build a truly global payments experience, one that will soon be able to allow users in the US, Europe and China to exchange value with the ease of a text message.
Allaire told CoinDesk:
“We don’t think of ourselves as focused on remittance or money transfer, we don’t think those categories will exist. For us, this capital is all going in the global company and that’s investment in consumer marketing, that’s the focus.”
Allaire sought to describe Circle as “not another closed network” like peer-to-peer payment platforms like Venmo or Transferwise, companies to which the startup’s business model market observers allege is now perhaps most similar.
In this way, Neville and Allaire assert that their core advantage is not that Circle will excel in providing money transfer services to consumers, but rather a more mature version of the company’s app will transcend boundaries, and thus, be more user friendly.
Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Circle.
Image via ShutterstockFINALLY GOD DAMMIT YESI DID ITand I am kind of so proud of myself, even though it didn't turn out the way I wanted to and I didn't include Yue, who I wanted to be here but who I was way too lazy and tired to draw.also background... I am awful at drawing backgrounds, and I can't wait until I will finally improve enough to make my background look good enough.I wanted to draw Harry Potter-Avatar crossover for such a long time, and I have much more ideas with characters crossovers, but obviously I can't draw it normally-_- But still, I am happy I finally did this one^^It just popped out in my head when I re-watched ATLA..also while getting 'quite a few' messages from people complaining about me not drawing Harry Potter as frequently as I used to..*sorry about that*So, now about houses.I honestly can't see Zuko anywhere else but on Gryffindor. He quite reminds me of Sirius considering all his family mass, so he's a true Gryffindor, not to mention he's so hot headed:3Sokka, in my head, would definitely be on Ravenclaw, because even despite his dorky attitude (sometimes), I guess he's actually the smartest in the group (when it comes to all those planning-map reading-strategy stuff), which, I guess, is quite Ravenclaw.Aang is Hufflepuff. I didn't even doubt it a single minute, even though he's brave enough to be in Gryffindor. He's just.. Aang is Aang, a little weirdo<3I had quite a hard choice on Katara, because..well she's smart enough for Ravenclaw, and brave and caring and has enough quialities for Gryffindor.. so I wasn't sure and this choice was a little bit random. But still, I am all for Mighty Katara on GryffindorToph.. I also had quite a problem with sorting her, but still.. she's kind of royalty, she's the Melon Lord.. so, Slytherin:3So is Azula whom I didn't even think a minute. Azula is probably the TRUE Slytherin.mm Ty Lee is Hufflepuff but mostly because she loves pink, haha, I am not sure about it. But I like her being on Hufflepuff the most.Suki is Gryffindor. She's the warrior, after all:3 idk idk I guess she would also fit on Ravenclaw with Sokka, but I went for Gryffindor.Mai....I wasn't sure if I should have her on Slytherin or on Ravenclaw, but ended up in Slytherin.. and I am honestly not sure why, except for her not showing any emotion to random people, only for the chosen ones, like ZuzuJet... oh Jet... this choice was kind of random, too.Also Appa... This Appa was to be made out of paper, Aang just playing with it using his magic, but I totally failed making him looking like he's made out of paper. aanddd I forgot to colour Sokka's boomerang. -____-anyway, I wrote a big clumsy terrible description, so now I will just leave it like this..Hope you'll like itPS: 10 points to your house if you noticed Zuko's To do list.10 more if you can read Ty Lee's bubble and one more detail nearby. And another 10 points for Jet's Fire Nation sucks badge.Space Goat Productions is the publisher of Evil Dead 2 comics as well as several creator owned, crowdfunded series, amongst other services. Founder and president Shon Bury is the subject of a Twitter thread by former employee Amelia Thompson, who started at Space Goat in 2016 and is still listed as Community Manager on the company’s website, alleging that Bury treated Thompson and co-workers “terribly,” including through what she describes as “aggressive jokes” and saying “violent and disgusting” things.
Thompson asked for others to share her Twitter thread, which you can read below:
1. I know for a lot of people this will come as a surprise that my boss, Shon Bury has treated both myself and my co-workers terribly in the last year and a half that we’ve worked for him at Space Goat Productions. — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
2. Regularly Bury said things about my coworkers or ex-coworkers that was both violent and disgusting. Saying that they were half-brained or mentally ill when they struggled with a task, regardless of whether or not they were ever trained. — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
3. I have witnessed every single one of my co-workers having panic attacks due to the weight, stress and aggressive atmosphere of this workplace. Although his treatment of staff has always been terrible the focus and sexism towards women was worse: — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
4. When referring to a female graphic designer of ours being late on a project he said he should have choked someone to death for it and that he would have “been justified in doing so”. Shon asked me at a work dinner in a full restaurant if I was going to die of diabetes. — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
5. After I put in my two weeks and expressed that I was quitting because the aggressive jokes made me uncomfortable Bury told my supervisor that young women are too fragile for the comic book industry. That women can’t take a joke, that he wouldn’t be hiring young women anymore. — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
6. I am desperately asking you to share this out, so that no one else has to work under Shon and endure what all of us have. I deeply appreciate all my co-workers, current and past, that are supporting me in the vocalization of something that’s incredibly hard to talk about. — Your Average Punk (@AmeliaMaryT) November 27, 2017
Not only are people sharing the thread, but it seems to be having a ripple effect amongst others associated with the publisher, including Cal Moray, one half of the creative team of Moonlighters, another series previously published by Space Goat, who added claims of late payments to the mix:
THREAD: I’d rather not work for a man so emotionally volatile that he threatens violence against his employees. https://t.co/m2NEcPSnvt — Cal Moray (@CalMoray) November 27, 2017
I support @AmeliaMaryT 100%. I keep my gender under wraps because it shouldn’t matter, but I am a woman. And I cannot be associated with someone who refuses to hire women due to his own personal insecurities. — Cal Moray (@CalMoray) November 27, 2017
Considering my contract has been broken with each late payment I’ve received anyway, please consider this its official termination. — Cal Moray (@CalMoray) November 27, 2017
I wish the best of luck to @AmeliaMaryT and hope that you will share her story and support her — Cal Moray (@CalMoray) November 27, 2017
The other half of Moonlighters‘ creative team, writer Katie Schenkel, also chimed in, boosting Thompson’s thread:
This thread is important. I believe Amelia and I support her 100%. https://t.co/PHphPSSZJy — Katie Schenkel (@JustPlainTweets) November 27, 2017
The creative team of Monster Elementary, another comic Space Goat has published, also supported Thompson and echoed Moray’s comments about allegedly late (and sometimes allegedly nonexistent) payments.
We can confirm that payments to freelancers and creators by Space Goat are not timely, let alone at all. We have never received a full and complete reporting of our account and are still owed money. Shon has stopped replying to our inquiries. We have heard similar stories before. — Monster Elementary (@MonsterElem) November 28, 2017
As for Space Goat, the company’s Twitter account responded apologetically:
Amelia, I’m truly sorry about this entire thing. If you had brought up any of your concerns prior to your resignation, all of this could have been addressed. — Space Goat (@gospacegoat) November 28, 2017
I’ve always appreciated the work you’ve done for us and regret we where never able to address this with you in a productive fashion. I wish you the best. — Space Goat (@gospacegoat) November 28, 2017
Though a deleted Tweet from a day earlier shows a different approach:
Reached for additional comment, Thompson told Bleeding Cool:
There are two things I want people to know. The first, I have the full support of both of my past Space Goat supervisors. They helped me edit every tweet for grammar and clarity. My ex-coworkers have been immensely supportive through all of this, two even resigning after I collected my things on Monday, Nov. 27. They expressed that the way I was treated after my resignation was unacceptable. The second, I’m taking some time to recover and handle this media explosion while out of a job. If supporters wanted to aid me beyond just retweets, my paypal is on my twitter. I’m worried about making bills the next couple months but I just couldn’t let my friends or myself be hurt any longer.
We’ve reached out to Space Goat for comment, and received the following statement from Shon Bury:
I can’t apologize enough for this entire situation. I deeply regret that I fostered an environment where a smart person like Amelia felt uncomfortable working under my direct management–and that she felt even less comfortable bringing up her concerns until she resigned. It has been my design since I opened the doors at Space Goat 12 years ago to create a workplace where smart, talented, young people can come to work and learn the craft of comic books. Amelia is exactly the type of capable young employee publishers should be looking to bring into their organization and to build up. I had thought I had created that environment for my staff, but the daily stress of running a graphic-novel and board-game publishing company at the tempo we have been running became visible to all around me over the last several months. This isn’t on anyone else in my organization but me. This is squarely, 100% on me. My inability to regulate my frustration during this period poisoned the very environment I had set out to create. I behaved poorly and I failed miserably at one of the core tenets of why I even want to be in business. I will always deeply regret losing Amelia, and am ashamed of how poorly I handled her resignation. I am taking immediate action to resolve this flaw within myself starting today with counseling and anger-management classes. Nothing is more important to me than the culture and community we are trying to create. I won’t let anyone stand in the way of achieving those goals. Not even myself.
About Jude Terror A prophecy says that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero will come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events. Scourge of Rich Johnston, maker of puns, and seeker of the Snyder Cut, Jude Terror, sadly, is not the hero comics needs right now... but he's the one the industry deserves.
(Last Updated )
Related PostsHave you ever had an iPod nano catch fire on you? Even if you haven't, if you still have a first-generation iPod nano, the risk is there. Six years after the introduction of the original nano, Apple has rolled out a replacement program in order to address potential battery overheating issues.
Apple began notifying users late Friday about the replacement program. According to the company: "This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect. While the possibility of an incident is rare, the likelihood increases as the battery ages." The company recommends that users stop using their first-gen iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 and apply for a free replacement through its website.
Those with long memories may recall that there was a series of laptop battery recalls that took place throughout the fall of 2006, with big names like Apple, Dell, Toshiba, and Sony replacing the lithium-ion batteries in many of their portable products. In August of 2006, Apple issued a statement saying that "microscopic metal particles" in its battery cells manufactured by Sony could lead to a short circuit, leading to potential overheating issues and even fires.
It certainly sounds as if the first-generation iPod nano batteries are suffering the same fate, as they were manufactured and sold during the same time period as the laptop battery fiasco. Complaints about the original nano began cropping up in Japan and South Korea not long after (starting in about 2008), with Apple eventually agreeing to replace any overheating devices in those countries. Now, it looks as if Apple's replacement program is just being extended to cover the rest of the world, so if you still have one of these in rotation (as I do, strangely enough), you may want to get it replaced so you don't wake up one night to iPod nano flambé.The American folk-music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed, Paul Robeson and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had, in earlier times, contributed to the development of country and western, jazz, and rock and roll music.
Overview [ edit ]
Early years [ edit ]
The folk revival in New York City was rooted in the resurgent interest in square dancing and folk dancing there in the 1940s, which gave musicians such as Pete Seeger popular exposure.[2][3][4] The folk revival more generally as a popular and commercial phenomenon begins with the career of The Weavers, formed in November 1948 by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Ronnie Gilbert of People's Songs, of which Seeger had been president and Hays executive secretary. People's Songs, which disbanded in 1948–49, had been a clearing house for labor movement songs (and in particular, the CIO, which at the time was one of the few if not the only union that was racially integrated), and in 1948 had thrown all its resources to the failed presidential campaign of Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, a folk-music aficionado (his running mate was a country-music singer-guitarist). Hays and Seeger had formerly sung together as the politically activist Almanac Singers, a group which they founded in 1941 and whose personnel often included Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Lead Belly, Cisco Houston, and Bess Lomax Hawes. The Weavers had a big hit in 1950 with the single of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene". This was number one on the Billboard charts for thirteen weeks.[5] On its flip side was "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", an Israeli dance song that concurrently reached number two on the charts. This was followed by a string of Weaver hit singles that sold millions, including ""So Long It's Been Good to Know You" ("Dusty Old Dust") (by Woody Guthrie) and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine". The Weavers' career ended abruptly when they were dropped from Decca's catalog because Pete Seeger had been listed in the publication Red Channels as a probable subversive. Radio stations refused to play their records and concert venues canceled their engagements. A former employee of People's Songs, Harvey Matusow, himself a former Communist Party member, had informed the FBI that the Weavers were Communists, too, although Matusow later recanted and admitted he had lied. Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955. Despite this, a Christmas Weaver reunion concert in 1955 was a smash success and the Vanguard LP album of that concert, issued in 1957, was one of the top sellers of that year, followed by other successful albums.
Folk music, which often carried the stigma of left-wing associations during the 1950s Red Scare, was driven underground and carried along by a handful of artists releasing records. Barred from mainstream outlets, artists like Seeger were restricted to performing in schools and summer camps, and the folk-music scene became a phenomenon associated with vaguely rebellious bohemianism in places like New York City (especially Greenwich Village), North Beach, and in the college and university districts of cities like Chicago, Boston, Denver, and elsewhere.
Ron Eyerman and Scott Baretta speculate that:
[I]t is interesting to consider that had it not been for the explicit political sympathies of the Weavers and other folk singers or, another way of looking at it, the hysterical anti-communism of the Cold War, folk music would very likely have entered mainstream American culture in even greater force in the early 1950s, perhaps making the second wave of the revival nearly a decade later [i.e., in the 1960s] redundant.[6]
The media blackout of performers with alleged communist sympathies or ties was so effective that Israel Young, a chronicler of the 60s Folk Revival, who himself was drawn into the movement through an interest in folk dancing, communicated to Ron Eyerman that he himself was unaware for many years of the movement's 1930s and early '40s antecedents in left-wing political activism.[7]
In the early and mid-1950s, acoustic-guitar-accompanied folk songs were mostly heard in coffee houses, private parties, open-air concerts, and sing-alongs, hootenannies, and at college-campus concerts. Often associated with political dissent, folk music now blended, to some degree, with the so-called beatnik scene; and dedicated singers of folk songs (as well as folk-influenced original material) traveled through what was called "the coffee-house circuit" across the U.S. and Canada, home also to cool jazz and recitations of highly personal beatnik poetry. Two singers of the 1950s who sang folk material but crossed over into the mainstream were Odetta and Harry Belafonte, both of whom sang Lead Belly and Josh White material. Odetta, who had trained as an opera singer, performed traditional blues, spirituals, and songs by Lead Belly. Belafonte had hits with Jamaican calypso material as well as the folk song-like sentimental ballad "Scarlet Ribbons" (composed in 1949).
The revival at its height [ edit ]
The Kingston Trio in 1958
The Kingston Trio, a group originating on the West Coast, were directly inspired by the Weavers in their style and presentation and covered some of the Weavers' material, which was predominantly traditional. The Kingston Trio avoided overtly political or protest songs and cultivated a clean-cut, collegiate persona. They were discovered while playing at a college club called the Cracked Pot by Frank Werber, who became their manager and secured them a deal with Capitol Records. Their first hit was a catchy rendition of an old-time folk murder ballad, "Tom Dooley", which had been sung at Lead Belly's funeral concert. This went gold in 1958 and sold more than three million copies. The success of the album and the single earned the Kingston Trio a Grammy award for Best Country & Western Performance at the awards' inaugural ceremony in 1959. At the time, no folk-music category existed in the Grammy's scheme. The next year, largely as a result of The Kingston Trio album and "Tom Dooley",[8] the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences instituted a folk category and the Trio won the first Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for its second studio album At Large. At one point, The Kingston Trio had four records at the same time among the Top 10 selling albums for five consecutive weeks in November and December 1959 according to Billboard Magazine's "Top LPs" chart, a record unmatched for more than 50 years[9][10][11][12][13][14] and noted at the time by a cover story in Life Magazine. The huge commercial success of the Kingston Trio, whose recordings between 1958 and 1961 earned more than $25 million for Capitol records[15] or about $195 million in 2014 dollars[16] spawned a host of groups that were similar in some respects like the Brothers Four, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Limeliters, The Chad Mitchell Trio, The New Christy Minstrels and more. As noted by critic Bruce Eder in the All Music Guide, the popularity of the commercialized version of folk music represented by these groups emboldened record companies to sign, record, and promote artists with more traditionalist and political sensibilities.[17]
The Kingston Trio's popularity would be followed by that of Joan Baez, whose debut album Joan Baez, reached the top ten in late 1960 and remained on the Billboard charts for over two years. Baez's early albums contained mostly traditional material such as the Scottish ballad, "Mary Hamilton", as well as many covers of melancholy ballads that had appeared in Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, such as "The Wagoner's Lad" and "The Butcher Boy". She did not try to imitate the singing style of her source material, however, but used a rich soprano with vibrato. Her popularity (and that of the folk revival itself) would place Baez on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1962. Baez, unlike the Kingston Trio, was openly political, and, as the civil rights movement gathered steam, aligned herself with Pete Seeger, Guthrie and others. She was one of the singers, along with Seeger, Josh White, Peter, Paul and Mary and Bob Dylan, who appeared at Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington and sang "We Shall Overcome", a song that had been introduced by People's Songs. Harry Belafonte was also present on that occasion, along with Odetta, whom Martin Luther King introduced as "the queen of folk music", when she sang "Oh, Freedom" (Odetta Sings Folk Songs was one of 1963's best-selling folk albums). Also on hand were the SNCC Freedom Singers, the personnel of which went on to form Sweet Honey in the Rock.
The critical role played by Freedom Songs in the voter registration drives, freedom rides, and lunch counter sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and early '60s in the South, gave folk music tremendous new visibility and prestige.[18] The peace movement was likewise energized by the rise of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK, protesting the British testing of the H-bomb in 1958, as well as by the ever-proliferating arms race and the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Young singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, had been signed and recorded for Columbia by producer John Hammond in 1961. Dylan's record enjoyed some popularity among Greenwich Village folk-music enthusiasts, but he was "discovered" by an immensely larger audience when a pop-folk-music group, Peter, Paul & Mary had a hit with a cover of his song "Blowin' in the Wind". Peter, Paul & Mary also brought Pete Seeger and the Weavers' "If I Had a Hammer" to nationwide audiences, as well as covering songs by other artists such as Dylan and John Denver.
It was not long before the folk-music category came to include less traditional material and more personal and poetic creations by individual performers, who called themselves "singer-songwriters". As a result of the financial success of high-profile commercial folk artists, record companies began to produce and distribute records by a new generation of folk revival and singer-songwriters—Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Eric von Schmidt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Fred Neil, Gordon Lightfoot, Billy Ed Wheeler, John Denver, Arlo Guthrie, Harry Chapin, John Hartford, and others, among them. Some of this wave had emerged from family singing and playing traditions, and some had not. These singers frequently prided themselves on performing traditional material in imitations of the style of the source singers whom they had discovered, frequently by listening to Harry Smith's celebrated LP compilation of forgotten or obscure commercial 78rpm "race" and "hillbilly" recordings of the 1920s and 30s, the Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music (1951). A number of the artists who had made these old recordings were still very much alive and had been "rediscovered" and brought to the 1963 and 64 Newport Folk Festivals. One of these, Clarence Ashley, for example, introduced folk revivalists to the music of friends of his who still actively played traditional music, such as Doc Watson and The Stanley Brothers.
Archivists, collectors, and re-issued recordings [ edit ]
During the 1950s, the growing folk-music crowd that had developed in the United States began to buy records by older, traditional musicians from the Southeastern hill country and from urban inner-cities. New LP compilations of commercial 78-rpm race and hillbilly studio recordings stretching back to the 1920s and 1930s were published by major record labels. The expanding market in LP records increased the availability of folk-music field recordings originally made by John and Alan Lomax, Kenneth S. Goldstein, and other collectors during the New Deal era of the 1930s and 40s. Small record labels, such as Yazoo Records, grew up to distribute reissued older recordings and to make new recordings of the survivors among these artists. This was how many urban white American audiences of the 1950s and 60s first heard country blues and especially Delta blues that had been recorded by Mississippi folk artists 30 or 40 years before.
In 1952, Folkways Records released the Anthology of American Folk Music, compiled by anthropologist and experimental film maker Harry Smith. The Anthology featured 84 songs by traditional country and blues artists, initially recorded between 1927 and 1932, and was credited with making a large amount of pre-War material accessible to younger musicians. (The Anthology was re-released on CD in 1997, and Smith was belatedly presented with a Grammy Award for his achievement in 1991.)[19]
Artists like the Carter Family, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Clarence Ashley, Buell Kazee, Uncle Dave Macon, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Stanley Brothers, as well as Jimmie Rodgers, the Reverend Gary Davis, and Bill Monroe came to have something more than a regional or ethnic reputation. The revival turned up a tremendous wealth and diversity of music and put it out through radio shows and record stores.
Living representatives of some of the varied regional and ethnic traditions, including younger performers like Southern-traditional singer Jean Ritchie, who had first begun recording in the 1940s, also enjoyed a resurgence of popularity through enthusiasts' widening discovery of this music and appeared regularly at folk festivals.
Ethnic folk music [ edit ]
Ethnic folk music from other countries also had a boom during the American folk revival. The most successful ethnic performers of the revival were the Greenwich Village folksingers, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, whom Billboard Magazine listed as the eleventh best-selling folk musicians in the United States.[20] The group, which consisted of Paddy Clancy, Tom Clancy, Liam Clancy, and Tommy Makem, predominantly sang English-language, Irish folk songs, as well as an occasional song in Irish Gaelic. Paddy Clancy also started and ran the folk-music label Tradition Records, which produced Odetta's first solo LP and initially brought Carolyn Hester to national prominence.[21] Pete Seeger played the banjo on their Grammy-nominated 1961 album, A Spontaneous Performance Recording,[22][23] and Bob Dylan later cited the group as a major influence on him.[24] The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem also sparked a folk-music boom in Ireland in the mid-1960s, illustrating the world-wide effects of the American folk-music revival.[25][26][27][28][29]
Books such as the popular best seller, the Fireside Book of Folk Songs (1947), which contributed to the folk song revival, featured some material in languages other than English, including German, Spanish, Italian, French, Yiddish, and Russian. The repertoires of Theodore Bikel, Marais and Miranda, and Martha Schlamme also included Hebrew and Jewish material, as well as Afrikaans. The Weavers' first big hit, the flipside of Lead Belly's "Good Night Irene", and a top seller in its own right, was in Hebrew ("Tzena, Tzena, Tzena") and they, and later Joan Baez, who was of Spanish descent, occasionally included Spanish-language material in their repertoires, as well as songs from Africa, India, and elsewhere.
The commercially oriented folk-music revival as it existed in coffee houses, concert halls, radio, and TV was predominantly an English-language phenomenon, though many of the major pop-folk groups, such as the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio, The Limeliters, The Brothers Four, The Highwaymen, and others, featured songs in Spanish (often from Mexico), Polynesian languages, Russian, French, and other languages in their recordings and performances. These groups also sang many English-language songs of foreign origin.
Rock subsumes folk [ edit ]
The British Invasion of the mid-1960s helped bring an end to the mainstream popularity of American folk music as a wave of British bands overwhelmed most of the American music scene, including folk. Ironically, the roots of the British Invasion were in American folk, specifically a variant known as skiffle as popularized by Lonnie Donegan; however, most of the British Invasion bands had been extensively influenced by rock and roll by the time their music had reached the United States and bore little resemblance to its folk origins.
After Bob Dylan began to record with a rocking rhythm section and electric instruments in 1965 (see Electric Dylan controversy), many other still-young folk artists followed suit. Meanwhile, bands like The Lovin' Spoonful and the Byrds, whose individual members often had a background in the folk-revival coffee-house scene, were getting recording contracts with folk-tinged music played with a rock-band line-up. Before long, the public appetite for the more acoustic music of the folk revival began to wane.
"Crossover" hits ("folk songs" that became rock-music-scene staples) happened now and again. One well-known example is the song "Hey Joe", copyrighted by folk artist Billy Roberts, and recorded by rock singer/guitarist Jimi Hendrix just as he was about to burst into stardom in 1967. The anthem "Woodstock," which was written and first sung by Joni Mitchell while her records were still nearly entirely acoustic and while she was labeled a "folk singer", became a hit single for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when the group recorded a full-on rock version.
Legacy [ edit ]
By the late 1960s, the scene had returned to being more of a lower-key, aficionado phenomenon, although sizable annual acoustic-music festivals were established in many parts of North America during this period. The acoustic music coffee-house scene survived at a reduced scale. Through the luminary young singer-songwriters of the 1960s, the American folk-music revival has influenced songwriting and musical styles throughout the world.
Major figures [ edit ]
Gallery [ edit ]
Other performers [ edit ]
Managers [ edit ]
Venues [ edit ]
Periodicals [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Happy Birthday, Instagram! Yes, the photo-sharing app that many of you check first thing in the morning turned 4 years old today. Although its popularity skyrocketed after Facebook acquired it for roughly 1 billion dollars in 2012, the initial launch of the social-netowrking service was on October 6th, 2010. Now, Instagram has amassed over 200 million users who are posting roughly 60 million photos each day. To celebrate, EDMTunes has compiled a list of accounts that you need to follow if you’re looking for a good laugh every time you scroll down your feed. With social media being such an essential part of artists’ careers, Instagram has provided a way for them to visually connect with thousands of their fans with the click of a button. As easy as it may be to upload a simple post, these 10 DJs have taken the art to the next level and we’re about to show you why.
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Posts: 2,868
Followers: 799,705
Why You Should Follow: If the countless throwback Thursday photoshops and half-naked girls don’t do it for you, the dude also posts some adorable pictures of/with his son. No wonder he’s racked up more followers than anyone on this list.
The Chainsmokers (thechainsmokers)
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Posts: 1,302 Followers: 81,561 Why You Should Follow: The guys post tons of cute animal pictures, 15-second videos that will have you laughing out loud and have a solid bromance that will make you and your best bud jealous. Oh, and did we forget to mention they have a thing for selfies?
DJ Snake (djsnakeparis)
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Posts: 483
Followers: 85,182
Why You Should Follow: It’s always exciting to see which famous friend Snake will be hanging out with next (especially ‘Carl Cox‘ and ‘deadmau5’), but the biggest reason you should follow him: you have the chance to be the first person in the world to see him crack a smile.
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Posts: 770
Followers: 23,203
Why You Should Follow: Just like their productions and DJ sets, followers of GTA’s Instagram account will never know what to expect next. Whether it’s cats, dancing children or whatever you would call this, they’ll always keep you guessing.
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Posts: 1,378 Followers: 165,486 Why You Should Follow: There is no denying Josh and Curt’s strong bond with their fans and a big part of that is because of their active Instagram presence. For some hilariously relatable pictures, the HDYGRL of the week and a whole lot of warning signs, this is the account for you.
Kill The Noise (killthenoise)
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Posts: 703
Followers: 63,032
Why You Should Follow: If this picture describing his relationship with Feed Me doesn’t do it for you, nothing will. Also, now that the ‘Majestic As Fak’ tour with Milo & Otis and Botnek is underway, you can expect to see tons of behind the scenes videos like this.
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Posts: 397 Followers: 728,398 Why You Should Follow: Unlike many of the other artists on this list, Zedd did not make the cut because of the funny pictures he reposts. Basically, whether he is chilling with Martin Garrix, throwing down a wild set or just taking a drink, the dude finds a way to make some of the funniest faces you will ever see.
Adventure Club (adventureclub)
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Posts: 434 Followers: 79,115 Why You Should Follow: To sum it up, they will provide you with all the hysterical pictures you need to impress your friends with. Whether it is this modified album cover, Amazon book suggestion or festival outfit, the Canadian duo has you covered.
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Posts: 515
Followers: 22,256
Why You Should Follow: Instagram transformation pictures can be pretty annoying, but the guys in LOUDPVCK have proven that they can use one of the lamest trends to get a laugh out of us with this first and second photo. Also, for all you stoners out there, these are some guys you can relate to.
Dillon Francis (dillonfrancis)
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Posts: 1,732
Followers: 392,374
Why You Should Follow: Last, but certainly not least, we have Dillon Francis aka DJ Hanzel aka Klaud aka Treva aka Greg aka Rave Dad. If you follow him, not only will you get to know his multiple personalities, but you will also be able to get some pro Tinder tips from the man himself.
Did we forget anyone? Tell us which DJ has the funniest Instagram below.
Disclaimer: All post and follower numbers are accurate as of the night of October 4th and are subject to change.
Photo Credit: RukesAn exhibition of works by calligraphers Omid Ganjali and Mohsen Soleimani opened at Tehran’ Niavaran Cultural Center on Sunday to promote qalamkari, Iranian calico art that the artists believe is being forgotten.
The artworks were previously showcased at “From Earth to Heaven”, an exhibition that the Salam Art Creations Institute, a Tehran-based private organization developing Iranian arts, held at Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul in July.
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to do today, it docks their pay.
The real challenge now will be the near-term deadline of March 27, when last year’s spending authority ends and the government shuts down.
Getting a fiscal agreement worked out won’t be easy. While the debt ceiling extension improves the Republican negotiating position by robbing the president of his ability to portray the GOP as totally reckless, the ugliness of a government shutdown isn’t much of an improvement. The same tactic in 1996 eventually produced a budget deal between a Democratic president and a conservative House of Representatives, but it didn’t paint Republicans in glory.
The Republicans who dominate the House still want more spending cuts, but Senate Democrats and the White House won’t enact them unless they’re balanced by tax increases. While the bulk of US fiscal consolidation so far has been through spending reductions, leading conservatives like House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan are still refusing to consider tax reform that lowers rates and raises revenue. And it will likely take Democratic votes to pass any such balanced package (as today’s debt ceiling vote did), because not all the House Republicans will sign on to one.
The problem now is that the speaker of the House, the Republicans’ John Boehner, has promised a budget that reaches balance in ten years. There’s no compelling reason to do this: While stabilizing the debt is a reasonable goal, it doesn’t require a balanced budget by 2023. When the Peterson Foundation commissioned five think tanks to come up with a debt-stabilization plan, only one, the conservative Heritage Foundation, did it by balancing the budget—and, because it refused to raise taxes, its plan required cutting domestic spending to levels not seen in over a half a century while completely restructuring politically popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Also hemming in Boehner is the party’s budget from last year, which wouldn’t have led to balance by 2023 but did dramatically cut both taxes and spending. Meeting the new goal will require the party to navigate a political minefield, as Josh Barro explains—how do you maintain your commitment to last year’s tax plan while also cutting an additional 1.2% of GDP from an already spartan budget? And after they do that, how will they reconcile it with a Senate document that will cut some spending overall, but also increase taxes and add new investments to spur the economy?
So though Congress bought itself more time today, there’s a good chance of more brinksmanship, leading to a potential government shutdown, before a deal is reached. Nonetheless, it’s out of the fire and back to the frying pan for the US fiscal debate.Democrats unveiled their latest proposal to increase the minimum wage yesterday, and it shows not just how quickly the party's consensus has moved on this issue, but what activists can accomplish by changing the terms of debate. We don't know exactly when a bill to raise the minimum wage will pass Congress and be signed by the president, but it will happen eventually. When it does, lots of Republicans are going to vote for it, for the same reason they have in the past: because the political risks of voting no are too high. The biggest question may be whether the next increase is the one that finally eliminates the minimum wage as a political issue.
The minimum wage has been at $7.25 since 2009, the last step in a series of increases set by the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. That bill was signed by President Bush, and got the support not only of every Democrat in Congress, but also of 82 Republicans in the House and 45 in the Senate. Republicans may be standing in the way of an increase now, but eventually they'll let it through, if for no other reason than the desire to stop the pummeling Democrats inflict on them over the issue.
But look how the Democratic position has changed. In his State of the Union address in 2013, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour. A year later, he proposed raising it to $10.10. His administration has now endorsed a $12 minimum; Secretary of Labor Tom Perez appeared at yesterday's press conference with congressional Democrats to give the administration's support for this new bill sponsored by Senator Patty Murray and Representative Bobby Scott.
Even more important may be the fact that indexing the minimum wage—having it rise automatically with the cost of living—has now also become a central Democratic demand. The Murray-Scott bill would index it not to inflation but to median wages (Danny Vinik argues that that isn't a good idea), but the point is that no Democratic proposal from now on is going to exclude indexing.
It seems pretty clear that the activist movement around a $15 minimum wage has pulled the consensus among Democratic politicians toward a higher demand. Which isn't surprising—it's called the anchoring effect, and it's something both sides use in negotiations over money all the time. I say I'll give you $20 for your old lawnmower, knowing that I'll be willing to give you more for it, while you say you want $100 for it, knowing you'll be willing to take less. We're each hoping that our initial offer will set a context that changes how the eventual number is perceived. It's why stores put labels that read, "Regular price $99—reduced to $49!" on items. The $99 is purely fictional; its only purpose is to make $49 seem like a great deal.
The discussion of a $15 minimum wage made $10.10 seem too modest to those who want to see the wage increased, so they've now settled on $12 (which would be phased in between now and 2020). So why should Republicans embrace the latest proposal or something like it? They may like to see a lower increase, and they might be able to negotiate one—perhaps to $10.10. But they really ought to embrace indexing, for the simple reason that it means we aren't likely to debate the federal minimum wage much once it's in effect. This issue is absolutely brutal for them—minimum wage increases are regularly supported by over 70 percent of the public, and the discussion reinforces the one thing above all others that Republicans wish people wouldn't believe about them, that they only care about the interests of the wealthy.
So if you actually passed a law that increased the minimum wage and indexed it to inflation, it would keep rising slowly to keep up with the cost of living, and there wouldn't be much reason to have arguments about it. Everyone would get something they want.PLEASE NOTE: Pre-orders will be taken until 1/28/16. We expect to ship all orders over the first week of February.
Ryan Gosling. David Beckham. George Clooney. What do these hunks all have in common?
They'd all look even better in this shirt.
There's nothing more rugged and manly than a guy who loves rabbits, and now you can inform the general public by wearing this shirt. Wear it to support the bunny-loving men in your life, or to let people know how manly you feel when you cuddle your furry wingman.
As always, 50% of the proceeds from the sales of this shirt go directly to rabbit shelters in need!
This unisex, tri-blend American Apparel tee is hand screenprinted and available in the following sizes. Please review the sizes below carefully, as each shirt is made to order and there are no returns for a different size.
S:
34-36" - Chest
30-32" - Waist
M:
38-40" - Chest
32-33" - Waist
L:
42-44" - Chest
33-34" - Waist
XL:
46-48" - Chest
36-38" - Waist
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© 2015 Guerilla Science. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.Solange didn't have to save Black History Month, but she did anyway thanks to her takeover of BlackPlanet.
The singer has dropped hints about new music for some time but on Tuesday (Feb. 26), the singer shared her custom-made profile on BlackPlanet, the original social networking platform. "New world wiide web," she captioned a quick video of her BlackPlanet profile page.
The videos on the page are without sound, but they do give us a hint towards the looks she'll tackle this time around. There's also quotes that appear as lyrics throughout the page.
They include:
I made the pilgrimage back to the pagoda of third ward houston to answer this. When your body is all you have you best take care. When your body is all you have you best take care. For the bad weaves and two ways. I swallowed the light.... Threw my earnings like offerings and prayed it went to something that made her feel good. How much of ourselves do we leave at home and how much do we carry with us forever? But I did not sit in the sun. How much of ourselves do we leave at home and how much do we carry with us forever?
There's a lot to digest but clarity might be on the way as well. The Grammy winner included a newsletter sign-up page and a "Live" page that includes her upcoming sets at the Heartland Festival and Bonnaroo.
Despite natural assumption, BlackPlanet is still thriving. Launched in 2001 by Omar Warsow, the platform was intended to be the go-to destination for African Americans looking for jobs, love and everything in between. In 2008, it's parent company Community Connect (which also houses MiGente and AsianAvenue.com) was acquired by Radio One for $38M.
Solange hasn't said much about her new music, but she did share her latest mag cover– i-D magazine’s Homegrown Issue. Styled by Ib Kamara, the singer-songwriter rocks an all-black look (turtleneck by Coach 1941) on the cover and white hats by Marc Jacobs in other portraits.
Take a look at Solange's BlackPlanet profile here.
View this post on Instagram
taking ovaa www.blackplanet.com/solange/ 🖤🖤 new world wiide web ⚫️ (link in daa)
A post shared by @ saintrecords on Feb 26, 2019 at 10:25am PST
View this post on Instagram
hey y’aallll 🖤🖤🖤 endless thanks to @i_d & the legends tim walker and ib kamara so much gratitude wow
A post shared by @ saintrecords on Feb 25, 2019 at 7:13pm PSTUCF basketball players wanted a head coach who would be a strong disciplinarian. And that's exactly what they got so far in Johnny Dawkins.
Less than 10 days into his tenure as the Knights new head coach, Dawkins required players to report to the arena for a 5 a.m. run. He declined to elaborate on the offense which triggered the run (a missed class is suspected), but said he was pleased with the team's response.
"You have to be prepared, you have to man up and here’s the consequences and we made the mistake and now we’re going to rectify the situation by paying whatever the consequence is so our guys were great," Dawkins said. "Every guy that participated did a terrific job."
Dawkins is hard-wired for the disciplined life having grown up the son of a former green beret. He later played for revered Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and also served as his assistant from 1998-2008.
Now, he'll look to tighten up a UCF basketball program that is looking to take the next step in the increasingly competitive American Athletic Conference.
We caught up with Dawkins last week to get an early overview on the Knights.
Orlando Sentinel: What was your reaction when you heard players asked for more discipline?
Johnny Dawkins: That was a new one for me [laughs]. But kids really do crave that and that’s something that even if a young person says ‘I don’t really want this, I don’t like this,’ they all want it and they all need it. So you have to understand the approach of how you give it to them. I’m sure the previous staff that was here was providing things of that nature as well. I like those guys, I know those guys and they’re great coaches. So it’s not about that, it’s just about sometimes change. That’s just the nature of life. But I’m excited about giving them what they’ve said they’re craving and I think there’s gonna be some adjustments with that. There’s going to be some change that isn’t easy to do. You have some habits that have been instilled that are going to have to change if you want the type of discipline that you guys are seeking.
OS: How did they handle their first dose of discipline when you made them run at 5 a.m.?
JD: [Laughs] Well, I don’t want to go into that but our guys have been great, they really have. They realize that I’m very fair…We had some things that we wanted to get done and they didn’t get done so there are always consequences for that. You have to be prepared, you have to man up and here’s the consequences and we made the mistake and now we’re going to rectify the situation by paying whatever the consequence is so our guys were great. Every guy that participated did a terrific job. It was very spirited...there was a lot of camaraderie and these are things you want to see. It should bring you together, it should galvanize you when you go through situations like that…I learned a lot about our guys from day one in regards to how they approached discipline.
OS: I thought that was interesting how the players said they wanted discipline. It appears they’re getting that.
JD: [Laughs]. Well my father was a green beret so I come from a dad who provided a lot of discipline in my life and I thank him for it everyday. I wouldn’t be where I am now if guys like my father and my coach I had in college hadn’t cared enough to provide those things in my life.
OS: Do you have enough of a sense for the personality profile of this team to know what you need to do to bring change?
JD: Confidence has taken a hit for sure. Also, trying to establish leadership is something that’s going to be very important for our group. These are things that you just kind of recognize right away is confidence and lack of leadership. So we need to try and find the leaders. Who is the heartbeat of our team? And we need to continue to grow and build confidence through our work ethic. That’s the only way you can build confidence is through how hard you train and prepare so that when you face challenges, it doesn’t compare to what you’ve done in your preparation. So we’ll try to instill that in our guys as we move forward.
OS: What are some of the context clues that a seasoned coach is looking at to be able to tell where you need to build?
JD: Just observations. As I told you and I was sincere, when I came here everybody has a clean slate with me. I really didn’t want to come in and hear what each person was saying about each individual player from their perspective. That’s their opinion. I want our kids to tell me who they are by their actions and about what we talk about. From there, I determine who they are as we move forward. So that’s what I’ve been doing in my meetings and when I get a chance to bump into them and talk to them is getting a feel for who they are. Hopefully, they’re getting a feel for who I am.
OS: What are the challenges of inheriting someone else’s team?
JD: Trust. Right now these young people are probably just coming out of being shocked. No matter what they thought, all of the sudden two weeks ago, the guy that recruited you is gone. His staff, pretty much, is gone…that’s a big deal in their lives. So right now, they’re probably trying to feel me out…I have to develop trust with our guys. From the trust factor, I have to get them to understand – and you said it, everyone says it and I think it’s wrong – “because they’re not your players, you inherited [Donnie Jones'] players.” I’m a believer in where I was before, and you can ask any player I’ve ever coached, they all are my players. When I take over a position like this of leadership, I don’t have “my players” and “their players,” they all are my guys.
OS: How many scholarships do you have left to offer right now?
JD: That’s kind of moving at the moment. Brachen [Hazen] decommitted, the young man Clayton Hughes is going to end up going to prep school so that’s two we get back right there. We had three kids who graduated so that leaves us with five. So we have the ability to bring in a number of new student-athletes and we’re looking. I don’t know if we’ll use them all but I do know we may bring in maybe a fifth year senior or so to go along with the group |
u@sakevisual.com from the address you used to purchase the game, and I’ll send you an updated one.
How to report bugs:
If you get a bug that crashes the game, click the button “Open Traceback” to get a text file. Email the file to ayu@sakevisual.com or post it in the correct thread here:
http://sakevisual.friendhood.net/t79-backstage-pass-beta-bug-reports
How to get bug fixes:
If a bug is fixed, you can either re-download the entire game from your email or download the fixed code from this thread:
http://sakevisual.friendhood.net/t79-backstage-pass-beta-bug-reports
How to get help playing:
If you’re stuck in the game, looking for hints on how to get a guy, unlock locations, or find more recipes, post in the appropriate thread here and exchange your own findings with other players.
http://sakevisual.friendhood.net/f11-otome-gamesCalifornia’s sea otters have struggled for years with diseases, parasites and even the occasional collision with boats. But now the fuzzy coastal mascots are increasingly facing another threat: shark attacks.
For reasons still a mystery to scientists, the number of sea otters killed by sharks has soared in recent years, with great whites as the leading suspects.
“It’s been very dramatic,” said Tim Tinker, a Santa Cruz-based wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It’s having the biggest impact on population growth of any factor.”
In the mid-1990s, about 10 percent of the dead sea otters found along the California coast had shark bites. Today, it’s about 30 percent — and growing — to the point where shark attacks now represent the largest hurdle to the otters’ recovery from the endangered species list.
Last year, 70 sea otters bearing the telltale signs of shark attacks washed ashore between San Mateo County and Santa Barbara.
Among the carcasses with clear shark bite wounds, some have teeth from white sharks embedded in their bodies. Others have scratch patterns on bones that match the serrated edges of white shark teeth. Still others have bite marks in the half-moon pattern of shark jaws.
“We have found some that have survived,” Tinker said. “But I don’t think it’s a very large percentage. I would guess 80 to 90 percent of the time it’s lethal.”
Nobody knows why sharks seem to be killing otters at rates greater than ever recorded off California’s Central Coast. Great whites have never been filmed or even confirmed to have eaten an entire otter for food.
One leading theory, Tinker said, is that the populations of sea lions and elephant seals — the marine mammals that white sharks regularly eat — have grown in recent decades, expanding to new places. Sharks might be changing their hunting patterns and accidentally biting sea otters, mistaking them for seals and sea lions, and then leaving them to die.
“Is it because the sharks are changing their behavior, or is there a change in the number of sharks?” said Mike Murray, staff veterinarian at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “Or is there something wrong with the otters? Are these otters sick and maybe doing something at the surface of the water that attracts a predator? Or are they unable to evade predators?”
It’s difficult to say that white shark numbers are increasing. Last year, the first comprehensive study of the number of white sharks off the California coast estimated there are 219, fewer than previously thought.
“We can’t say if it is going up or down,” said shark expert Barbara Block, a Stanford University marine biology professor who helped write the population study.
Block said other species of sharks, including sevengills and makos, might also be attacking otters. She said having a population of large predators is healthy for any ecosystem, and that more research is needed before clear conclusions can be drawn.
“It could be just a few individuals, or a few species,” Block said. “The neighborhood is rich in species. We need to keep in mind it’s a wild place out here.”
In recent years, scientists have struggled to explain why California sea otters, hunted to near extinction a century ago, have rebounded, but only slowly. The most recent count, in 2010, estimated 2,711 otters off the California coast, a decrease of 3.6 percent from the previous year.
Marine biologists have cited diseases such as toxoplasmosis, believed to be related to polluted runoff from land, as factors. Before, sharks were considered a minor threat. A decade ago most shark attacks occurred on male otters, which are more numerous near the northern boundary of the otter range near Año Nuevo State Park in San Mateo County.
But more recently, the number of female otters, more dominant in the southern part of the range, killed by sharks has soared. Each female can give birth to eight or more pups, so the trend is particularly troubling.
One major change: the abundance of elephant seals. Until 1990, the large mammals were rare along the coast in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. But that year, two dozen came ashore at Piedras Blancas, near Hearst Castle. Now there are more than 15,000.
A small number of white sharks, perhaps juveniles, could be coming into the area to feed on young elephant seals and ending up killing otters, as well, Tinker said. Had the rate of shark attacks remained where it was a decade ago, there would be about 500 more California sea otters now — around 3,250, according to his computer models. That would be enough to reach the 3,090 population target to remove the otter from the federal endangered species list.
In the 1990s, Tinker and other biologists published studies showing that orca whales in southern Alaska were beginning to feed on otters there. Since then, the otter population there has fallen from 80,000 to about 5,000.
Can anything be done?
No, he said. Even if people wanted to try to identify the sharks responsible and somehow kill them, others could easily take their place.
“It’s a hard thing to explain to people,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do about changes in shark distribution or shark behavior. It’s natural.”
Environmentalists are watching nervously.
“If it goes unimpeded, it’s going to make a pretty huge dent in a sea otter population that is already suffering from a myriad of things,” said Jim Curland, a marine biologist who until recently worked for Defenders of Wildlife. “But what can be done about it? What can you do?”
Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045.The Darul Uloom Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur has issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslim men and women from posting their or their families’ photographs on social media sites.
In the fatwa issued on Wednesday, one of the largest Islamic seminaries in India has said that posting photos of self or family on social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp is not allowed in Islam.
The edict was issued by the fatwa department of the Darul Uloom Deoband after a man approached it recently asking if posting photos on social media sites was allowed in the religion.
Mufti Tariq Qasmi, an Islamic scholar associated with a madarssa here, said when clicking pictures unnecessarily is not allowed in Islam how posting photos on social can be allowed.
First Published: Oct 19, 2017 17:44 ISTPinch flats have plagued our sport ever since modified beach cruisers found their way into the mountains and riders began lowering tire pressures to increase traction. Despite all the advancements in modern mountain biking, finding the right tire pressure continues to be a constant balancing act between optimizing traction and handling, while avoiding the risk of flats. But what if you could separate this risk from the equation? What if you could set the pressure in the happy place without worrying about destroying your tire and smashing your rim?
When Mavic introduced the tubeless system to mountain bikes in 1999, it was an enormous step in the right direction. But it wasn't the end of snake bites that it promised to be. Just like inner tubes, tires pinch flat, too. A tubeless setup can be less prone to flats, but the balancing act is still there, and you can still smash your rim to smithereens. Schwalbe's Procore system lets you set your pressure wherever you want without factoring pinch-flat probability into the equation. It doesn't mean the end of flat tires. In fact, within five minutes of setting up Procore, I had gotten one.
When my tire's sidewall sustained a quarter-inch slice, I was not pleased. It wasn't Procore's fault that my tire was cut–not directly anyway. Schwalbe claims that you can run a less reinforced tire with Procore, netting zero weight gain of adding the 400-gram kit. That method didn't work out too well for me. Procore reduces the risk of pinch flats, not punctures–you still need a robust tire for that part.
Since the Procore chamber was still holding air, I was able to ride halfway down the Whistler Mountain Bike Park without bottoming out on the rim. Pretty awesome, I thought. The blue thing you see is essentially a road-tire casing without any rubber on it. Inside that is an ordinary road tube with a special valve that can direct air into either the Procore chamber or the tire. The bead of the rubberless road casing sandwiches the bead of the tire between itself and the rim, creating a mechanical bead lock. It's possible to run pressures as low as you want without the risk of burping.
But the $230 Procore system isn't all peaches and cream. It adds a pound to the most weight-sensitive part of your bike–that is, if you can get the kit installed in the first place. The process may risk your (or your mechanic's) sanity. Since you're essentially mounting two tires on one rim, things get really tight. The tire levers that come with the kit do help, but it can still be frustrating. Also, the special valve needs to be lined up just right, and when mine shifted somehow during my ride, it cut off the air pathway and required a complete breakdown and re-install. If you do attempt the installation yourself, make sure to watch the instructional video on Schwalbe's website. It definitely helps.
With the proper tires, Procore's armor can make your bike feel indestructible. For the first time in my 20-year riding career, I could obliterate rock gardens while running scary-low tire pressure, without even thinking about wrecking my rim. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.ABC News reports that Bennett told Stern, “They flew the plane in, but we caused it, because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”
Bennett also said that, back in 2005, former President George W. Bush shared some insights with him on the decision to go to war in Iraq.
“He told me personally that night that, he said, ‘I think I made a mistake,’” Bennett said.
WATCH:
Bennett went on Stern's show to promote his Duets II album, which features a duet with Lady Gaga of "The Lady Is A Tramp."
The album also includes a song with the late Amy Winehouse.
Bennett spoke to The Daily Mail about his drug abuse earlier in his career.
"Back then everybody was rampant with drugs, everyone was doing it … I was the Amy Winehouse of my day," Bennett said.Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A pensioner has blasted Theresa May after her partner finally won his disability benefits back - two days after he died.
Carol Acton, 68, was left "angry and lost for words" after receiving the shock letter while she grieved for her love of 12 years Geoffrey Elwell.
Retired HGV driver and electrician Geoffrey had crippling chest and spinal injuries after his truck flipped in a crash that left him temporarily dead.
Carol, from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, said he couldn't walk long distances, cook or shower without her help and had for years received Disability Living Allowance.
Yet 10 days before Christmas last year, he was awarded zero points in a humiliating assessment for the new benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
(Image: Carol Acton)
He appealed the decision in January – but three months later was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer.
Already diabetic and having suffered two heart attacks, 68-year-old Geoffrey moved to a hospice while he waited for a date for his appeal.
He died on June 21, two days before it was heard. Then on June 23 the appeal ruled his benefits should not just be awarded in full – but be backdated to January.
Geoffrey's shocking case was raised at Prime Minister's Questions this week by his local Labour MP Gareth Snell.
Yet despite sending her condolences to Carol, Theresa May defended the system, saying it means "we are able to focus payments on the most vulnerable".
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Carol, a retired customer service advisor for a mortgage firm, told the Mirror: “I feel I need justice for him. I want it heard. I want people to know what they're putting people through.”
Carol said she watched PMQs on TV, adding: “It was very emotional – it brought it all back.
“I wasn't very happy with the way Theresa May handled it. She offered condolences to me but that's not going to help, is it? She didn't seem very sincere when she said it.”
If Theresa May knocked on her door now “I would probably thump her”, Carol joked.
She added she still hasn't received the backdated cash – and “nobody's ever apologised to me”.
Hundreds of thousands of people have had their benefits axed or downgraded when moving from DLA to PIP since 2013.
(Image: Carol Acton)
Two-thirds of those who appeal to get PIP, which helps with daily living costs, win their cases – 14,077 in the most recent three months alone.
But victims of the system are forced to wait through an internal appeals system before they can appeal to an independent tribunal.
Carol blasted the assessor who said Geoffrey was not eligible for benefits last year, saying: “She was looking at her watch all the time. She was very abrupt.
"She was asking him questions not looking directly at him – she was basically downright rude.”
The letter from the independent tribunal came through while she was grieving for Geoffrey.
(Image: Carol Acton)
She said: “I was angry and lost for words. If Geoff had hung on a bit at least I could have said to him, 'you've won'. He could've died knowing it was sorted. But I couldn't tell him that.”
The appeal judge ruled Geoffrey should be paid £141.10 a week - the maximum possible rate of PIP.
DWP officials insisted they were processing the payments grieving Carol "urgently".
A DWP spokeswoman said: “Our thoughts are with Mr Elwell’s family.
"In this instance new evidence was submitted alongside the appeal which changed the outcome of the case.”By Bahk Eun-ji
A local court has ruled that a man wearing a fishnet miniskirt and stockings was not committing an act of public indecency.
The ruling came as the man, identified only as Baek, 54, was acquitted of charges that he performed lewd acts in front of women passing a park in Nowon-gu, Seoul, early one November morning.
He was wearing a fishnet miniskirt and fishnet stockings with high heels, police said.
The women told police that "Baek was sitting with his legs apart and shaking an ‘important' part of his body." But Baek denied the women's testimony and said he wore the items because he wanted to be a woman.
"I was shivering with cold but didn't act with any immoral behavior," Baek said.
The Seoul Northern District Court on Tuesday said it seemed difficult for Baek to shake that part of his body because he was wearing tight pantyhose. Besides, the victims did not look him in the face, so there was no absolute proof of his guilt, the court said.
The court also said men wearing female clothes or shoes could prompt unpleasant feelings, but it did not constitute a "lewd act" punishable by law.The Lamborghini Countach, produced between 1974 and 1990, was a coupe with a dramatic wedge shape. Only 2,042 cars were manufactured, but the car’s design—executed in trapezoidal panels covered with aluminum—influenced many later models.
“Scissor” doors on a Lamborghini Countach. Photo from Classic Cars.
The Countach may be the only automobile in history whose name is a crude word in Piedmontese, which is spoken by about 2 million people in northwestern Italy. The word—pronounced, roughly, coon-tahshe—is usually said to translate to “Wow!” or “Look at that!” (Most of the explanations I read qualified this definition with “in polite terms”; in other words, it’s probably closer, connotatively, to “Holy shit!”) According to one story—citation needed, according to the Wikipedia entry—“Countach!” was what Italian automobile designer Giuseppe “Nuccio” Bertone exclaimed when he saw the prototype in his studio.*
Used Countaches are currently selling for between $100,000 and $200,000, according to one online vendor.
It’s hard to imagine a name like “Countach” surviving a 21st-century focus group: for speakers of English it’s just too uncomfortably close to cunt-ass or coon-ass. In fact, my memory suddenly produced “Countach” while I was researching a recent news snippet about coon-ass. A friend of George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida on February 26, has publicly defended Zimmerman for calling Martin a “coon.” (Martin was African-American; so is Oliver.) Oliver told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews:
That’s a term I listened to over and over on there and to me, it’s a matter of interpretation of whether he’s saying ‘coon’ or ‘goon.’ There are a lot of parts of this country where people proudly call themselves ‘coon asses,’ in Louisiana in particular.
Coon-ass or coonass is indeed used in Louisiana to refer to Cajuns, but it’s widely regarded as derogatory. One possible etymology of the word is conasse, which is the equivalent of “cunt” and can be an epithet for a prostitute. Another etymology suggests a connection to the racial slur coon. But, as with many offensive or derogatory terms, its meaning varies with the speaker and the context. The Louisiana Cajun who runs CoonAss.com defends his URL thus:
I carry the name CoonAss.com as a reminder of how our culture nearly disappeared and how we as a people have taken the bad traits outsiders associated with being Cajun and have turned them into something good.
See also my 2008 post, “She’s No Lady.”
__
* Lamborghini history is full of interesting model names, most of them from the world of bullfighting: Miura, Urraco, Diablo, and Murciélago; the last means “bat” in Spanish but was chosen because it had been the name of a famous fighting bull.Rare is the gifted teenager who is not bored in high school. Yet few have signaled their boredom as extravagantly as Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical company founder who was sent to jail on Wednesday to await sentencing for a fraud conviction.
Mr. Shkreli was a chronic class-skipper who, friends have said, preferred to spend his time on chess and playing guitar in a band. His highly selective Manhattan school asked him to stop attending.
Entrepreneurs, it turns out, do not just move fast and break things, as Facebook’s longtime credo put it. They are also more likely than others to cross the line.
According to research by the economists Ross Levine and Yona Rubinstein, people who become entrepreneurs are not only apt to have had high self-esteem while growing up (and to have been white, male and financially secure). They are also more likely than others to have been intelligent people who engaged in illicit activities in their teenage years and early 20s.When we say ‘thank you’, it’s often at the end of a conversation.
In the marketing world, there’s no reason to see it that way. In fact, if you’re using your thank you page to signal the end of your customer’s path on your site, you’re doing it wrong.
First of all, let’s look at when to use thank you pages.
When should you use thank you pages?
Obviously, a thank you page is a pretty specialized site element. Your visitors aren’t going to see it every day.
Here’s when they might crop up:
When your visitor has just subscribed to your email list
When your visitor has downloaded a bonus (PDF, video course, checklist)
When a customer has converted
… Any time you get your visitor’s email address, money or some other kind of ‘currency’ / conversion (social shares, etc.)
When you make a thank you page, you’ve just put all your energy into getting the visitor to convert, so it’s obvious why we see thank you pages that have had little dedicated design time.
Here’s a visual summary of the upcoming post before I get more in-depth:
As you’ll see if you look at any savvy marketer’s thank you pages, they don’t just say thank you. They push a secondary objective, and that’s something you need to think about.
Define your thank you page’s secondary objective
Your secondary objective can be anything. From asking the visitor to tweet the opt-in they just came in on (this works especially well for an ebook), to pushing whatever you’re promoting at the moment, whether that’s a podcast or a new product launch.
Here are a few tactics:
Generating referrals
Once you’ve got that initial commitment, research shows that saying yes a second time is easier. Use this opportunity to turn leads into referrals by asking them to invite 3 friends to try whatever they just opted into. You can even offer bonus content for their trouble.
Connect with your leads on social media
Like I was saying before about gradual commitment, you can use this opportunity to connect with them while they feel happy to have gained something from you. It’s as easy as putting a few social buttons there. Like on Facebook, Follow on Twitter, or focus on whatever you’re trying to push for at the moment.
Share the opt-in they just used
When we launched our business process automation ebook, we put a ‘click to tweet’ on the thank you page, which drove a bit of social traffic back and converted those visitors to new emails on our list. 🙂
Promote your latest product (ebook, podcast, etc)
Once you set your thank you page, that’s not it forever. You can use it to leverage traffic elsewhere, especially if you’ve got one thank you page which is fed by every opt-in on your site.
Use the opportunity to promote your new product. Whether it’s an ebook or a new podcast, you can use a section of your page to drive traffic elsewhere, perhaps again using bonus content as another incentive. Taking visitors on a journey of constant rewards is a powerful technique, as we’ve seen from video games.
What’s your visitor’s mindset by the time they reach your thank you page?
Even though you’re thanking them, they’re the ones that are grateful for the offer. Whether that’s bonus content or being part of your awesome email list, if you’re thanking them for something it’s because they think you have value to offer.
By the time your visitor hits that thank you page, they’ve already built up momentum.
If the next page they see if a dead end or looks like it has been cobbled together with off-brand graphics and other such nonsense, the spell will be broken.
So…
You need to use your thank you page to keep the momentum going
Like I said, when a visitor converts in some way, they’ve got momentum. Their journey probably looks something like this:
Google search —> Your blog post —> Your opt-in box —> Thank you page —> Confirming email —> Low lifetime engagement 🙁
What you want it to look like is this:
Google search —> Your blog post —> Your opt-in box —> Thank you page —> Confirming email —> Moving email out of their Promotions box —> Replying to the email —> Reading more content —> Engaging with you on other platforms / Reading more content / Commenting, etc. 🙂
Can you see where the roadblock is? The thank you page.
Let’s take a look at an awesome thank you page I stumbled upon today that keeps the momentum up and encourages future engagement.
Entrepreneur on Fire’s excellent thank you page
Now we’ve seen a best-in-class example, let’s break it down bit by bit.
The anatomy of an engaging thank you page
Why does this thank you page work well? It has several key elements that correspond quite closely to what makes up a good landing page. Namely:
A clear call to action (CTA)
Headline & subheading
Emphasis on simplicity
Tangible benefits
Social proof
However, there are definitely some elements that are more common on thank you pages:
A feeling that this page is just one part of a bigger process
Language not optimized towards signing up, but promoting engagement
Social media icons
Let’s look more closely at these elements and some excerpts from various thank you pages.
Thank you page element #1: A clear CTA
What do you want your new subscriber to do now they’ve given you their email? In almost all cases, you’re going to want to make sure they confirm their email address and unbundle it from their promotions tab.
As you can see, EOFire’s page does exactly that. The instructions for both actions are clearly laid out, step-by-step, to ensure visitors don’t get confused.
If your main aim is to make sure that your marketing emails don’t get swept under the rug, then having them appear next to emails from the recipient’s mum is easily the best way to do it.
Side note: There’s a much easier way to get out of the ‘Promotions’ tab. Get the reader to ‘star’ the email.
Here’s the CTA from the EOfire thank you page:
Thank you page element #2: Compelling headings
What do you think the headings of a thank you page should look like? Something like this?
NOPE!
And I’ll tell you why that’s terrible: it ends the conversation. Thank you for signing up. Quit off this page and go to your inbox.
After seeing this copy, there’s no reason for a visitor to have anything else to do with your site. You’ve lost your chance to keep up the momentum, increase the time they spend on the page and further build engagement.
Instead, go for something like this:
This is a thank you page, no doubt about that. But, as you can see by comparing Smart Passive Income’s page above with EOFire’s, they seem to treat it as an ‘Almost there’ page.
You’re not terminating the conversation with a ‘thank you’, but providing a milestone for your visitor and making sure they know there’s still more to do.
Thank you page element #3: Benefit-driven copy
As much as we’d like to think otherwise, visitors don’t always stick to the path you’ve laid out for them. They probably have a billion other tabs open and flick between them during loading times.
For that reason, you need to make sure your thank you page hits the following criteria:
It uses the same design language as the rest of your site
It explains why they should bother confirming
It makes a promise for the future
This might seem like a lot to take in for such a simple page, but it’s important that you get your visitors to take the next step. The copy on your opt-in popup might’ve been persuasive as hell, but putting in your email address is arguably less work than going into your inbox and confirming the subscription, so you should pay just as much — if not more — attention to the next bit of copy.
Here’s an example of ProBlogger‘s thank you page which does a great job of reiterating the benefits:
So, to recap, you should tell the visitor:
WHAT they need to do (verify their email)
WHY they should do it (a bunch of benefits)
Thank you page element #4: Building engagement in the future
I don’t think that getting the user to confirm their email is the only thing you should do with your thank you page. Like empty states and 404 pages, they can be used to engage the user even though they’ve just hit a logical endpoint.
So, instead of letting your user bounce, give them something else to do. It could be as simple as showing them a list of your popular blog posts, or even a CTA to attend a webinar, like this example from Leadpages:
Cheeky. But it does work. Your visitors are excited about your content, so they’re greedy for more. Don’t let that excitement die down — make another ‘ask’ in the heat of the moment.
Treat thank you pages as opportunities, not end points
Seeing thank you pages as another stage — not the end — of the customer journey is what I’m trying to get at here. I hope this has helped you in designing or optimizing your thank you page. Leave your examples in the comments, I’d love to see them. 🙂Battle Champs is a chibi themed mobile game that plays similar to other titles such as Clash of Clans -- but with a heavier focus on PvE instead of PvP gameplay. That said, your airship will still be invaded by other players who can steal your resources. Since you only have 5 days of free shield time before players can start invading you, you'll have to make the most of it. But how?
Here's a quick tips guide that will show you how to make the most of your first 5 days of Battle Champs!
What's what?
Before we can start figuring out what we need to do, we have to know what we need to do it. That means taking a look at Bubbles and Charms. Bubbles are typically used for upgrading your units -- otherwise known as Champs. Whether it would be for training, morphing, or summoning living defenses Bubbles will be necessary. Meanwhile, Charms are necessary for building structures and upgrading defenses.
Charms can be acquired from a Charm's Nest (marked above in red) while Bubbles are collected from Bubble Pumps (marked in blue). You can build multiple Nests and Pumps or upgrade them to increase production. You will also need to upgrade storage facilities for either Bubbles or Charms over time. This will allow you to store more Charms and Bubbles which in turn can be used for pricier buildings and upgrades.
Your third resource -- Rubies -- are found in the top-right corner of the screen and essentially act as pay-to-win resources that you can also occasionally get from events and missions. Otherwise, don't worry too much about them as they aren't necessary to play the game.
But how do we get more Bubbles and Charms outside of the waiting game?
Go on Missions as much as possible!
Love it or hate it, one of the beautiful parts of RPGs is the ability to grind. While there aren't so many traditional RPG grinding aspects in Battle Champs, Story Missions give you the chance to gather Bubbles, Charms, Rubies, Morph Materials and even new Champs.
You need to spend energy to head out on missions (like most mobile games) but the rewards are worth it. A handful of Story Missions will give you Rubies (which can be used to instantly upgrade buildings) as well as Bubbles and Charms. The more Bubbles and Charms you have, the more you can build and upgrade in your base.
Story Missions have themed airships/bases that will teach you the basics of battling in the PvP modes. These in turn can give you some inspiration on how to build your own bases. However, there are some strategies you should know beforehand:
Flying units are good for taking out cannons surrounded by walls, and should be used to take out defenses instead of sending ground troops into dangerous chokepoints.
Ground units can be placed strategically to target specific objectives as they will attack whatever they encounter first.
Avatars can walk over walls, and can do significant amounts of damage. As such, you should use them similarly to flying units but on more important objectives.
Back at the Airship...
Returning to the airship and preparing your defenses, it's important to know the two main sources of protection (shields not included). The first are your turrets and buildings, and the second are your champs.
Blow 'em up with cannons!
Cannons, Cannon Towers, Missile Silos, and more are all paid for using Charms. Each one has different properties, and some are more effective in certain situations than in others.
For example: Cannon Towers are great at dispatching waves of ground enemies from afar. However, once melee units get in range they won't be able to target them. Meanwhile, regular Cannons (while cheap) aren't able to target very far away. Neither are able to attack ground units, and so Missile Silos act as anti-air. Unfortunately, Missile Silos are completely incapable of targeting ground troops.
Upgrading your defense buildings is also important as it improves their effectiveness, and saving you resources in the long run.
There are plenty of other defenses as well, such as mines, anvils, and other silly defenses. The most powerful ones include a guard dragon that is quite capable of taking out most enemies. The more powerful defenses won't be accessible right away since you'll need a higher level Core to build them. Also, they tend to be out of the price range of the starting player.
Getting Champs to defend you!
While you are able to build cannons and turrets of all sorts from the very start, Champs won't be able to defend you until you upgrade your Cauldron to level 2. That means upgrading your Core to level 2 as well. Once you do so, however, you will be able to start summoning Champs to defend your base while you are away.
To set a Champ for defense, tap on the Cauldron then press Defender. In that menu you will need to drag a champ onto the Defender slot. You can only choose one, so pick wisely. Typically the best choice is to choose one with the highest DEF. You can pick one with high ATK, but those are best saved for attacking enemy camps.
Remember: your champs are summoned one-by-one from the Cauldron during battle, and only when the enemy is in range. Try to keep your Cauldron out of harm's way!
Upgrading your Champs!
Leveling up and training Champs is crucial to successful attacks on enemy airships or defending your own. To train a champ, open up the Cauldron (or the menu on the right-hand side of the screen as seen above) and select Champs.
There are two types of training in this menu: Train and Morph. While both are performed in a similar way, they have very different effects.
Training your Champs
Training Champs is all about increasing their level and count. With each level increase, your champs will grow in power, further increasing their effectiveness in battle. Since each Champ has different abilities, you'll want to train a number of different Champs to see which combination is best for certain battlefield scenarios.
To level up a Champ, simply select the Champ you want to upgrade and drag it to the top left slot. After that you can select any champs you don't want/need and slot them into the slots on the right. Blobs are best for training Champs since their sole purpose is to level up other Champs.
If you have doubles of a Champ you can combine them as well. Each time you use an extra Champ to upgrade the same type of Champ, you'll have a chance to increase the "Count". Counts are the number of Champs you have available during battle. The higher the number, the more you can summon at once.
Training Champs also costs Bubbles. Increasing the count of a Champ costs very little, but raising their level by combining them with random champs will cost much more, especially at higher levels. Remember that while training Champs is important, you only really need to train the ones you use the most. Focus on upgrading your Defender and your attacking Unit first. Also, keep upgrading your Bubble Pump to ensure you have enough Bubbles at any given time to upgrade.
Morphing Champs
When your Champ reaches its maximum level you will be able to Morph it. Morphing allows you to maximize the potential of your Champs by resetting their level and stats. While the stats will be slightly lower than they were at max level, Morphed Champs will be able to surpass the level and stats of their predecessor.
Morphing Champs requires materials that can only be gained through the shop or through Story and other battle modes. Don't worry too much about constantly Morphing your Champs until you are a little further in the game as you probably won't need upgraded Champs until after the 5 day Shield goes down. That said, if you already have the required items - and you are waiting for your Core to upgrade - feel free to do so.
Laying out your Airship
Every time a player attacks you, your airship is at risk of losing Bubbles or Charms based on the number of storages your enemy takes. If you're like me and want your Airship to be airtight against enemy attacks, you first need to understand how to avoid losing all your resources when players start attacking your base.
Above is an example of a very early game base. While there is much room for improvement, the concept is that by splitting up your resources you will be spared the heartache of losing all your valuable resources. This is done by keeping the Bubble Pumps and Charm Nest as far apart from one another as your current level of defenses will allow.
Keeping buildings close together also ensures that the enemy won't be able to take down structures as quickly. By keeping them up against one another, enemy melee Champs will have their damage per second reduced. This also grants your canons more time to chip away at their ranks.
Having your Cauldron close by to Tower Cannons also ensures that your Defender Champs are able to stop enemy Champs from taking them out before they can do any damage.
As you progress through the game, building walls and other defensive structures will be essential. However, for the first few days your focus should be on increasing your productivity and the strength of your Champs. If you are like me and really want to improve productivity, I would |
AprilCHICAGO — The effort to make the Lakefront Trail less congested by creating separate paths for cyclists and joggers will force a portion of the popular path to close starting May 22, city officials said.
The trail will be closed east of Lake Shore Drive between Diversey Parkway and North Avenue starting May 22, according to a statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office. A marked detour will take trail users west of Lake Shore Drive, officials said. The city did not say how long the stretch would be closed.
Construction will also take place from Oak to Ohio streets, where a lane will allow cyclists and joggers to navigate around the crews, officials said.
Crews will limit the use of heavy equipment during the trail's most heavily-trafficked hours in the mornings and evenings, officials said.
Trail users can track the process of the construction and map detours by going to chicagoparkdistrict.com/lakefront-trail, officials said.
Emanuel said, once complete, the separated trail will enhance the Lakefront, which the mayor called one of the city's greatest assets.
"This is an important next step in continued efforts to make the Lakefront Trail safer and more accessible for thousands of cyclists, runners and walkers that use the path each day," Emanuel said in a statement.
In March 2016, Emanuel announced plans to add nearly 6 acres of green space where Lake Michigan used to be at Fullerton Avenue, as well as building separate paths for runners and bicyclists along 7 miles between Fullerton and Ohio Street and from 31st Street to 51st Street.
A $12 million gift from Ken Griffin — Illinois' richest man and one of Emanuel's biggest campaign donors — will allow the Park District to separate the remaining 11 miles of the trail, which is flooded with runners and bicyclists during warm — or less-than-frigid — weather.
The separated trail between 31st Street to 41st Street is expected to completely open by Memorial Day, the mayor's office said.
The asphalt bike trail will be 12 feet wide, while the pedestrian trail will be 20 feet wide with 14 feet of asphalt and 6 feet of soft surface mix on either side, officials said.
Emanuel broke ground on the project this weekend, joined Saturday morning by Chicago Park District Supt. Mike Kelly and billionaire Griffin at Lake Shore Drive and Fullerton Parkway.
Cyclists, runners and lakefront strollers have complained for years about congestion on the trail, especially in the pinch points between Fullerton and North Avenue and along the Gold Coast between Oak and Ohio streets.
Griffin got involved with a $12 million gift to the city announced late last year. Before that, the avid cyclist wrote in an email to Emanuel (released in a Freedom of Information Act request) that "the lakefront bike path is a disaster."
"I am excited to see us taking another step forward towards making the Lakefront Trail safer and more enjoyable for everyone in Chicago,” Griffin said Saturday. “I appreciate all of the efforts that have gone into this great project and applaud Mayor Emanuel and Supt. Kelly for their continued leadership."
Kelly cheered input from cycling and running advocates — namely the Active Transportation Alliance and the Chicago Area Runners Association — in arriving at the final plans for the separation, adding, "We are fortunate to have the support of Mr. Griffin to bring the trail separation project to fruition."
It's part of a grand design to separate cyclists and pedestrians along the entire 18 miles of the Lakefront Trail.
The stretch between Fullerton and North will get two new bike lanes going in opposite directions, while pedestrians get the old path. Because of the more extensive construction in that area, the path will detour west of Diversey Harbor while work is ongoing.
Due to less room to work with east of Lake Shore Drive on the Gold Coast, the stretch between Oak and Ohio, meanwhile, will get four adjacent lanes designated for cyclists and pedestrians.
Work on the two stretches is expected to be completed this summer, but extending that south will have to wait for completion of the more complicated Navy Pier flyover.A Jamaican international, Richard Dixon appeared in 26 matches in his first season with Energy FC. Formerly of Saint Louis FC, the 27-year-old has made more than 80 appearances in his USL career, and in the 2017 season recorded 64 interceptions and won 51 of 63 tackles, an 81 percent success rate.
"The players we have re-signed offer an excellent foundation for our club in 2018," said Energy FC President Jeff Ewing. "Each of them provide a unique aspect to our team and all of them are active within our community. We're proud to have them as members of our club."
Richard Dixon and Alex Dixon’s return to the club brings the number of players signed by Energy FC for the 2018 season to nine. The duo joins forwards Miguel Gonzalez and Jonathan Brown; midfielders Juan Pablo Guzman, Jose Barril, Philip Rasmussen and defenders Kyle Hyland and Coady Andrews.Canada's spy agency is expected to be given new powers to stop would-be Canadian jihadists before they leave the country as part of sweeping new anti-terrorism measures being unveiled Friday.
Sources familiar with the proposed legislation tell CBC News the goal is to give the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service the kinds of legal tools that are available to intelligence services in other Western countries.
The expected new powers would allow CSIS agents to obtain court orders to:
cancel plane or other travel reservations made by Canadians suspected of wanting to join the Islamic State or other extremists groups overseas;
block any financial transactions linked to suspected terrorist activity;
intercept shipments of Canadian-made equipment or material to Canadian individuals or groups that could be used in an attack;
switch, or make suspect equipment being shipped unusable as part of an on-going investigation.
Under existing law, CSIS must rely on the RCMP to do these things, and government officials say that can lead to costly delays and, in some cases, an inability to act because the RCMP requires a higher standard of proof to arrest or detain suspects.
Work on the bill began immediately after the Oct. 22 attack on Parliament Hill by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau.
The lone gunman stormed Parliament Hill after shooting Cpl. Nathan Cirillo as he stood guard at the National War Memorial.
Just two days earlier, Martin Couture-Rouleau used his car to run down Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que.
CBC News reported earlier this month that the RCMP had tried to obtain a peace bond against Couture-Rouleau a few weeks earlier but weren't able to muster sufficient evidence.
Power to disrupt
"The goal is for CSIS to move from an intelligence-gathering service to an agency that will have the power to disrupt or diminish potential terrorist threats under appropriate judicial oversight,'' a source told CBC News.
But CSIS agents will not be given the power to arrest or detain Canadians. That power will continue to reside with the RCMP and other police forces.
Expanding the mandate given CSIS is just one of many changes expected in the massive bill, which will have five distinct sections, to be tabled in the Commons on Friday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will hold a news conference to discuss the measures later in the day.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe take part in a discussion with law enforcement officials regarding issues related to national security in Aurora, Ont., on Thursday. New legislation is coming. (The Canadian Press)
"We are not under any illusion of the evolving multiple threats that we face," Harper said Thursday in Aurora, north of Toronto.
"It's difficult to predict them all, but we must continually evolve and improve our tools to do everything we can in what are obviously dangerous situations for the Canadian public, situations that we are seeing more and more frequently all over the world."
CBC News has already reported that the government intends to amend a number of laws to provide national security agencies with explicit authority to obtain and share information that is now subject to privacy limits.
Sources also confirm that the proposed legislation is expected to create a number of new criminal offences. Key among those is to make it an offence for anyone to "advocate or promote" terrorism online or through social media.
The law now makes it illegal for anyone to "counsel" someone to commit a terrorist act.
And the new bill is expected to extend the length of time police can detain a person without charge if they are suspected of being involved in a possible terrorist act.
Freedom of speech
Britain already allows anyone suspected of terrorism links to be detained for up to 14 days. Britain and France, in the wake of the massacre at the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, earlier this month, are also looking at laws to make it easier to trace the identities of anyone promoting terrorist activities online.
Canadian civil rights experts have warned these kinds of powers may violate the Charter of Rights guarantees to security of person and freedom of speech.
But government officials say they're confident the proposed measures are consistent with Canadian law.
Even so, sources tell CBC News that work on the proposed bill continued into this week, as government lawyers wrestled with the Charter implications of the new powers.
Several investigations into the October attacks are still ongoing.
RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has told reporters that investigators recovered a video Zehaf-Bibeau made the day before the Ottawa attack which includes statements that show he was driven by ideological and political motives.
That video has not been released.Whether foraging for food, caring for young, or defending the nest, the worker castes of carpenter ants toil selflessly for their queen and colony. Now, biologists have figured out how to make some of those worker ants labor even harder, or change their very jobs in ant society, all by making small chemical modifications to their DNA.
The finding calls attention to a new source of behavioral flexibility, and drives home the idea that so-called epigenetic modifications can connect genes to the environment, linking nature to nurture. The work is “a pioneering study establishing a causal link between epigenetics and complex social behavior,” says Ehab Abouheif, an evolutionary developmental biologist at McGill University, Montreal, in Canada. “These mechanisms may extend far beyond ants to other organisms with social behavior.”
Insect biologists have long debated whether the division of labor in these sophisticated species with castes is driven by colony needs or is innate. Evidence in honey bees had pointed toward a genetic difference between queens and workers. In the past several years, however, work in both honey bees and ants had indicated that epigenetic modifications—changes to DNA other than to its sequence of bases (or DNA “letters”)—influence caste choices, indicating environmental factors can be pivotal. But subsequent research about one type of change, methylation, led to contradictory conclusions.
Daniel Simola, a computational biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, knew almost nothing about ants when he joined Shelley Berger’s epigenetics lab in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But he did want to explore how epigenetics contributes to an organism’s ability to respond to environmental changes, and decided to use one of the ants, Camponotus floridanus, that Berger worked with for such studies. Like other carpenter ants, this species has two worker castes: smaller minors, and bigger majors with larger heads (see photo).
One essential job for workers is foraging, and Simola and his colleagues quantified how much the two castes did by marking individual ants, letting them go hungry for a day, and recording how often they searched for and retrieved food.
Minors foraged a lot more than majors and were fast at the job, particularly when they were young, Simola found. It’s not clear what majors do, though some have suggested that given their size, they may defend the nest or carry large food items.
He and his colleagues then tested whether epigenetic differences were responsible for this division of labor.
An earlier study by Berger’s group indicated that variations in the number of a chemical entity called an acetyl group on proteins called histones, which serve as the scaffolding for DNA, might be important. Acetylation seems to loosen a histone’s tie on DNA, allowing genes nearby to be more active.
So Simola and his colleagues treated different sets of minors and majors with chemicals that affected the addition or removal of acetyl groups from histones. One, a mood-stabilizing drug for bipolar disorders, inhibits the enzyme histone deacetylase, which removes acetyl groups, damping gene activity. Another inhibits an enzyme that adds acetyl groups. When a treatment resulted in greater histone acetylation in the ants, minors revved up foraging and even started taking on the job of the scout caste, looking in new places for food. Young majors also began to forage regularly and scout, something they typically don’t do, the team reports today online in Science. “We can reprogram the behavior,” Simola concludes.
“It was surprising that they were able to manipulate the foraging behavior through molecular mechanisms so cleanly,” Abouheif says. Changes in older ants of either caste were more subtle, suggesting a window of malleability exists in younger workers.
Moreover, the work shows the power of histone acetylation, in addition to methylation. “DNA methylation has become nearly synonymous with epigenetics,” says Brendan Hunt, an insect geneticist at the University of Georgia in Griffin. “This research brings needed attention to the importance of other epigenetics marks, like histone modifications.”
“We finally have a mechanism to understand ‘nurture’ in molecular terms,” says Gene Robinson, a geneticist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who studies caste determination in honey bees. The ant study, he adds, highlights “how the environment gets under the skin to affect gene expression, and consequently, neural activity and behavior.”
(Video credit: AAAS/Science)American foreign policy is at its best when it builds up international norms and structures that deter aggression and maintain stability for everyone over the long term. In that vein, the United States, like Great Britain before it, has demonstrated an unshakeable commitment to the free navigation of the seas by warships and commercial vessels alike in order to facilitate international trade. This effort has fostered, in part, the greatest period of global economic development in history and has perhaps benefited China more than any other state. However, China now seems intent on upsetting that order for its own parochial gains by aggressively consolidating its territorial claims in the South China Sea, in violation of international law and to the dismay of its neighbors. In its response to this campaign, it is critical that the United States maintain its commitment to international law and encourage the Chinese Communist Party to abide by the long-standing rules of the system for the benefit of the entire region.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently floated a proposal to challenge Chinese territorial claims using American warships and aircraft under the broad umbrella of the Navy’s Freedom of Navigation program. The U.S. Navy has been conducting maneuvers in East Asia and around the world for decades, capitalizing on its command of the sea to challenge the excessive claims of allies and rivals alike by driving through a contested area and treating it as international waters. These missions demonstrate a deep commitment on America’s part to the foundational principles of maritime law expressed in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It has done so despite the fact that the U.S. has yet to ratify the 1982 treaty because of domestic opposition in the Senate, a point of contention for the countries on the receiving end of those challenges and a point of embarrassment for the American officials charged with carrying them out.
Carter’s proposal is a bold step in the right direction and represents a major shift in the Obama Administration’s approach to the South China Sea. Freedom of Navigation operations have been a regular facet of the Navy’s approach to East Asia for years. The Navy has regularly challenged the territorial claims of its friends in the region, to include Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, and even close treaty allies like the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. Because of its excessive maritime boundaries, restrictions on survey activity in its exclusive economic zone, and claims to exercise security jurisdiction outside of its twelve-mile territorial waters, China has been an annual target of U.S. challenges for several years. Its most recent claim to control the airspace over the entire East China Sea through its newly created Air Defense Identification Zone gave the United States yet another opportunity to reject Chinese attempts to influence the development of international law. Carter’s proposal, then, is an organic and incremental development of the United States’ position and should not be a surprise to Beijing. Washington is committed to enforcing the law on both friends and rivals alike.
American operations have traditionally challenged developments in the East China Sea, where there are fewer claimants to territory and, with the exception of the disputed Senkaku Islands (which the Chinese call the Diaoyu Islands) under Japanese administrative control, the boundaries are clearer. However, China’s sustained efforts to push its neighbors out of the Paracel and Spratly Islands and declare the entire South China Sea “blue national soil” have changed the American calculus and drawn increased attention from Washington. Although the U.S. professes neutrality in these disputes and concedes that there is at least some validity to the claims of all sides, it has firmly insisted that the matter be resolved peacefully. The use of bullying, intimidation, or violence to resolve a territorial dispute would be devastating to the order and stability that the international community has worked to build since 1945 (see Crimea) and to the revolutionary economic development that has transformed Southeast Asia in recent decades. China’s recent push to build on the small rocks it claims in order to turn them into fully-fledged islands and military air strips with accompanying territorial seas and exclusive economic zones is explicitly not recognized by UNCLOS. These acts, combined with China’s refusal to acknowledge or cooperate with the Philippines’ legal challenge to Chinese claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, demonstrate that China views the law as a malleable tool to be trumpeted when it supports Chinese claims and ignored when it stands in their way.
The U.S. Navy must conduct its challenges with both determination and tact. In order to avoid a repeat of the 2001 Hainan Island P-3 incident, it must be clear to everyone that American warships bear no hostile intent to the Chinese units nearby and that American actions are grounded in international laws that apply to all parties. China has already condemned the new proposal, but its criticism resembles previous resistance to U.S. military operations near China such as surveillance flights and survey ship deployments off China’s coast that have been going on for years. As before, the United States should push forward while consistently pressing its legal claims within UNCLOS guidelines. In the near future, the United States should build on its activities by including military vessels from other countries in the region in its next round of challenges, especially ships and aircraft from Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. These real-world challenges should accompany a concerted, multilateral diplomatic and legal effort to deal with the outcome of these operations and to reach a long-term solution through resource sharing agreements, clear articulations of disputes, agreements for independent arbitration, and an updated code-of-conduct that binds all parties to the pursuit of non-violent solutions. While the issue may be bogged down in talks for years, it is much better to hash it out at the negotiating table than at the barrel of a gun at sea.
Most importantly, it is critical that the United States demonstrate an enduring commitment to the law by ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. For too long, the Senate has allowed narrow domestic interests to overcome the broader moral and strategic obligation for the United States to play by the same rules as everyone else. Until the U.S. participates fully in the legal framework, it will have diminished credibility in dealing with states who are parties to the Convention but who refuse to abide by its terms. Once the Obama Administration completes its effort to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Law of the Sea Convention should be its next foreign policy goal in the Senate.
The United States is the only actor in the region with the power, resources, and relationships necessary to diffuse tensions and bring about an enduring solution. Above all, this solution must be grounded in international law that provides clear guidance and boundaries for all states, including the U.S. As it moves to apply its various instruments of power, the United States must demonstrate an abiding commitment to that law by couching its actions in legal terms and engaging China and its neighbors in diplomatic efforts to clarify and enforce existing law. Most importantly, however, the U.S. should start by shoring up its own legal standing by ratifying UNCLOS. Until that step occurs, China has little reason to listen to American lectures about following the rules.
Douglas Gates is a former active duty naval officer who worked on the Navy’s Freedom of Navigation program in East Asia in 2010-2011. His most recent assignment was to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis as an instructor of Political Science.*
La Braşov, în România, dar în Ardeal, există, de câţiva ani buni, un festival de rock extrem, în care cântă doar trupe precum „Darck Funeral”, dar nu de aceeaşi valoare. Şi nimeni nu se revoltă.
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La Bucovina Rock Castle, au cântat, în vara trecută, metaliştii de la „Vader”, consideraţi „satanişti” în Polonia pentru că iau atitudine împotriva unor aspecte ale catolicismului. Asta le-a plăcut durilor lideri moldovani ai ortodoxiei, care, de-a lungul timpului, oricât s-au străduit cu panslavismul lor, nu au izbutit să ne deznaţionalizeze, să facă să dispară românismul din această pustietate europeană.
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Atitudini împotriva atentatului la dumnezeire, pe care îl practică sutanele diverselor fragmentări ale Bisericii lui Iisus (vreme de secole s-a scris Isus, dar ortodoxia se diferenţiază de celelalte ruperi ale Bisericii lui Iisus printr-un „i” în plus), se iau şi nu doar în muzica rock. În fond, şi memoriul pe care l-am reprodus mai sus şi îl voi reproduce, îndată, şi prin pagina a doua, nu înseamnă altceva decât un „Vobiscum Satanas„, pentru că intoleranţa şi nedragostea faţă de „oile rătăcite” nu ţin de Iisus, ci de Satana.
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Satanas înseamnă să judeci totul cu ură şi cu intoleranţă, să te crezi şi Dumnezeu, şi Neam Românesc, deşi calci cu neruşinată prefăcătorie şi pe sângele Bunului Iisus, şi pe istoria reală a Neamului Românesc. Nu a trecut mult de când nu mai suntem robii celor asemeni cetăţeanului de mai sus – doar un secol şi jumătate, şi iată că iarăşi ni se bagă pumnul în gură şi leşie caustică în creieri.
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Rockerii de la „Dark Funeral”, prea sfinţiţilor, nu sunt popi ai unui cult, fie el şi satanic, ci muzicieni. Nu or să vă răpească enoriaşii. Recuzita şi măştile ţin de giumbuşlucurile scenice, nu de altceva. Nu în muzică trebuie căutat şi stigmatizat Stana, pentru că Satana s-a mutat în faţa multor altare creştine şi bolboroseşte noroios ca un vulcan numai cu pucioasă perfidă. Uitaţi-vă sub sutane, prea sfinţiţilor, şi nu vă mai bateţi capul cu mântuirea noastră.
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Bunul Dumnezeu ne-a dăruit dreptul de a alege, de a opta, de a ne afla singuri calea, dar atentatorii la sacra Lui identitate vor să ne încoloneze şi să ne sfârtece. Nu-i apăr pe cei de la „Dark Funeral”. Dacă au rătăcit Calea, vor da socoteală în faţa Bunului Dumnezeu. Păcat, însă, că ne vom face de râs în faţa lumii civilizate, datorită dogmatismului tâmp al unor popi perfizi, precum autorul memoriului de mai sus.Five years ago, LCD Soundsystem held their own funeral at Madison Square Garden. After a 10-year run, which included the release of three critically acclaimed studio albums, James Murphy disbanded his popular band with a massive three-hour farewell concert at the world’s most famous arena.
Murphy said he no longer found enjoyment in the current format of LCD Soundsystem. The rigors of recording and touring prevented him from exploring other passions, such as film scoring and writing. In the years since the band’s breakup, Murphy launched a campaign to soundtrack New York City’s subway system and designed his own soundsystem called Despacio. He opened his own bar and restaurant. He produced records for Arcade Fire and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Why then is Murphy deciding to get the band back together, and why now? Sources tell Consequence of Sound that the impetus for LCD Soundsystem’s decision to reunite so soon after their highly publicized farewell came thanks to a lucrative, multi-million dollar offer from AEG Live.
Aside from the financial return, AEG’s offer provided LCD Soundsystem the chance to headline one of America’s most prestigious music festivals in Coachella, along with AEG’s other Los Angeles festival, the fast-rising FYF Fest, which takes place next August.
AEG also intended to have LCD Soundsystem headline its planned New York City festival, Panorama, which was to take place in June. However, those plans hit a snag when AEG failed to secure the proper permits. While AEG still hopes to stage Panorama at some point in 2016, the band is now planning its own headlining concert in New York City later this year.
Since receiving the initial offer from AEG, LCD Soundsystem have signed on to headline several other prominent music festivals across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
Update – Monday, January 4th at 10:05 p.m. CT: LCD Soundsystem have been officially announced as Coachella 2016 headliners. Additionally, the band’s website now says “2016 tour dates coming soon.”
LCD Soundsystem’s reunion has already brought the release of one new song, “Christmas Will Break Your Heart”. In an accompanying note, Murphy said the band recorded the song in New York City over the course of two weeks. As it stands now, the band plans to record and release more music in the near future.
Some will undoubtedly question Murphy’s motives to reunite LCD Soundsystem, and understandably so. The band’s breakup was a multi-year spectacle. Not only did it include the Madison Square Garden farewell, but the following year the band released a documentary chronicling the concert. They followed that up in April 2014 by releasing a live album of the show.
However, in Murphy’s defense, he never did close the door on a possible comeback. When announcing the band’s initial breakup in 2010, he suggested the possibility of a reunion down the road: “It’s not like some big, dramatic ending — we’ve talked about if in five years we’d want to play again, we’d do it.”
A representative for LCD Soundsystem declined to comment. Representatives for AEG did not respond to our request for comment.KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 17 (Reuters) - With the cost of hiring workers soaring in Malaysia as minimum wages kick in, the government is offering tax benefits to labour-intensive sectors going the automation route, a tactic that analysts say may help lift profits by up to 20 percent.
But some manufacturers, including Top Glove Corp Bhd, which produces one out of every four pairs of latex gloves in the world, say the incentives are not enough. Smaller companies will benefit more due to the way the benefits are structured, analysts say.
“The direction is there, although it is not enough,” Chairman Lim Wee Chai said in a post-earnings conference in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
One of the processes that Top Glove has partially automated is the removal of gloves from moulds. Some of it is now carried out by robotic arms, cutting the number of workers per production line to four from eight, a company official says, adding that some of the packing, counting, weighing and sorting has also been automated.
The automation comes as the cost of hiring rises in Southeast Asia. Countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam have recently raised minimum wages. On Jan. 1, 2013, Malaysia implemented minimum wages for the first time, prompting concerns about higher operating expenses and pressure on margins.
Malaysian plastics packaging firms including Scientex Bhd have seen their production costs rise 11-19 percent annually over the past five years, mainly due to labour, utility and transportation costs. Rubber glove makers such as Top Glove saw costs climb 6-16 percent a year on a compound basis, Thomson Reuters calculations based on corporate income statements show.
In Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 2015 budget speech late last week, he said labour-intensive industries such as rubber, plastics, wood, furniture and textiles will receive automation incentives. On the first 4 million ringgit ($1.2 million) firms spend on automation between 2015 and 2017, they will be entitled to tax savings of 2 million ringgit.
While that is not enough, Top Glove’s chairman said, “sometimes small is also better than zero”.
Top Glove posted an 8.3 percent drop in net profit to 180 million ringgit in the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Higher operating costs - from wages to power and transportation - dragged down earnings, Lim said.
The automation benefits will translate into an annual 2 percent rise in net profit, he said.
‘BETTER THAN NOTHING’
Scientex, Asia-Pacific’s largest stretch film producer by capacity, may see earnings improve by less than 5 percent from the benefits in the year ending July 31, 2015, Kuala Lumpur-based RHB Research wrote in a note to clients.
Scientex was not immediately available to comment.
Smaller plastic packaging players are set to gain more, with net profit going up as much as 20 percent next year due to their smaller earnings base, RHB Research said.
Karex Bhd, the world’s largest condom manufacturer by volume, may see its net profit improve between 10 percent and 13 percent, according to RHB Research.
“With the incentive, I think we can see more than 1 million ringgit flow to our bottom line,” Goh Miah Kiat, Karex’s chief executive officer, told Reuters. “Although the quantum is still considered small, it is better than nothing and it will entice companies to go for automation.” (1 US dollar = 3.2820 Malaysian ringgit) (Editing by Ryan Woo)We Shouldn't Have to Ask the State's Permission to Work
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a magic bullet that would simultaneously raise wages and employment while also lowering prices for consumers?
In fact, those are just some of the benefits that reforming overly burdensome occupational licensing laws would provide, according to a report published by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Labor.
In Occupational Licensing: A Framework for Policymakers, the authors observe that “the current systems of licensure … prevent workers from succeeding in the best job for them,” leading to an inefficient labor market and reduced economic growth.
This is especially true in Nevada, where excessive fees and extended mandatory training periods make the Silver State one of the most “onerously licensed” states in the nation, according to a 2012 study by the Institute for Justice.
Licensing laws are appropriate for professions that carry a substantial risk of physical harm. But Nevada’s go far beyond that narrow scope. In fact, nearly 31 percent of the Silver State’s workforce must first obtain government approval in order to work — the second highest rate nationwide. By comparison, the national rate back in the 1950s was only 4 percent.
For many of these professions, licensing is simply inappropriate. Consider the 2011 law that made it a criminal offense to practice music therapy without a license. But even for professions where licensing is appropriate, Nevada is often far too burdensome — with exorbitant fees and prolonged training periods that bear no relationship to the regulation’s alleged purpose of safeguarding “life, health, and property.”
Barbers, for example, must submit to a national-high 890 days of education and apprenticeship, pass four exams and pay $140 in fees. Add to this the fact that Nevada does not offer reciprocity for licenses obtained in other states, including the 33 other states that require, at most, 350 days of education and training.
Yet an emergency medical technician can receive a license after only 26 days of education.
General contractors — such as painters, cabinet makers, and pipe layers — must pay a national-high $1,030 and lose four years to an apprenticeship before the State will permit them to work.
And then there is the most egregious form of industry protection in the country: Nevada’s licensing of interior designers, a profession for which 46 other states rightly require no license at all. Nevada demands payment of a $250 fee and six years of education or experience before one is allowed to dispense such potentially dangerous advice as which sofa or coffee table would go best with the living room décor.
The harm caused by these laws runs deep.
A just-released Arizona State University study finds that states with the heaviest licensing burdens experienced higher levels of recidivism than their counterparts. This validates the common-sense intuition that limiting access to gainful employment only makes it harder on those trying to rebuild their lives.
What caused such a proliferation of unjust and harmful laws?
Decades of empirical research has found that the “degree of political influence” is “one of the most important factors in determining whether States regulate an occupation,” according to the authors of the White House report. In other words, excessive licensing laws are often advanced by industry insiders — who directly profit from the ability to legally exclude potential competitors. This is cronyism at its worst. Government should be facilitating Nevadans’ desire to earn an honest living, not restricting them so that the politically connected may profit.
Many of the licensing requirements for professions such as interior design and musical therapy should simply be abolished. For those professions where licensing is appropriate, the fees and education requirements should be reduced dramatically to align better with genuine safety risks.
The Institute for Justice has designed model legislation to do just that. It’s a great resource for any legislator seeking to help create jobs, boost Nevada’s economy and, most importantly, restore Nevadans’ right to earn a living without being burdened by excessive governmental fees and restrictions.Pin 761 Shares
After offering “pants on fire” lies about who his reform proposal, Times analysis shows just how much Trump would gain personally.
(COMMONDREAMS) — Despite declaring the “full-on whopper” of a lie this week that his tax plan “is not good for me, believe me,” a new analysis by the New York Times published overnight shows that President Donald Trump would save himself well over a $1 billion if the proposals he laid out were to become law.
Using what it is known about Trump’s fortune—a still difficult number to determine given that he refuses to release his tax returns—the Times looked at a portion of Trump’s 2005 return leaked to the press earlier this year alongside an estimate by Bloomberg which put his net worth at approximately $2.68 billion in order to assess the degree to which he would directly benefit.
While keeping in mind that other estimates (and unsubstantiated claims by Trump himself) put his wealth higher, the analysis based on the $2.68 billion estimate found that Trump would personally enjoy:
Savings of about $1.1 billion from repealing the estate tax
Savings of $31 million from repealing the alternative minimum tax
Savings of about $16 million from taxing certain types of business income at 25 percent
Savings of about $0.5 million from cutting the highest tax rate
Meanwhile, Politifact was among those taking serious issue with the spurious claim made by the president, that the abolishment of the estate tax was a move geared to protect “millions of small business owners and the American farmer” while not mentioning that it is a policy specifically tailored to help millionaires and billionaires like himself pass their massive wealth to their heirs with zero federal tax liability.
The fact-checking site reported:
In 2017, estates worth less than $5.49 million are exempt from the tax, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Above $5.49 million, the estate is generally taxed at 40 percent. However, family-owned farms and closely-held businesses may be able to pay less or pay in low-interest installments. So how many estates are affected by the tax? Not many, and the people who pay it are usually among the country’s richest families.
Politifact concluded that Trump saying “millions” of American farmers and small business owners would benefit was “a ridiculously high estimate. Only 5,460 estates even pay the tax each year, according to a credible estimate, and of those, about 80 represented small businesses or farms. We rate the statement Pants on Fire.”
As Philip Bump wrote for the Washington Post on Tuesday, “Trump asks us to take on faith that these public provisions will somehow work to his detriment without explaining why. We’d be foolish to do so.”
By Jon Queally / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
Pin 761 SharesBy Jared Prestwidge
We’re well past the halfway point now, Schmoedown fans! Just three weeks ago there were sixteen pairs vying for the spot at Spectacular, and now we are down to just four.
While there was a surprising amount of TKO’s on display, the matches this week were still hotly contested and gave us a lot to talk about.
Without further ado, here are our picks for |
no credibility left whatsoever. He is the most unpopular person out there. It's incredible how unpopular he is. He needs to carry the can - he called this referendum, he's lost this referendum."Airport passenger screening measures have become a touchy issue in the U.S. in the past week, but in the past year the controversial measures have detected more than 130 prohibited, illegal or dangerous items that otherwise would have made it onto airplanes, the Transportation Security Administration says.
The TSA now requires all passengers at some U.S. airports either to pass through a full-body scanning device, which reveals everything beneath their clothing, or to submit to a thorough pat-down inspection -- a choice that has some travelers livid about their loss of privacy.
But the TSA says keeping passengers safe is its top priority, and the new measures are necessary.
"This year alone, the use of advanced imaging technology has led to the detection of over 130 prohibited, illegal or dangerous items," TSA spokesman Greg Soule told FoxNews.com. The TSA would not disclose exactly what those items were, but it said they included weapons like ceramic knives and various drugs -- including a syringe filled with heroine hidden in a passenger’s underwear.
"The advanced imaging technology can detect both metallic and non-metallic threat items that are concealed on a person’s body," TSA spokesman Nick Kimball told FoxNews.com. "…Intelligence tells us that our enemy still seeks to target airplanes, and as we saw illustrated last Christmas Day, that threat can manifest itself in an improvised explosive device that has no metal in it."
Kimball stressed that the TSA has put measures in place to ensure that travelers' privacy isn't compromised when they walk through the scanners.
"The officer that looks at the image is in a separate walled-off room where they’re unable to see the passenger that’s going through, and the officer working with the passenger doesn’t see the image," he said. "After the officer is able to determine there’s no threat item on the passenger, the image is deleted before the officer can scan the next passenger."
Passengers who feel uncomfortable going through the scanners have the option to be patted down by an officer of the same sex -- a procedure that may involve touching the breasts and genitals through the clothing.
TSA Chief John Pistole, who submitted to a pat-down inspection before putting the procedure in place, described it as "thorough" and admitted it made him feel "uncomfortable." "It was more invasive than what I was used to," he told the Senate Wednesday.
But Pistole said the procedure is necessary for passengers who are unwilling to walk through the scanners.
"The purpose of that is obviously to detect the type of devices that we had not seen before last Christmas," he said, referring to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man accused of boarding a U.S.-bound plane with explosives hidden in his underwear and then trying to blow up the plane in midair as it approached Detroit.
"I am very sensitive to and concerned about people’s privacy concerns and I want to work through that as best we can," Pistole said.
The International Air Transport Association, an international trade body that represents roughly 230 airlines, says for now the TSA needs to improve communication and ensure that passengers are aware of any changes to airport security. And travelers, in turn, need to prepare themselves.
"Passengers need to readjust their expectations on what they’re going to find at the airport," IATA spokesman Steve Lott told FoxNews.com.
But in the future, he said, the TSA should "stop looking for bad objects or bad things and start looking for bad people."
"The government has a lot of information on everyone who gets on a plane… so let’s integrate that intelligence into the checkpoint," he said. "Today the checkpoint is just looking for bad objects – like tweezers and shampoo, but the agent doesn’t know anything about the traveler."
With a quick background check, Lott said, agents could better assess the risk associated with each traveler, then use things like scanners and pat-downs to further analyze those deemed high risk.
Kimball says the TSA is always looking for ways to improve, but for now the scanners and pat-downs are the best way to keep people safe in the sky.
"The threat that we have is real and our security methods must evolve," he said. "And we are always assisting and evaluating what we have in place in order to make sure that we are addressing the most current threats."Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and a major Apple Inc supplier, said on Wednesday that it was in preliminary discussions to expand its operations in the United States.
'While the scope of the potential investment has not been determined, we will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant U.S. officials,' it said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Masayoshi Son of Japan's SoftBank Group Corp said he would invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 new jobs, a move U.S. President-elect Donald Trump claimed was a direct result of his election win.
Workers are seen inside a Foxconn factory in the township of Longhua in the southern Guangdong province. Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and a major Apple Inc supplier, said on Wednesday that it was in preliminary discussions to expand its operations in the United States.
Foxconn's brief statement followed a report by broadcaster CNBC on Wednesday showing a snapshot of a page held by Son outlining the investment carrying the logos of SoftBank and Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd.
WOULD US MANUFACTURING BOOST PRICES? Industry experts warn that bringing manufacturing back to the United States could come at a cost for shoppers, who might end up paying more than double for a handset, reported. Making certain items here would mean no longer relying on lower labor costs in countries such as Mexico, China and Vietnam. As a result, production costs would increase - as would retail prices. An evaluation by business website Marketplace two years ago suggested that it could cost up to $2,000 for an iPhone if production was brought to the US. According to a report in the Nikkei Asia Review last week, key Apple assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, has been studying the possibility of moving iPhone production to the U.S. 'Making iPhones in the U.S. means the cost will more than double,' the source said. An evaluation by business website Marketplace two years ago suggested that it could cost up to $2,000 for an iPhone if production was brought to the US. Carl Howe, Vice President of data sciences at the Yankee Group told Marketplace: 'Labor costs here are somewhere in the vicinity of two to three times what they're going to be in China.'
The page also showed an additional $7 billion investment and creation of a further 50,000 jobs.
Trump has campaigned to bring manufacturing and jobs back to the U.S.
Much of the global tech supply chain involves Taiwanese companies such as Foxconn, whose biggest operations are in China churning out the majority of Apple's iPhones.
Foxconn in its statement did not specify who its executives were in discussions with but said that any 'plans would be made based on mutually-agreed terms.'
SoftBank's Son and Foxconn founder Terry Gou are considered close and have several business ventures together, including launching humanoid Pepper - which is manufactured by Foxconn - into several markets, and together investing in India.At the close of my review of the late David Cesarani’s Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933–1949, I remarked that “the Holocaust,” as a cultural concept, had performed one of the greatest vanishing acts in history — the disappearance of the Jews as active participants during World War II.[1] Faced with an almost blanket portrayal of Jewish victimhood and passivity during the period, I commented: “Examining the thousands upon thousands of histories of World War II, one would get the impression that there was not only one war, but also only one aggressor. Quite how and why “the Jews” leave the historical stage as belligerents in 1939, when the preceding six years had witnessed them engaging in international propaganda wars, political maneuvering, and targeted assassinations in several European countries, has been surprisingly overlooked.” Benjamin Ginsberg’s relatively short but efficient work, How the Jews Defeated Hitler (2013, First Paperback 2016), may be considered a significant exception to this overwhelming omission, offering an argument that Jews played “a major role in the defeat of Nazi Germany.”[2]
In the introduction to his text, Ginsberg, a Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, outlines the structure of his argument along with his definition of Jewish resistance to the advance of National Socialism in Europe. Ginsberg’s definition of Jewish resistance is important because it differs significantly, in terms of its discursive parameters, from those generally employed in Holocaust historiography and its offshoots. For those interested in a more detailed exploration of the issue of Jewish resistance during World War II, as a subject of historiographical debate, The Holocaust in History by Michael R. Marrus (Penguin, 1989) and Histories of the Holocaust by Dan Stone (Oxford University Press, 2010) are perhaps the best and most succinct introductions to the most pertinent themes. However, in brief, historiographical argument prior to the 2010s was limited to two strands of thought, each biased and deeply flawed. The first strand of ‘resistance’ historiography was the negation of the idea of Jewish resistance. This involved lachrymose assertions that Jews offered no opposition to an unprovoked and irrational German hostility, and were led to sensationalized forms of mass murder like ‘lambs to the slaughter.’ A prime example within this strand is Martin Gilbert’s The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (Harper Collins, 1986), and is also strongly associated with Raul Hilberg’s assessment that “the reaction pattern of the Jews is characterised by almost complete lack of resistance.” This first strand of argument was particularly popular in the diaspora, and in the United States and Great Britain in particular. The Holocaust developed as a cultural trope in these countries in tandem with the development of this lachrymose strand of historiography.
The idea of totally passive victimhood was, however, less popular among Israeli academics and hardline Zionists more generally. In the eyes of these Jews, the Jewish experience during World War II had fortified and proven prewar arguments on behalf of a Jewish national home, and it was almost a matter of national pride that some emphasis be placed on explicitly Jewish efforts to fight against National Socialist Germany. In this context, histories began to emerge from Israel in the 1960s glamorizing Jewish partisan warfare, or events such as the Warsaw Uprising. The second strand to Jewish resistance historiography of course retained the idea that Jews, ultimately, were victims, in the sense that they were victims of an unprovoked and irrational German hostility. However, the difference was that this strand denied total passivity in the face of such hostility, and made strenuous efforts to emphasize armed Jewish participation in European national resistance movements, and in partisan warfare. It represented, for lack of a better term, an idea of ‘muscular victimhood.’[3]
Both of these strands suffered from severe methodological and theoretical failings in that both discussed Jewish resistance only within the sphere of armed, guerilla, partisan action. Even the briefest of glances through Jewish history would illuminate the fact that, at least since the sack of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70, Jews have pursued their social and political goals via means significantly more abstract than armed conflict. Indeed, the century prior to World War II witnessed the development of modern Jewish politics, with features involving the consolidation of media power, the strengthening of transnational political networks, the development of international Jewish mutual aid networks (particularly following the Damascus Affair in 1840), and the ascent of the Jews into Western governments and the professions. It should therefore be regarded as remarkable that discussions of Jewish opposition to National Socialism should have neglected these international and incredibly influential spheres of influence as potential or actual avenues for resistance. Ginsberg’s unique contribution is to take the mainstream discussion of Jewish resistance into these neglected areas. Across four chapters, Ginsberg explores Jewish activism in the United States, the Soviet Union, in the field of counterintelligence, and in partisan warfare, and argues that Jewish actions in all spheres were crucial to the defeat of National Socialist Germany.
Ginsberg’s chapter on the Soviet Union is particularly interesting. For centuries Jews have lacked the conventional means of defense available to a threatened nation, and in the 1930s Jews were a group of around 18 million people scattered across the globe. To combat such strategic deficiencies however, Jews could rely upon centuries of experience in more abstract forms of defensive diplomacy, and in the 1930s this involved “working for, with, and through states and political leaders who shared their hostility toward Nazi Germany.”[4] Ginsberg explains that by the 1930s Jews exerted a remarkable level of influence in Soviet government and society. Jews were crucial to the founding of the Social Democratic Party in the 1890s, and the Jewish Socialist Bund played a major role in the unsuccessful 1905 revolution. In the period leading up to the 1917 revolution, Jews were instrumental in the leadership of both the Bolshevik and Menshevik parties. It was therefore quite predictable that after the revolution, “among the first official acts of the victorious Bolsheviks was outlawing pogroms and anti-Semitic movements.”[5]
Jews came to play major roles in the Communist Party and the Soviet state, taking key roles in areas such as “foreign affairs, propaganda, finance, administration, and industrial production.”[6] Half of Lenin’s first Politburo were Jewish, and during the early decades of Communist rule Jews were “especially prominent” in the security services. For example, the Jewish pharmacist Genrikh Yagoda was head of the secret police during the 1930s, and specialized in preparing poisons for his agents to use in liquidating Stalin’s opponents. Ginsberg adds that “other high-ranking Jewish secret police officers included M.T. Gay, who headed the special department that conducted mass arrests during the “Great Terror” of the 1930s, and A.A. Slutsky and Boris Berman, who were in charge of Soviet terror and espionage abroad.
Quickly rising as an elite in Soviet society, Jews enjoyed privileged access to the professions and influential political and cultural positions. “Though making up less than 2 percent of the overall populace, between 1929 and 1939, Jews constituted 11 percent of the students in Soviet universities. This included 17 percent of all university students in Moscow, 19 percent in Leningrad, 24 percent in Kharkov, and 35.6 percent in Kiev.”[7] Ginsberg adds that “Jews had become the backbone of the Soviet bureaucracy and constituted a large percentage of the nation’s physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and other professionals, as well as nearly 20 percent of the scientists and university professors in such major cities as Moscow and Leningrad.”[8] The USSR’s most influential journalist, Mikhail Koltsov, was Jewish, while the Soviet Union’s official radio announcer, Yuri Levitan, was also a Jew. Other culturally influential Jews were Semyon Lozovsky, chief Soviet press spokesman, Ilya Ehrenberg, the leading publicist for anti-German sentiment, and Vasily Grossman, the Soviet army’s most influential war correspondent. The Soviet film industry was also dominated by the Jews Sergei Eisenstein, Mikhail Romm, Mark Donskoy, Leonid Lukov and Yuli Reisman. Thus, while Jews ostensibly had no nation of their own, Ginsberg remarks that they “had a good deal of influence within the new Soviet state.”[9]
Jews used this influence to combat a very strong threat from National Socialist Germany. During the first weeks of the German attack, the Wehrmacht destroyed more than 17,000 Soviet aircraft, 20,000 tanks, and 100,000 heavy guns and mortars. As many as 5 million Soviet troops had been killed or captured or were missing in action. Jews had an obvious interest in fighting against such odds, and flooded the army’s influential positions in order to push a fanatical resistance effort. Ginsberg remarks that it was commonly remarked by troops (and repeated by Alexander Solzhenitsyn) that no Jews were to be found on the front lines.[10] Ginsberg himself concedes that Jews “sought whatever refuge they could find and preferred rear-echelon assignments.”[11] However, Jews were over-represented at officer level, and remarkably comprised more than 10 percent of the army’s political officers — essentially the enforcers of government doctrine. Ethnic nepotism resulted in such a high number of medals being spuriously awarded to under-represented Jewish front line troops that in 1943 the Soviet regime was forced to try to reduce the number (and avoid aggravating non-Jewish combatants) by issuing a statement reading: “Medals for distinguished conduct are to be awarded to men of all nations, but within limits with regard to the Jews.”
Aside from warfare, Jews were essentially slave-masters overseeing the vast sphere of Soviet war production. The millions of Russians working ceaselessly in munitions factories came under the control of Boris Vannikov, deputy people’s commissar for armaments, while mass population movements of workers were orchestrated by the commissar for transport, Lazar Kaganovich. Those workers tasked with building more and more factories were under the control of the Director of the Commissariat for Construction, the Jew Semyon Ginsburg. Steel production (Semyon Reznikov), aviation (Solomon Sendler), naval construction (Grigory Kaplun), the chemical industry (Leon Loshkin), and the fields of electricity, heavy industry, and fuel, were under Jewish authority. The vast Russian workforce was essentially under Jewish control, and put to use in defense of Jewish interests. Meanwhile, the German workforce was operating on only one shift, continuing to produce consumer goods. Children went to school and women stayed at home. In the Soviet Union, the factories of the Jews operated every minute of every day, two million women were drafted into the military, and children were forced into the systems of production. A worker had to show up for work 66 hours per week, with only one day off per month.[12]
As well as possessing a vast and captive workforce for war production, Jews also engaged in intensive popular mobilization efforts. This was necessary because many of the USSR’s citizens “hated the regime,” which had uprooted, dispossessed, and starved to death millions of peasants. Ginsberg demonstrates that Jews dominated the machinery of both popular coercion and persuasion, effectively maneuvering public opinion in line with Jewish interests. In the area of coercion, Jews were prominent in the NKVD, and the head of the army’s political officers was Lev Mekhlis, a Jewish Communist who had played a major role in the military purges of the 1930s. One of the main responsibilities of Mekhlis was “making certain the soldiers fought and did not surrender.” But Jews were much more prominent in the field of persuasion. In the army, political workers called politruks were assigned to military units in order to enforce discipline and also lecture troops on their duties to the motherland and the bestial nature of the Germans. Ginsberg stresses that Jews were hugely over-represented at politruks, and were very important in preventing instances of Soviet surrender. The Jewish-dominated Soviet film industry also dedicated itself to “exhorting the frightened and exhausted citizenry to fight the Germans.”[13] Mikhail Romm and Mark Donskoy both specialized in films portraying the brutal torture of Russian women by Germans. Jewish-made films like these were then “shown throughout the war to fan feelings of Russian nationalism and hatred for the Germans.”[14]
The official army newspaper, Red Star, was edited by the Jewish David Ortenberg. Ortenberg worked in tandem with co-ethnic Ilya Ehrenberg to create propaganda calling upon “every Soviet citizen to kill the Germans.” One of Ehrenberg’s most famous slogans was “If you have killed one German, kill another. There is nothing jollier than German corpses.”[15] Jewish propagandists like Ortenberg and Ehrenberg also worked abroad to build support for the Soviet cause. “The major vehicle for this effort was the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC) composed of prominent Soviet Jewish political figures and intellectuals.” The JAFC raised money in the United States and Great Britain. “Though nominally an independent entity headed by the famous Soviet Jewish actor Solomon Mikoels, the JAFC was actually part of the Soviet Information bureau and closely monitored by a Jewish NKVD official, Sergei Shpigelglaz.”[16]
The JAFC found it easy to establish contact with similarly influential networks in the United States because that nation too had by World War II witnessed the rising power of the Jews. Ginsberg’s chapter on the United States is perhaps the most interesting of the entire text, and certainly from my own perspective justified the modest purchase price. Ginsberg begins by charting the rise of the Jews under FDR— a “long climb to power and prominence.”[17] More than 15 percent of Roosevelt’s top-level appointees were Jews—at a time when Jews constituted less than 3 percent of the population. Jews became such a prominent and visible element of Roosevelt’s New Deal program (a term coined by the Jewish Samuel Rosenman) that opponents referred to it as the ‘Jew Deal.’ Ostensibly a purely economic platform, the New Deal acted as a gateway for Jews into a much wider array of influence.
Among the most important Jewish figures in and around the Roosevelt administration were Henry Morgenthau (Secretary of the Treasury), Felix Frankfurter (appointed to the Supreme Court), Louis Brandeis (Supreme Court Justice), Jerome Frank and Abe Fortas (Securities and Exchange Commission), Isador Lubin (Bureau of Labor Statistics), Charles Wyzanski (Department of Labor), David Niles (White House Special Assistant), David Lilienthal (chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority), Nathan Strauss (U.S. Housing Authority), and Benjamin Cohen, the author of most New Deal legislation. These Jews, and lower level co-ethnics in and around the Roosevelt administration, were instrumental in challenging American isolationism. Ginsberg states that in combination with organized Jewish groups, these figures were crucial in bringing “isolationism into disrepute and turning American opinion against Germany.”[18]
The same period also witnessed the beginning of the end for the WASP establishment, mainly because WASPs (as one of the only Anglophilic elements in White America) decided to enter into a marriage of convenience with Jews in order to fight isolationism. Departing from a prior hostility to Jews, Anglo Northeastern Protestants let their guard down and made formal organizational pacts with Jewish propagandists. This was most notable in the form of the Century Group, which “worked vigorously for American intervention against the growing power of Nazi Germany.”[19] In the Century Group, Jews like James Warburg, Walter Wanger and Harold Guinzberg rubbed shoulders with Ward Chaney, Joseph Alsop, Frank Polk, Dean Acheson and Allen W. Dulles. After the defeat of France in 1940, the Century Group called for the United States to declare war against Germany without waiting to be attacked. Another strategy of the Century Group was to sponsor celebrities to give anti-German speeches, particularly in response to pro-isolationist meetings headed by figures such as Charles Lindbergh. The media networks controlled by the Century Group manipulated public opinion through tactics such as giving prominence to anti-German speeches while “relegating opposing points of view, such as those expressed by Charles Lindbergh, to the back pages.”[20]
Jews were crucial in sending destroyers and military hardware to Great Britain. As well as trying to shift public opinion in an anti-German direction, it was Benjamin Cohen (at Felix Frankfurter’s insistence) who sent a memorandum to Roosevelt arguing that he had the legal authority to release the destroyers without consulting Congress.[21] Another major supporter of this scheme, and the Lend Lease scheme which helped finance it, was the Fight for Freedom Committee (FFF) another group bringing together Jews and the Eastern WASP establishment. In common with many such groups, while its visible leadership was WASP, its influence derived from socially and culturally prominent Jews, in the case of the FFF Warburg and Guinzburg of the Century Group, along with Hollywood producers Jack and Harry Warner, labor leader Abe Rosenfield, and New York businessman Mac Kreindler. The FFF, which also had a close working relationship with British intelligence, was instrumental in a prolonged anti-Lindbergh campaign, and was successful in making a connection between “pro-isolationism” and “pro-Germany” in the public mind. Jewish groups like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League also undermined the isolationist position through propaganda and infiltration. “One ADL agent, Marjorie Lane, became an active and trusted member of a number of isolationist and anti-Semitic groups, including Women for the USA, Women United, and Mothers Mobilize for America.”[22]
In common with the situation in the Soviet Union, American Jews used the film industry to mobilize non-Jewish support for Jewish interests. Most of America’s film studios had been founded by Jews, and the 1930s witnessed an outpouring of anti-German productions. Roosevelt would later personally thank the movie industry for its “splendid cooperation with all who are directing the expansion of our defense forces,” and intervened to secure a reduced sentence for Jewish fraudster and head of Twentieth Century Fox, Joseph Schenk, who had been convicted of income tax evasion (an incident with eerie premonitions of the pardon of Marc Rich under Bill Clinton for the same crime).[23] The news media was also highly involved in the effort to shift public opinion, and both CBS and NBC (two of the most important networks) were owned by Jews.[24]
Go to Part 2
[1] A. Joyce, ‘A Tactical Retreat on the Holocaust: Review of Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933-1949 by David Cesarani’, in The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 2016-2017).
[2] B. Ginsburg, How the Jews Defeated Hitler: Exploding the Myth of Passivity in the Face of Nazism (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), p.1.
[3] For a more complete overview of this strand of argument see O. Kenan, Between Memory and History: The Evolution of Israeli Historiography of the Holocaust, 1945-1961 (Peter Lang Publishing, 2003).
[4] Ginsberg, p.7.
[5] Ginsberg, p.9.
[6] Ginsberg, p.9.
[7] Ginsberg, p.10.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ginsberg, p.11.
[10] Ginsberg, p.18.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ginsberg, p.32.
[13] Ginsberg, p.34.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ginsberg, p.37.
[18] Ginsberg, p.40.
[19] Ginsberg, p.41.
[20] Ginsberg, p.42.
[21] Ginsberg, p.43.
[22] Ginsberg, p.46.
[23] Ginsberg, p.49.
[24] Ibid.Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment’s free-to-play CCG (collectible card game) was finally released on March 11 after being in open beta since late January 2014.
The game is all about 1v1 online battles in a turn-based fashion that features many of the beloved characters and spells from the Warcraft Universe. There are a total of nine classes, each having their own cards and a unique hero ability as well as a wide variety of neutral cards to choose from.These can be used in conjunction with your chosen class’ cards to create your deck. The cards themselves, whether they are neutral or class specific are grouped in categories with most basic cards being readily available once you start. However, there are also common, rare, epic and legendary cards which can be acquired via the purchase of booster packs or as arena rewards. Hearthstone cards can also be crafted with arcane dust. Card packs can be bought with in game gold which is gained from daily quests, battling opponents online or with real currency.
An interesting mechanic is “disenchanting” which allows players to craft their own cards with the use of arcane dust. The dust itself is a resource that comes from destroying other cards or competing in the arena. So basically, you disenchant the cards you don’t need and you craft the ones you do with the use of the dust you acquired. If you need any more, there is always the arena. But there is always a catch, isn’t there? The cards you disenchant only give you a quarter of the dust that you need to craft another card of the same rarity. While this may seem like a bummer, it does allow for some resource management which adds a bit of complexity to the game and makes things more interesting, challenging and fun.
Blizzard took many people by surprise in March 2013 when they announced their newest title, Hearthstone at the Penny Arcade Expo. Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, the expansion for their highly acclaimed RTS game was scheduled for release on the 12th of the same month, and as many of you are aware, Blizzard likes to take its time in developing their products, so the announcement that another game will soon follow came unexpected.
Closed beta began in August of the same year with gamers everywhere pushing and shoving to get their hands on a beta key for the game that slowly seemed to become the next big thing in competitive gaming. The game’s first major tournament, The Inkeeper’s Invitational took place at Blizzcon, on November 8-9th 2013 while the game was still in closed beta and was won by the well-known Starcraft 2 commentator and former Starcraft: Brood War player, Daniel “Artosis” Stemkoski.
After a few more months of closed beta the game went into open beta in January 21 2014 in North America with Europe following the next day and the rest of the world soon after. Just a little under two more months and the game was finally released. While the game has suffered some changes during the different stages of the beta it’s just as fun as the day I first got my beta key back in late October.The game was praised for its simplicity, fast-pace and attention to details, especially some of the animations which set it apart from other card games The downside however is that there is no trading of cards in the game, but I suppose that would have made the collecting aspect of the game less enjoyable for most.
Hearthstone features an improved ranked play system, higher arena cap with better rewards and some changes to the user interface and card balance since it’s early days, with unique card backs for each ranked season and golden hero portraits just implemented with the launch of its first ranked play season on April 1st. With more additions to the game planned for the future this is a great time to jump right into Blizzard’s newest CCG and play as your favorite character from the Warcraft Universe with your own custom deck, and while laddering may seem a bit frustrating at first, don’t worry, you can always train against the A.I. or enter the Arena where you get to create your deck out of random cards.
All in all Blizzard has done it again and delivered a great product. I expect we’ll see Hearthstone grow more and more in the competitive scene and be one of the most viewed E-Sports alongside already infamous titles such as Dota 2, League of Legends or Starcraft 2. In fact, a Hearthstone tournament is programmed for this year’s Dreamhack Bucharest, taking place in April, so if you’re a fan of Hearthstone, make sure you tune in to some some great streams.The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of thirty-two newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our final granted patent report of the day we focus on Apple's new NFC Alternative technology, a patent on location services and several camera related patents. And of course, we round off our report with a series of granted patents in our Final Patent Round Up covering an eclectic mix of technologies from virtual keyboards on through to multiple-use acoustic ports.
Apple Receives Granted Patent for a Method and Apparatus for Triggering Network Device Discovery
Apple has received a Granted Patent relating to techniques for triggering a process within a portable electronic device that identifies itself for purposes of establishing communications with another device that is in proximity. At the moment, NFC is the technology that's getting all of the attention lately in respect to making it easier for two mobile devices to share information. While Apple is likewise doing research with NFC, they're also working with an alternate methodology for which they've now gained a patent for.
In accordance with Apple's newly granted patent, a method for network device discovery monitors a compass output in a portable electronic device. As the portable device and an external device come closer to each other, a magnetic field signature is computed based on the monitored compass output. A determination is then made as to whether the computed signature could be associated with or implies that a previously defined type of electronic device (with which a network device discovery process can be conducted) is in close proximity. In other words, as the two devices come closer to each other, their respective magnetic characteristics cause the compass output to change in a way that implies that a network device discovery process should be initiated between the two devices.
The detected change in the compass output could be compared to one or more previously stored, compass output patterns (magnetic field signatures). Each of these previous patterns may have been determined empirically or otherwise, to be the magnetic profile of a given type of external device that has come into proximity. A previous compass output pattern that best matches the newly detected compass output pattern is selected, and the device identification type or protocol information of the matching pattern is then used to perform a network device discovery process (using other signaling mechanisms). For example, if the detected compass output pattern matches that of a typical smart phone, then a WiFi or Bluetooth setup protocol is initiated in the portable device.
Apple credits Patrick Piemonte, Ronald Huang and Parin Patel as the inventors of this granted patent which was originally filed in Q4 2009. For more information on this, see Patently Apple's original April 2011 report titled "Apple Invents New Peer-to-Peer Sharing Technology that Utilizes Unique Magnetic Compass and Supersonic Tone Methodologies."
Apple Receives Granted Patent for Location Based Services for iPhone
Apple has received a Granted Patent that relates to location based services.
In general, one aspect of Apple's invention could be embodied in methods that include the actions of detecting a picture taking event on a device; determining a current geographic location of the device; receiving location-based information based on the determined current geographic location, the location-based information including information corresponding to one or more relevant businesses in a vicinity of the determined current geographic location and further including information corresponding to one or more businesses ancillary to the picture taking event; and presenting the location-based information.
Apple credits Senior VP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall and his team consisting of Gregory Christie, Robert Borchers and Kevin Tiene as the inventors of this granted patent which was originally filed in Q1 2008. For more details, see granted patent 8,290,513.
Apple Receives Several Granted Patents for Camera Technologies
Apple has received a new series of Granted Patents today that relate to iDevice camera technologies. One of the main patents is titled "Using distance/proximity information when applying a point spread function in a portable media device."
Apple states that Image sharpness may be improved by focusing the optical image properly onto the image sensor that is part of the camera circuitry in the device. A moveable lens system, normally present in a higher end dedicated digital camera, can be used to achieve manual or automatic focusing. However, most smart phones lack such a feature since it tends to increase power consumption as well as result in additional bulk.
Apple's granted patent relates to a relatively low cost technique for improving the sharpness or quality of digital images captured by a handheld portable media device. A housing of the device has integrated therein a digital camera image sensor, a camera lens, and a sensor that detects a distance measure, which is a measure of distance between the housing and an object or target in a scene that is before the lens. The device is programmed to select a point spread function, PSF, based on the detected distance measure. The selected PSF is then applied to de-blur the captured image, for becoming the final picture of the scene that is taken by the user.
Apple credits Michael Yeh as the sole inventor of granted patent 8,289,438 which was originally filed for in Q3 2008. Another camera patent is titled "Image capturing device having continuous image capture." Apple was granted a related patent back in May 2012. A third camera patent granted to Apple today is titled "Image sensor with photosensitive thin film transistors and dark current compensation." For more on that, see granted patent 8,289,429.
Final Patent Round-Up
Over and above the granted patents that were specifically reported on today, we present you with links to the remaining granted patents in our Final Patent Round-Up as follows:
8,289,283 - Language input interface on a device (The Virtual Keyboard Patent)
8,290,179 - Multiple-use acoustic port
8,290,078 - System and method performing quadrature amplitude modulation by combining
co-sets and strongly coded co-set identifiers
8,289,813 - Devices and systems for outputting contextual information about an event for
which an alarm is set on an electronic device
8,289,785 - Integrated circuit with separate supply voltage for memory that is different
from logic circuit supply voltage
8,289,344 - Methods and apparatus for color uniformity
8,289,333 - Multi-context graphics processing
8,289,130 - Systems and methods for identifying unauthorized users of an electronic
device
NOTICE: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each Granted Patent is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any Granted Patent should be read in its entirety for full details. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.
Sites Covering our Original Report
MacSurfer, Twitter, Facebook, Apple Investor News, Google Reader, Macnews, iPhone World Canada, The Fly on the Wall (stock market news), ZDNet Germany, University of Tennessee's MacVolPlace, Pando Daily, Reddit, Seeking Alpha, iDownloadBlog, Macworld UK, Terra Brazil |
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